Real Men Saved Lives in Thousand Oaks

The mass shooting at a Thousand Oaks, Calif., bar last week was a tale of men and masculinity...

As soon as he heard the shots, Mr. Wennerstrom... and some friends grabbed everyone they could and pushed them down behind the pool table, piling their own bodies on top of the girls. One woman...told “Good Morning America”: “There were multiple men who got on their knees and pretty much blocked all of us with their back toward the shooter, ready to take a bullet for every single one of us.”

When the shooter paused to reload, Mr. Wennerstrom grabbed a bar stool and tossed it through a window. He and his buddies pulled 30 to 35 people to safety. After they got some to the parking lot, they went back for more.

A reporter asked Mr. Wennerstrom how he immediately knew what was going on in the loud, crowded bar. “Instinct...I’m here to protect my friends, my family, my fellow humans... All I wanted to do is get as many people out of there as possible.”

This is the masculinity we so often hear denigrated. It takes as its duty the physical protection of others, especially women. This masculinity doesn’t wait for verbal consent or invitation... It sends hundreds of firefighters racing up the Twin Towers to save people they’ve never met. And it sent Sgt. Ron Helus of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office rushing into Borderline Bar and Grill...

The way so many women have a natural ease with caring for children, so, too, do many men have the instinct to protect and serve. We can harness it, but it doesn’t proceed automatically... The military has done this for years. Police academies and fire departments do too. Only the educated classes have learned to sneer at it...

Here’s more:

This is the masculinity we so often hear denigrated. It takes as its duty the physical protection of others, especially women. This masculinity doesn’t wait for verbal consent or invitation to push a person out of harm’s way. It sends hundreds of firefighters racing up the Twin Towers to save people they’ve never met. And it sent Sgt. Ron Helus of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office rushing into Borderline Bar and Grill, where the shooter was waiting for him. “I gotta go handle a call,” Helus had just told his wife over the phone. “I love you.”

The way so many women have a natural ease with caring for children, so, too, do many men have the instinct to protect and serve. We can harness it, but it doesn’t proceed automatically. It is a refined sort of masculinity that must be developed and praised. The military has done this for years. Police academies and fire departments do too. Only the educated classes have learned to sneer at it. Would that they never need it.

There will always be young men like the Thousand Oaks shooter, full of rage, mentally unstable, living with mom, failing to launch. We can work to eliminate the threat they pose, or treat whatever mental disease hobbles them. But we will never stop every malefactor from obtaining a weapon. The extended magazine that enabled the shooter to fire so many rounds is already illegal in California.

We will also never entirely eradicate evil. But if we continue to disparage heroism—if we repeatedly shame those who want to protect women—we can suppress the impulse. We are no doubt doing so already. Somehow, Mr. Wennerstrom and his buddies missed the lecture that young women don’t require protection. Many lives were saved as a result.

Ms. Shrier is a writer living in Los Angeles.

"Real Men Saved Lives in Thousand Oaks"

It is true, and we should all be thankful for their courage.

But we should also be aware that

"Wusses caused deaths of many in Thousand Oaks"

The wusses, of course, were the liberal politicians who passed laws which prevented the six off duty police officers present in the bar from carrying their service weapons. Had that been allowed, the carnage would have been substantially less.

I don’t understand what this has to do with masculinity. These people recognized the danger and behaved heroically to try to protect people and help them escape. I give them my respect. But if it had been a woman who threw the chair through a window and helped people escape I would still call her a hero, not masculine. Think of female members of the military, athletes, EMTs, etc. who could have done the same had they been in that position. Acting heroically is not limited to one sex.

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