Last week in Tucson, an audience listened as candidates running to become state lawmakers talked about their views on guns. The forum was held by the group Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America.
Everything was going pretty smoothly, then Bobby Wilson — Republican candidate for Arizona Senate — stood up and said:
"When I was 18 years old, somebody was hell-bent on killing me in my sleep one night."
Wilson started to tell this story of waking up in the middle of the night at 18 years old, dodging bullets, diving for his loaded gun — and then his story was cut off in the interest of time. He finished by saying if it weren’t for his gun, he’d be dead.
What he failed to mention in that shortened version, is the person shooting at him was his mother. Wilson’s mother and sister both died that night, and Wilson recounts the details in his 2010 memoir.
Joe Ferguson with the Arizona Daily Star read that memoir to understand more about Wilson’s backstory.
Wilson, who is repeatedly booed by the audience for various reasons (including saying everyone is good Christians) describes how he was nearly killed in his bed by a man who broke into his home, wanted to kill him. Wilson was able to shoot with a loaded gun he kept under his bed. pic.twitter.com/b0djHCXYLb
— Joe Ferguson (@joeferguson) July 10, 2018