<![CDATA[gun owner]]>

Robber with a rifle no match for store owner armed with a shotgun

August 2, 2022 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

And in California no less. The state’s many gun control laws didn’t prevent an armed robber from carrying a semi-automatic rifle into a liquor store in Norco, California, but thankfully they didn’t stop the store owner from having a gun of his own to defend himself.

According to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office there were actually four armed men involved in the robbery attempt, which happened just before 3 a.m. Sunday morning, but only one of them managed to get inside the store before he was shot.

Footage shows the armed suspect burst into the business and the owner immediately shoot a single blast from his firearm.
Cameras outside captured the suspect frantically screaming, “He shot my arm off! He shot my arm off!”
Multiple suspects then quickly take off in a dark-colored SUV and almost leave a person behind, the footage shows.
… Four suspects were later found at a hospital, including one who was suffering from a gunshot wound consistent with a shotgun blast, authorities say. The three other suspects were found inside the suspect vehicle, which authorities say was reported stolen.
The suspects were identified as 22-year-old Inglewood resident Justin Johnson, 27-year-old Los Angeles resident Jamar Williams and 24-year-old Las Vegas resident Davon Broadus.
The wounded suspect’s name has not been released. The 23-year-old remains hospitalized in critical, but stable condition.

The 80-year old store owner, meanwhile, suffered a heart attack after defending himself, and is hopefully going to be okay. Employees and customers alike have praised him for his actions, with one employee noting that the owner is familiar with owning firearms for personal protection.

“What if he wouldn’t have been as quick as it was. It could’ve been him,” customer Julie Fensel told Eyewitness News.
The sheriff’s warned us that this had been going on in the area recently and to just be on your toes, you know, so he was on his toes. Thank God,” employee Marnie Tapia said.
Employees say the owner saw what was happening in the monitors: the suspects’ SUV back in and the armed men step out.
“He just prepared himself. He’s always prepared as far as weapons go,” Tapia said about the owner.

Fensel told Eyewitness News in Los Angeles that she has a new name for the store owner: “Quick Draw McGraw.” Hopefully that’ll put a smile on his face when he returns to the shop in coming days, but I hope this will be a lesson for his customers too. You never know when you might be the victim of a violent crime, and being prepared beats being caught unarmed and defenseless every time.

Riverside County has generally been pretty good about issuing concealed carry permits, even before the Supreme Court decision struck down the “good cause” requirement enshrined in California law, but that hasn’t been the case in neighboring Los Angeles County, even with Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s office approving more permits over the past two years.

Villanueva recently reported, however, that there’s been a surge in applications since the Bruen decision was handed down, and with defensive gun uses like this getting a fair amount of local media attention my guess is that surge isn’t going to subside anytime soon; especially not with the light-on-crime prosecutors in the Los Angeles area like George Gascon doing their best to put repeat violent offenders back on the street as quickly as possible. California’s gun control laws and the criminal justice system aren’t working to keep people safe and secure, and incidents like this highlight the importance of being able to protect yourself as well as the worthlessness of gun control laws when it comes to stopping crime.

St. Louis armed citizen stops “violent crime spree,” saves gas station store clerk

July 18, 2022 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

While the 22-year old armed citizen who stopped an attack at an Indiana mall Sunday evening is receiving plenty of press attention, he wasn’t the only gun owner who saved lives this weekend.

Police in St. Charles, Missouri say a “violent crime spree” that started early Saturday morning came to an end when the knife-wielding robber was confronted by an alert citizen who had just stopped at a convenience store to run in and use the bathroom. As he was leaving the store he spotted a black SUV pulling in, and something apparently told him to stick around for a few moments. It’s a good thing he did, as he watched a man exit the vehicle and enter the store, only to appear moments later dragging the clerk to the counter with a knife to her neck.

“The witness retrieved his 9mm handgun, entered the store, and confronted the suspect,” police said. “The suspect grabbed his backpack and told the witness, ‘I have something for you.’ The suspect then comes from around the counter and approached the witness who fired several times at the suspect who fell to the floor.”
The witness and the clerk both called 911. When police arrived, they noticed that the black SUV had been reported stolen on Friday. Inside the vehicle were items they believed had been stolen from the second gas station.
A black SUV had also been reported at the scene when the first gas station was robbed. During that robbery, the suspect was said to have held a knife to a clerk’s throat while she emptied cash registers before he got in the vehicle and drove off.

In addition to the previous armed robbery, police believe the suspect was also responsible for a nearby burglary to a business that took place around the same time as the robberies.

Police have identified the suspect as 26-year old Lance Bush, a homeless man who was living in St. Louis. And while the armed citizen who stepped in and protected the clerk has not been identified, he is speaking out about what happened; telling local TV station KSDK that he knows he did the right thing.

“Taking somebody’s life is not an everyday thing, neither is saving someone’s life,” the customer, who wished to remain anonymous said.
… “I walked up to the door and I saw him with a knife to her throat. She was emptying out the cash register and I took a step in and peeked my head in to ask if everything was okay. I couldn’t see his face but he was saying yes, but I could see her face she was saying no, she was scared,” he said.
… “I pulled my gun up and I asked him are you sure everything’s okay and that’s when the suspect said ‘no it’s not okay, but I got something for you and he grabbed his bag, ran from around the counter and started running towards me and that’s when I fired shots,” the customer said.
He recalls shooting four times before Bush fell to the floor. Shortly after he told the clerk to call the police, he did as well.
“I don’t think I honestly had a choice. He already had a knife at her throat, he could’ve pulled out something bigger than what I had then you would’ve had two people dead instead of one,” he said.
His previous experience, training with guns and handling emergency situations, made him feel compelled to step in when other customers ran away.
“Instinct I would say. Instinct that’s just it. I guess knowing that I’m protected, I can protect somebody else,” he said.

This armed citizen wasn’t looking for a fight or a chance to be Billy Badass when he pulled into the QuikTrip parking lot. He was just looking for a place to use the facilities. When confronted with the fact that an armed robbery was taking place right in front of him, with a woman being held with a knife to her throat, he chose to step in and protect her when he could have easily just stayed in his car and called 911 from there. Because he chose to confront her attacker she was able go home at the end of her shift instead of being rushed to the hospital.

I don’t know any concealed carry holder who walks around hoping that today will be the day their life or the life of another is put in such grave danger that deadly force is called for, no matter how many times gun control activists accuse gun owners of being trigger happy vigilantes. It sounds like this armed citizen is still rightfully shaken up by what happened, but I’m thankful that he was there and was able to prevent Bush from potentially escalating the armed robbery to a homicide.

Mass shooting at Indiana mall stopped by armed citizen

July 18, 2022 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

Shots rang out in the food court of the Greenwood Park Mall in Greenwood, Indiana on Sunday night moments as a man armed with a rifle opened fire. Officials say the shooter, who has not been publicly identified, killed three people and wounded two others before he was shot and killed by an armed citizen moments later.

A lone man with a long gun killed three people before an armed bystander killed him in the Greenwood Park Mall food court Sunday evening, according to Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison. Two people were injured.
“It appears that he had a rifle with several magazines of ammunition, entered the food court and began shooting,” Ison said.
The “good Samaritan” who shot the man with the rifle was a 22-year-old man from Bartholomew County, Indiana, Ison said.
“The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began,” he said.
One of the wounded was a 12-year-old girl with a minor injury.
The other victims ranged in age from early 20s to 30.

According to police the shooting started just as the mall was closing around 6 p.m. Chris Roy, who’s an assistant manager at a shoe shop in the mall, says his first indication that something was wrong came when he saw people running away from the food court as he was getting ready to lock up the store.

“So, I jumped over the counter, locked the door, gathered my associates and other managers at the back door,” said Roy, 30.
They hadn’t heard gunshots, but Roy said they saw enough people running to not ask questions. Through the back door they huddled in an interior hallway with about 40 or 50 other people – mostly customers from other stores, Roy said. That hallway didn’t have an exterior exit, so they waited for police to come clear them, he said. Roy and another man tried to keep everyone calm, but occasional footsteps on the other side of one of the connecting doors sent panic through the group.
“We just instructed everybody to keep quiet,” he said.
After 10 or 15 minutes, police cleared them from the hallway and escorted them out of the mall.

While there is still a lot of information to be revealed about the shooting, based on what police have said it seems like the suspect’s intention was to murder as many innocent people as possible. Thankfully there was an armed citizen who could quickly respond, though it appears that the 22-year old who shot and killed the suspect was carrying in violation of the mall’s policy on weapons. We don’t know if the suspect was specifically targeting the mall because it was supposed to be a “gun-free zone”, but according to the mall’s code of conduct, all weapons are prohibited on the premises.

Police say the 22-year-old from Bartholomew County had a legal gun permit. However, according to mall policy, the man should not have been carrying his handgun in the mall in the first place.
Last updated in April 2020, Simon Property Group states in its code of conduct that no weapons are allowed at their shopping centers. The group is the owner of the Greenwood Park Mall.
The property group has worked with Greenwood police for several planned security technology upgrades after recent incidents at the mall including two incidents where employees were held at gunpoint in the parking lot. These upgrades include license plate readers installed at mall entrances.

You won’t find any public officials chastising the armed citizen for violating mall policy, at least not so far. The Greenwood police chief called him the “hero of the day,” while Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers also praised the 22-year old for his “quick action and heroism in this situation,” saying that the city is “grateful” for his response.

I’m sure that in the wake of this shooting there will be a lot of debate about Indiana’s gun laws, which includes the Constitutional Carry law that went into effect on July 1st, the state’s longstanding “red flag” law, and even the “gun-free” policy of the Greenwood Park Mall. The bottom line, at least to me, is that this terrible situation would have been much worse were it not for the almost immediate armed response that took down the attacker, and I’m thankful that the 22-year old who stopped this attack before any more lives were lost was in a position to do so.

We’ll have more on this story later today as more details come to light, and our prayers are with the victims of Sunday’s attack, their families and friends, and the city of Greenwood, Indiana.

NJ court finds stop unconstitutional, gun charge tossed

July 11, 2022 by John Petrolino Leave a Comment

A traffic stop in the Garden State in 2018 led to an unlawful firearm possession charge. In New Jersey, under the Graves Act, someone a foul of the law faces imprisonment for 3-5 years minimum mandatory. The conflict revolves around window tinting on the defendant’s vehicle. NJ has a law where the windshield and both front windows may not be tinted. As for the rear windows and back window? Good to go. The NJ Supreme Court ruled that the firearm that was found because of the stop was fruit of a poisonous tree, thus the stop was unconstitutional.

While the state prohibits the use of any “non-transparent material” on the front windshield or front side windows, it does not cover rear windows. Hence, the traffic cop who pulled over the man did so unconstitutionally, the state Supreme Court ruled 6-0.
In November 2018, at aroud 10:20 p.m., Trenton detectives stopped David Smith’s vehicle for a purported tinted windows violation after they found dark tinting on the rear windshield.
Despite the windshield’s tint, officers said he saw Smith making a furtive “shoving” motion, raising suspicions he was trying to conceal a weapon, the ruling said. On searching the vehicle, they found a gun and charged Smith with various weapons offenses, according to the ruling.
Smith challenged the arrest saying it was unjustifiable, but the trial and appellate courts denied his motion to suppress the handgun found in his car. He pled guilty to second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun and was sentenced to five years in prison with a three-and-one-half year period of parole ineligibility.
An appellate court sided with the trial judge saying that police did not have to prove an actual traffic violation to make a stop, as long as the “officer had a reasonable articulable suspicion of a motor vehicle violation.”
When the case went to the Supreme Court, prosecutors conceded that officers did not have reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle. The judge vacated Smith’s conviction and dismissed his charges. But the Supreme Court proceeded with the case anyway “because they are of sufficient public importance and likely to surface again,” Justice Lee Solomon wrote.

Good is what I say. This scenario makes people wonder, not that they really have to because this is Jersey we’re talking about, but how many predatory stops do the police make in the Garden State? There was no reason to stop Smith in the first place. The Fourth Amendment violation led to Smith’s arrest over firearm possession. There was no mention of Smith having or not having any former criminal activity in his history, so we’re to assume Smith was at the time a law abiding citizen, except for the victimless crime of having a gun.

While NYSRPA v. Bruen has really left some mayhem in its wake (in a good way), it’s not likely that all permitting will be abolished anytime soon. However, what I can see getting put into the crosshairs are the draconian provisions in New Jersey’s law, as well as other jurisdictions. If the Second Amendment is there to primarily keep our right to keep and carry firearms for self-defense intact, how could a person that’s not properly permitted or licensed end up with a felony? All for not having a mother-may-I from the state? I would like to see the constitutionality of the penalties challenged, as they are disproportionate when we’re talking about non-criminal intent.

This is a big win for privacy rights and really, gun rights. How many unlawful fishing expeditions from police brought forward a firearm charge? A lot. And, if they’re a non-violent, non-disqualified person, I see no harm in the infraction. Rather, I’d assert, what infraction? Hopefully there’ll be some relief coming down the line to all the law abiding criminals in states like New Jersey.

Gun control fan nearly gets shot trying to “prove a point” with police officer

June 20, 2022 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

A Utah man who says he wanted to prove that he shouldn’t be able to have a gun may get his wish now that he’s been charged with a felony.

Police in Tooele County, Utah say that 33-year-old Spenser Terrell Thomas was arrested on Saturday after pointing what appeared to be a firearm at a local police officer. Thomas was apparently riding an electric scooter down the road when he spotted the officer and approached him.

The officer, parked on the west side of the road, reportedly watched the suspect from his passenger rear view mirror and saw that Thomas began slowing down while he approached the front passenger side of the patrol car.
The probable cause affidavit states the officer rolled down his window as it appeared Thomas wanted to speak with him.
Upon doing so, the officer reportedly observed Thomas put his arm inside the vehicle while holding a handgun that appeared to be tan and black in color, pointing it down towards the officer’s right leg.
The officer says he ordered Thomas to drop the gun multiple times before quickly exiting the vehicle and withdrawing his firearm from his holster.
Thomas allegedly dropped the gun in the front passenger compartment of the vehicle and stepped away.
The affidavit states that Thomas told the officer he had wanted to turn the gun in to “try to get gun regulations changed” and to “prove a point that he shouldn’t be able to have a gun.”

The “gun” turned out to be a “pepper ball style handgun” loaded with a “hard rubber/foam style projectile ball,” but the officer had no way of knowing that until he was able to get a closer look at it after Thomas dropped the weapon.

The officer, understandably, told Thomas that he had nearly been shot as a result of his stunt, and then took him away to the Tooele County Jail on a felony charge of assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon.

I suppose it’s possible that he was mentally unstable or trying to commit suicide by cop, but so far the evidence points to Thomas simply being a moron who didn’t think about the consequences of his actions. What was he thinking was going to happen as a result of this stunt? Police would be so overcome by his actions that they too would immediately start calling for more gun control? Maybe the passage of “Spenser’s Law” requiring all would-be gun owners to demonstrate they’re not a dumbass before being “allowed” to exercise their Second Amendment rights?

On the off chance that Thomas was in the midst of a mental health crisis I hope he gets the help he needs, but if this really was, as he told the officer, a stunt to “prove a point” then I think the criminal justice system should give him a lesson in how gun laws actually work, even in a state as Second Amendment-friendly as Utah. A felony conviction is a disqualifying factor for gun ownership, so if Thomas doesn’t want to be able to legally get ahold of a gun then prosecutors should oblige by taking this case to trial and securing a conviction. There’s no need to change any existing regulations. Just enforce the laws already on the books and Thomas can sleep soundly knowing that he’s proved his point and is no longer able to lawfully possess a firearm.