Police and witnesses at the horrific Waffle House shooting near Nashville, TN, say that 29 year old James Shaw Jr is a hero. Not only was he able to disarm a shooter with an AR-15, but he did so while he was totally unarmed.

Shaw held a press conference today where he talked about what went on in the early morning hours. Here is what he said:

So last night I went out with my best friend, went to a club out in Antioch area. We left the club at about 2:30-ish. We went to the Bell Row Waffle House first, but it was pretty packed in there, like two or three times what was in the Waffle House, so we left there, then got to the Murpheesboro about 3:30.

We both saw the gold Silverado. I saw the silhouette of his face, bud you can't really just, you know judge a person off of that. so we proceeded in. We sat down at the high chairs. The tabletops. I was sitting in like the first chair. My friend was sitting in the third chair. A chair in between distinctively remember the cook, the cook was actually washing dishes. He was stacking the plates you pretty high on the hood like, those are going to fall off.

He was doing that, another Waffle House employees was actually about to go on his break, I heard him say "I'm going to smoke a cigarette, I'll be right back" so when we first heard what I now know is the gunshot, we thought it was the plates crashing, because we had pretty much made that up in our minds, that the plates were going to fall, then the second, then a third one happened, and I saw the Waffle House employees scatter.

I saw a person laying on the ground right at the entrance of the door. So then I jumped pretty much and slid from the tape top to the entrance of the door. I think he let off some shots through the glass, and then he proceeded to come in.

When he proceeded to come in, I went behind like a push door, a swivel door, and he shot through that door, I'm pretty sure, and I'm pretty sure he grazed my arm. There's no way to lock that door, so I made up my mind if it was going to come down to it, he was going to have to work to kill me so at the time he was either reloading or the gun jammed is when I ran through the swivel door, I hit him with the swivel door, and then the gun was jammed up and pushed down.

So we wrestled and I got him with one hand on the gun and grabbed it from him, threw it over the counter top. And you have that I was trying to get out the door, I think his was in the entrance way, so I took him out with me out of the entrance all the way outside. I proceeded to run around and he had like a walk/trot pace type of jog that he was doing, trying to get away, and I -- that's kind of what happened.

He wiped a tear as the crowd applauded, a hero who refuses to accept the title and merely believes he did what he had to do to stay alive.

Shaw currently works at AT&T and has a 4 year old daughter. I think his next job needs to be movie action hero or, at the very least, police/SWAT officer. This kind of heroism and fearlessness is not taught, it is born in your soul. Very few have it.

Mr. Shaw, you are a hero.