Bobby Wilson, a Republican candidate in Arizona, told a gun control lobbying forum that he fatally shot his mother in self defence, therefore access to guns should be protected
A Republican candidate in Arizona threw support under the Second Amendment right to arms based on the fact he fatally shot what he thought was an attacker, but who was actually his mother.
Bobby Wilson, 73, is seeking the Republican nomination for a seat in the Arizona state Senate. On July 9, he attended a gathering organised by Moms Demand Action, Buzzfeed News reports, a group that pushes and lobbies for gun control laws.
The Arizona Daily star reports that 200 people attended the event in Tucson, including survivors of the 2011 mass shooting that injured Republican Gabby Giffords.
Wilson said that he believes' a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun' — igniting groans from the crowd, according to a video posted by a Daily Star reporter.
‘I'm living proof of that,’ Wilson told the forum. ‘When I was 18 years old, somebody was hell-bent on killing me in my sleep one night. At 3 o’clock in the morning, I woke up to find a rifle in my face.’
According to Wilson, he dodged bullets and crawled under his bed, where he had a single-shot .22 rifle. He fired back, killing his opponent, and survived.
What Wilson failed to mention in the forum was that the person he fatally shot was his mother, but which has since been reported in local and national media, based on a 1963 newspaper article and court records, as well as a recent memoir written by Wilson.
‘Of course, I wasn’t going to go into the details of it [at the forum] anyway, I was just making a statement that sometimes you have to defend yourself,’ Wilson told BuzzFeed News. ‘As bad as it may be, it’s life or death.’
The incident in 1963 left his mother and 17-year-old sister dead, and their home in Oklahoma in flames. Wilson was arrested and accused of murder, and about a week later, the Choctaw County Weekly reported that he had confessed, the Arizona Republic reports.
Wilson told BuzzFeed News that the confession in the 1963 article was ‘fake news’ coerced by a local news editor and the sheriff. Wilson said he was naive and isolated in his jail cell when the editor came to visit him and he offered his ‘false’ confession.
The newspaper then reported the complete, and according to Wilson, completely fabricated confession as fact, Buzzfeed News claims. Wilson was charged with murder and faced trial twice, but was never convicted and a judge ultimately dismissed the charges.
Wilson’s mother had a history of severe mental health issues and was herself previously wanted by law enforcement, he said. His defense included witnesses who said they'd heard her make threats.
‘Absolutely, without any question, she was out to kill me,’ Wilson said.