Of Bad Guys and Good

There was a recent murder at a WalMart. In this crime, one of the criminals walked up to a armored-car guard, pulled out a gun, shot the man in the face, killing him and injuring another innocent bystander, stole the guard's money bag, and calmly walked out the store to his waiting car. http://www.thenewstribune.com/311/story/764728.html

In a recent piece (http://firearmslegislation.blogspot.com/2009/04/self-protection-is-not-vigilantism.html), I discussed the fact that honest people legally arming themselves is a rational thing to do. There are just people in the world that are not nice (to say the least). http://firearmslegislation.blogspot.com/2009/04/disarmament-as-public-policy.html

I certainly don't think that any legally-armed person could have done much of anything to stop this crime. By the time this felon had drawn his gun and shot the guard, it was all over. One could argue that it is more likely that more innocents would have been hurt had someone shot back.

What strikes me about this crime is not only the level of violence, but the absolute disregard for life shown by the criminals both in their action and their comments during the subsequent interrogation. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2009/06/04/2009302279.pdf

Turpin initially denied any involvement, even claiming it wasn’t him on the
video. Eventually Turpin admitted he was involved and it was him on the video. A
detective asked if there was anything he would like to say to the family of the
dead guard if he had the opportunity.

He hung his head and said softly, “Sorry, I guess.”

The detective said, “You guess you’re sorry? A man was shot dead for money.”

“I wouldn’t apologize. What would that do. He’s already gone.”

“If you would have gotten away with this,” the detective asked, “how would you have felt?”

“Bad, but, but I would have gotten over it because of the money.”

What those who don't believe in personal protection just don't get is that there are some very, very bad people out there. They just don't care about the rest of us.

And that's why I carry.