In 2001 Michigan passed a shall issue concealed carry law. Detroit’s city government was initially hostile to the idea. But as the city’s decline accelerated, by 2010, five city council members had permits. After Detroit declared bankruptcy in the summer of 2013, emergency manager Kevin Orr appointed Chief James Craig the city’s top cop. Unlike most large city police chiefs, Craig wasn’t beholden to the Mayor and City Council. Chief Craig has been at the forefront of supporting armed citizens as a way to drive down crime; armed resistance to crime has been on the rise. For example . . .

In the recent case, a black woman, referred to as only as C.C., kept a handgun in the side pocket of her car while driving. From clickondetroit.com:

She keeps her gun — .357 caliber Sig Sauer G2 — in the side door of her vehicle. She has a concealed carry permit. It’s her weapon of choice which she has trained with at area ranges. It holds 13 hollow point rounds.

Large areas of Detroit are becoming semi-rural because of the loss in population.  C.C. made a wrong turn, and was making a U-turn in this area when she was attacked.

C.C. fired all 13 rounds of hollowpoint .357 Sig at her attackers. Her attackers fired back. Police did not find any evidence that anyone was hit. C.C. only escaped injury because her car stopped a couple of bullets. From the impact damage, I would guess that the carjacking suspects were using a short barreled .22 pistol.  On the other hand, those impact points may be reinforced by the door frame.

Here is a blown up image of the bullet damage. At least one bullet seems to have made it inside the vehicle, though the picture does not make it clear where it hit. That impact, shown on the right, may have been from a bullet fragment.

C.C. might have had a difficult time shooting out of her car door or window if she is left handed. The screen shot below indicates that she may be.  Left handed shooters are at a bit of a disadvantage shooting from the driver’s seat in the United States.

Speaking to the press, C.C. revealed an attitude that many in the gun culture associate with the Gadsden flag.

C.C. is particularly offended at the notion Detroiters can’t safely buy gasoline at night. Police Chief James Craig, who has applauded citizens for protecting themselves with legal firearms, called getting gas at night a bad idea.

“You should be able to go anytime to get gas. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave, right? Why can’t we act like it?” said C.C.

Under Chief Craig, her firearm is not expected to be held as evidence for months or years on end, a common occurrence in other areas. She expects it back in two days.  The shooting occurred on Tuesday, and she expects if back on Thursday. In any case, she is prepared. She has a backup pistol, a small 10-shot 9mm designed for concealed carry.

The SCCY CPX-2 9mm is C.C.’s backup gun. Maybe it was a first gun; it is not uncommon for shooters to upgrade and keep the older firearm for a spare.

John “More Guns Less Crime” Lott says that armed minority women are effective at reducing crime:

Lott: Murder rates decline when either more women or more men carry concealed handguns, but a gun represents a much larger change in a woman’s ability to defend herself than it does for a man. An additional woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about 3 to 4 times more than an additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men.

Question: Aren’t you playing into people’s fears and prejudices though? Don’t politicians pass these shall-issue laws to mollify middle-class white suburbanites anxious about the encroachment of urban minority crime?

Lott: I won’t speculate about motives, but the results tell a different story. High crime urban areas and neighborhoods with large minority populations have the greatest reductions in violent crime when citizens are legally allowed to carry concealed handguns.

As more minorities in high crime urban areas realize that they are legally protected by the Second Amendment, and can defend themselves without being persecuted in the courts, faith in the police, courts, and justice system will rise, and crime rates will fall. All eyes on Detroit.

©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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51 COMMENTS

  1. For the record, a lot of people lump Detroit in with other Democrat-controlled cities as a place with heavy gun control and high crime. This is not the case. Michigan has had a concealed carry law since 1927 and, so far as I know, it has never had any laws of its own more onerous than the state law. The state has a pistol registration law as its one main negative. I’ve never heard of it being used in a bad way. Also it is a statutory open carry state.

      • Nope, the change made was you could buy a pistol from a ffl without a perchase permit, just a NICs. Still need pistol purchase permit for private sale unless you have cpl, and a copy goes to local police/sheriff. Stupid registration…

        • MI get rid of the 3 day wait too? Last time I lived there(2002-03) I bought bought a pistol and had to wait.

        • No more wait. Go to gunstore and pick it up after a 15 min NICs. But still registration sucks!

    • MI has had CCW since 1927, yes. But, until the law was changed in 2001, making us a “shall issue” State, licensure was at the discretion of the Local Gun Board (LGB). Under the discretion of the LGBs, getting a license was just as tricky as it is in some of the more “liberty challenged” States as we read today. Some counties even had a “good reason” requirement to get a license.

      Michigan didn’t have a firearms preemption law on the books until 2012.

      The LGBs, until December of this year, are still in use in some MI counties (http://1.usa.gov/1KL2PdX) Generally, an LGB will consist of a representative of the Michigan State Police and/or a representative from that county’s Sheriff, and a representative of the County Prosecutor’s office, and usually a Clerk or some other County official. One case made news, not even a day after the law was signed, a local gun board denied a man his license based not on any criminal record, but on a strange “pattern of behavior” (http://bit.ly/1Qynjsj).

      Yes, though, we are an Open Carry State. But, as with anywhere, doing so will likely cause you some unpleasantness.

      Yes, we do have pistol registration, but now it’s just a matter of dropping off a form at the local PD or Sheriff’s office. When I got my first handgun back in ’96, you still had to physically take the weapon into the PD/Sheriff for a “safety inspection”, where they would stand inside a bulletproof glass cage and make you clear it in front of them, hold it up for all to see the empty chamber, place it into a bulletproof-glass lazy-suzan type thing, and then manually enter the serial number and such based on what was stamped into the weapon.

      I’m not so sure about purchase permits. I did have to get one for my first handgun back in ’96, and I seem to remember getting one for another pistol somewhere around ’02 or ’03, but I’m not 100% sure. And, with a CHL, I haven’t had to do that since ’04.

      You can skip the waiting period with a CHL. Just like the old days – walk in, plunk down some cash (or, more likely, plastic) and walk out with your firearm then & there.

      • “Yes, though, we are an Open Carry State. But, as with anywhere, doing so will likely cause you some unpleasantness.” I can see a long gun giving extra attention, But I have open carried a pistol almost daily for the past 3+ months in Macomb County, and have traveled to the west side of the state a number of times without issue.

      • It’s worth noting that the gun boards themselves are kind of a joke. I don’t know the reason they were set up, but in practice they do nothing more than verify that a person is alive and breathing.

        In Macomb County, for example (where I had to face the gun board when I got my CPL), your average time in front of the board lasts about 30 seconds, and on the day I went they processed about 4 dozen people in about an hour.

        They asked the same 3 questions from everyone, and expected the same 3 answers. As you sat and waited, you could hear everyone else answering.

        It was kind of funny. Not knowing what to expect, I brushed up on my carry law and other things taught during the CPL class. I was expecting something…. a little more substantial.

        • As far as I know Macomb county is one of the only that require the gun board. When I went before the Macomb gun board there were a couple people that failed out of the 20 that went before me. One guy said he had nothing on his record and they called him out for having an assault charge. It was pretty entertaining. There were also a couple people that rambled when they asked for a reason for applying. The downside was the six months I had to wait for a gun board appointment. I have since moved so I never have to deal with the Macomb county gun board again.

        • When I got my CPL (St. Clair County) I didn’t even go in front of the gun board. I was told the gun board would review the case and I received my CPL through the mail.

          Also worth noting is that the recent law passed by our legislature and signed by the governor eliminated the gun boards.

          Also, I really dislike Governor Snyder now. The law I mentioned above was the third in a line of gun laws. He rejected two similar laws before that would have weakened the “Pistol Free Zones” portion of Michigan law by either eliminating a bunch of them altogether or by allowing CPL holders who take an additional course to have the “Exempt from Pistol Free Zones” box on their CPL checked off. Both of those were rejected, so it’s still illegal for me to carry when I go to my dad’s old church in the ghetto of Detroit. I do anyway because not carrying is asking to die.

        • 6 Months? How long ago was this? When I got my CPL, it was 20 days from filing the application to walking out of the gun board with my CPL.

        • Scott, as a CPL holder you may open carry in church, a club, and a hospital among others. You may be asked to leave, but Jennifer Granholm wrote an opinion as Attorney General, stating this. It’s on the MSP website.
          I live in Rosedale Park. I’m pretty sure many people “accidently” forget to remove the jacket, which is hiding their weapon at my church.

    • And a wise move in having a second gun.

      And biologically in nature, if it bites, it’s likely female.

      🙂

  3. This needs to be trumpted: all law abiding citizens have the right to defend themselves with firearms, no matter their skin color. Yes, some minorities commit crimes in far greater rates than Caucasians, but once law abiding citizens, minority or otherwise, put them in the ground, the crime problem will take care of itself.

  4. Way to go honey. May I suggest that you spend some range time practicing shooting with your weak arm. If you are right handed and take a shot to your right hand or arm, you’re gonna need the other one…..damn quick and vice versa.

  6. While the details are sketchy, it sounds like it was a good thing that she kept her handgun, well, handy. If she was carrying it in an inside waistband holster, especially at the 4 O’clock position, it would have seriously slowed down her draw and presentation — not to mention the fact that she cannot drive away while drawing from a holster on her body.

    Keeping a handgun readily available as she apparently did enabled her to present really fast while also preserving her ability to drive away. Well done! I just might have to consider that practice myself.

  7. The next time some anti asks who needs more than 10 rounds, refer them to this incident.

  8. Glad she was ok, too bad her hit percentage was 0, gotta wonder where those 13 bullets landed?

  9. 0 for 13? Is CC a NYC cop or something? Somebody please check on the neighborhood doggies.

    • It has been often documented and repeated here as a defensive move in training that a moving target is much more difficult to hit. How fast do you think those punks were moving by the time C.C. got off the second or third shot?

  10. Glad she was able to fend them off. Chances of that happening if she had not been armed are likely ZERO. Great job C.C.. You may not have hit anyone but you definitely prevented a crime and likely harm to yourself.

    • No doubt, that’s one of my favorite parts of this story. I wonder how she got turned on to 357sig?

      • Getting shot at with a 357 Sig and the blast it has most likely will cause those scum bags to give thought to any further criminal activities of that sort. I can only imagine it was quite the wake up call.

        • The blast is impressive. I started shooting 357sig in IDPA back in 1995. The caliber was in its infancy at that time, and every time I ran a course of fire another competitor would come up to me afterward and say “What the hell caliber is that!?!?” I hadn’t noticed until the first time I had to shoot through windows in a wall I was standing 6 ft back from. Whoa, quite the muzzle blast out of a 4.5″ barrel. Can’t imagine shooting inside a home or car.

  12. Did a quick MLS search for just over $1200 (one thousand two hundred) I can purchase almost 2 full city blocks =19 acres of land now classified as semi-rural. Anyone wanna join me in starting our own town within a city? I turned down a private security job for a person $100thou + a year. Bad part is Myrtle Beach area is heading that way, slowly but surely. Than you too POTUS

      • We bought a house in Youngstown, OH to flip paid $1500 in the back taxes spent my 2 weeks vacation redoing it. $6000 in materials. Replaced the copper pipe with PVC. That paid for the new HVAC. system with the rehab grant I was able to resell in a month & make a good profit. Looked at doing the same in Detroit. I figured if I combined all the lots into one I might be able to build a house & convert the rest into an urban farm. Security fencing and the electronics were going to be the most costly thing about it. The house was only going to be $50-75k to reuse hardwoods and build.over. could live on my retirement. Hunt & fish the problem is no future for my 17 y/o there. The other problem is I don’t see a future for the entire country economy wise for at least 10 years to recover.

  13. and people look at me crazy when they find out I keep 6 loaded magazines within reach for my primary EDC.

  14. Bad-ass. Especially for using .357 SIG, most gun-nerds won’t even use that.

    But what the heck is a SIG-Sauer G2? I assume it’s a 2nd generation SIG of some indeterminate type…

    • Looks exactly like a Gen 2 Sig Sauer P229. I may get one myself. Available calibers include 9mm, .357 Sig, and .40.

    • I plan on getting a Stormlake .357 SIG barrel for my XD 40. I already have the 9mm barrel and it works flawlessly. I thought about trying .357 SIG just for the heck of it. Also it gives me one pistol with three caliber options.

      • You’re doing better than me. I got a Wolf .40 down to 9mm conversion barrel for my Glock 23. It jammed quite a bit until I upgraded to a stainless recoil spring and guide rod. After 1500 rounds of jam-free 9mm, it’s pretty much a dedicated Glock “19.”

    • Sig G2 could refer to any number of “SAS Gen 2” models. Alternately, it could refer to the redesign from 2009. Originally called “Enhanced Ergonomics”, or E2 models, these included a redesigned, one-piece grip panel, lengthened beavertail, and Short Reach Trigger (SRT). Some of these features have crept into the main 226/229 models, making the distinction a bit moot. They can be recognized by the grip, as opposed to the older two piece grip panels. SRT can now be had as a drop-in part for most DA models. “Enhanced Elite” are also currently in the line-up and seem about the same as the E2 models.

      • She gets mucho points for it just being a Sig & not a Glock or M&P. Shows someone that cares about personal safety. Needs range time but. 357Sig is not a cartridge for wimps. You need practice, I have a Glock sold my m&ps, love my Sigs, FNp & gen 3 S&W

  15. Nobody needs more than 10 rounds! Except CC did. Also, they reason they can’t find any sign that anyone was hit is because .357 SIG turns people to ash when they get hit.

  16. You should also know that FOX 2 in Detroit the morning team was once describing their carry guns on the air. As I remember one said he wouldn’t go anywhere without his Kimber 1911. Any other city they would be fired and chased out of town.

    • It’s been an interesting transition.

      Several years back, when we had the first of a rash of self-defense shootings, the local media tried to talk the public down saying things like “though this ended OK, citizens shouldn’t try to take the law into their own hands.”

      Then Chief Craig (God bless him), made his position clear on several occasions saying things like… “if a criminal doesn’t want to get shot, they shouldn’t be climbing in someone’s window in the middle of the night”

      After that point (2010 or 2011 I think) we had FOUR occasions of citizens fighting back within a 2 week period of time. The media saw the writing on the wall, and now positively cover nearly every occasion where law abiding citizens fight back against armed criminals.

  17. I’m a southpaw, but I practice with both hands. Left eye dominant, but shooting with my left eye right handed is a breeze. The only drag is shooting a RH rifle with iron sights. I really have come to love red dot sights/scopes, being able to shoot with both eyes open is great.

    When I drive, I keep my pistol tucked between the passenger seat and the center console. Being snapped in a holster satisfies the state’s “securely encased” definition.

  18. Damn! This lady was prepared…and she has a backup gun. I wouldn’t fault her for (maybe) missing. Don’t know if the thug boys would admit being capped by a gal…pretty exotic caliber too. And bad azz…

  19. Hmmm I wonder if her accuracy would have been any better if she use a more controllable round? But if you are going to miss, miss with a cool caliber.

  20. She fired thirteen rounds of .357 from inside her car. Huh? What’s that you said? CC’s ears be a ringing.

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