You know the old expression “It’s better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it?” This. Here. While the unarmed man attacked by the swarm/mob/gang at this Memphis gas station had a gun in his car, Orrden Williams, Jr. was very lucky to be able to get to it. And even luckier not to have to use it. Gun control advocates will use this incident to justify their argument that guns escalate violence, rather than end it. Wrong. In fact, this horrific encounter is proof – if proof were needed – that carrying a firearm can mean the difference between life or death for its owner. And his three-year-old child. Yes, there is that. [h/t JM]

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95 COMMENTS

  1. How about that? This man does the right thing helping someone out and gets thrashed by a mob. And they endanger his child?

    Incidents like this obliterate the anti-rights, anti-gun “high capacity argument.” I carry along with an extra magazine and wouldn’t have had enough rounds to deal with that entire mob, if it came to that.

    • The thing about mobs is they usually fizzle fast when they see that they can get hurt.

      You wouldn’t have had enough if they were trained, working as a team, and had a mission, but they didn’t have any of those traits. They were just emboldened by the mob. I’m guessing you would have had plenty of rounds to disperse a crowd like that.

      But if they did have any of those traits, you’d have been screwed.

      • Me, I might have fired a warning shot, I’d have to check ammo remaining vs holes in people to be sure. “Warning shot” sounds so much better than “I missed”

        • A “Warning Shot” could have been the worst thing you could have done.

          That would be considered proof you felt your life wasn’t in danger. That might mean a negligent discharge arrest.

          Good-Bye carry permit.

          As others mentioned, it’s one hell of a good case for extra mags. Or at the very least full standard capacity mags.

        • Not in the jurisdiction I live in.

          Around here, if you fire a warning shot, the legally safe thing to do is say you missed.

          Remember what happened to that lady in Florida.

        • Yup. What you do is less important than how you describe what you did.

          Welcome to self defense law 101.

        • What direction would you shoot? Its an urban area. Also lately people who fire warning shots havent been treated so well by the courts.

  2. The growing problem too politically incorrect to discuss openly: mobs of feral youth terrorizing law-abiding people. Tell me again why a 10-round magazine limit makes sense?

    • What’s weird is they came from a nearby “prep academy.” LEO need to talk to the head master and board over there.

        • Actually, they would be honor students.

          “Yes, your Honor. No, your Honor. No excuse your Honor…”

          🙂

      • So here’s the deal. The “prep” academy is a Shelby County (read Memphis City) school and according to the website is one of the schools in the Department of Alternative Schools. The school is mid-town/downtown, not the best area with everything that comes with it, poverty etc etc etc. It isn’t some toney high-end private school. Those would be in East Memphis/Germantown/Collierville. This is a failing school full of problem teens.

        I heard this story the day after it happened and the gas station owner states that the problems are usually worse in the morning and afternoon, before and after school. There have been a number of roving pack attacks in the last year, including one at a Kroger where the pack beat the tar out of a bagboy last fall.

        When I heard the story, the first thing I though was “Should have been a defensive gun use”.

        • I had that feeling since I’ve been to Memphis many times, and that did not look like the ‘burbs of the upper-middle. Nor did the “kids”.

        • it sounds like Shelby County/Memphis needs to get a handle on this so-called “prep school” pdq!

    • A knife is good, when you run out of ammo you can begin digging out all your bullets. Then the flamethrower to cauterize the wounds. Finally, draw a breath and intone deeply “MY WORK HERE IS DONE!!” and stroll away.

  5. So much Vibrancy©! I feel extremely Culturally Enriched® just watching this video! I can’t wait for Diversity™ to come to my neighborhood!

    • Hey come on, those teens were one NRA youf outreach away from becoming truckling conservatives!

  7. If an anti used this to support their treasonous views they would be more insane than normal since it was said he nearly pulled out a gun. Unless there is evidence to support that the mob was made up of mind readers how did thinking about pulling a gun have any effect at escalating or deescalating for that matter.

    • The anti line would be that he survived, so he clearly had no need to pull his gun. If he pulled his gun, “teens” might have died. The fact that he escaped death or serious injury by pure luck would not matter to them.

    • Actually what it does for me is put to the lie that old canard about gun-owners all being vigilantes just itching for an excuse to shoot someone. That guy had plenty of excuse, but restrained himself once he was safe from the immediate danger.

  8. I admire his restraint. I’m not sure I would not have gone for my gun after the first punch. This is why we need to reintroduce public flogging. For the “yuths” and their “parents”.

    • “I admire his restraint. ”

      You ain’t kidding. A large crowd swarming towards me, I hope I’m never in that situation.

  10. I was just making the comment in another post is that the only bad stereotype is if we say all of a racial group are violent or are criminals since most people are law abiding and only a small minority of the minorities are involved in violent or criminal behavior.

    Ummm, then youtube smacks you up side the head.

  11. If he’d been carrying and pulled his gun, and shot a couple members of the mob before they were all on top of him, then we’d be hearing about “Shooter Goes on Rampage at Memphis BP,” but, tactically, waiting until they’re all in punching and kicking range before you attempt to draw your weapon is suicide. When you’re fighting half a dozen assailants in close combat, there’s no reliable way to stop a gun grab. There was very little time to have made that decision, but armchair quarterbacks on the left wouldn’t have seen it that way. Any one of those punches or kicks could have disabled or killed him. The fact that he got away without serious injury was pure luck.

    Say he’d fired, right when he saw the mob closing. He killed or wounded one or two teens and the mob dispersed. The mass beatdown then never happened, so people would be second-guessing him constantly about the level of danger he was in.

    They say better to be judged by twelve than carried by six, but man, it’s an awful choice to have to make in the heat of the moment.

    • There is, it just requires you to be more aggressive than most people are capable of being. If somebody wants to grab the barrel of my gun while I’m in contact shot range, they better hold on tight. The nice thing about most pistols is that the grip gives you one hell of a leverage advantage.

      • “There is, it just requires you to be more aggressive than most people are capable of being. If somebody wants to grab the barrel of my gun while I’m in contact shot range, they better hold on tight. The nice thing about most pistols is that the grip gives you one hell of a leverage advantage.”

        No, sorry, that’s all out the window when you have a half dozen people piling on you. What about the guy who’s got hold of your off arm, and the guy who’s got you around the waist, and the two on your gun arm, and the guy who’s punching you in the face? Letting a mob get its hands on you isn’t something anyone can credibly fight their way out of outside action movies. Your only hope is that it’s a disorganized mob and that they don’t cooperate like that.

        • That’s the difference between hand to hand combat and martial arts. In reality, no trained and armed fighter willing to be as vicious as it takes is ever outnumbered by an untrained mob.

  12. Cloudbuster you are absolutely right but unfortunately the left does not see it that way. They won’t acknowledge that what they view as a “simple beatdown” can result in death or permanent life-altering injuries to the person being assaulted.

    They also view any use of a gun in such a situation as escalation, with absolutely zero ability to understand that the use of a firearm can quickly de-escalate the situation and preserve the honest citizens life, even if it is at the expense of a couple of murderous thugs.

  13. Should have been a DGU with a mini-gun. That mob of scum shouldn’t be walking the earth. Savages.

    • Yep. When I first started carrying a weapon, It seemed like the few times I didn’t have my gun on me, something would happen, usually a person or group of Youts would present themselves in an aggressive way where I thought, “Damn! I wish I had my gun right now, things could go south very quickly”.

    • “He left his gun and his kid in the car. This incident is why you take both with you.”

      Something tells me I doubt he will repeat that error.

  16. This has been a problem for a few years here in St Louis. Mobs of teen and young adults, doing mob robberies and attacks in the Delmar Loop and down town.

    • Stuff like this (Ferguson was a different kettle completely) rarely happens compared to Chicago. There were little groups of garbage causing problems in The Delmar Loop, but nothing like a 30:1 wilding shown in the vid. The U-City and STL coppers have taken (finally) to cracking down hard on them. Problems way down.

      The vid was the best argument for commuting in a Ferret with a live .50 I’ve seen in years.

  18. I would have pulled out my gun and had a heyday. It’s all on video of self defense with justifiable reasoning to believe you’d be killed!

  19. Poconorecord.com ( Again ) group of black females stomp woman outside movies. I will be following , and contacting the reporting news outlets , for updates. There Must Be Justice.

  20. Hm, man is attacked by a mob of teenagers, all seem to be the same race, so no racial motivation can be gleaned from it. What’s the best response as a TTAG commenter? Let’s bring up race!

    If this had been a DGU, then it would’ve decreased the likelihood of this happening again immeasurably.

    • Yeah, Grindstone, I don’t think people on this site have got the memo.

      The only time that it’s acceptable to mention race is if it helps to show that racist white privilege supposedly causes the disparity in arrest rates, education levels or levels of Poverty of the minorities, but to mention race when it shows behavior that negatively reflects on those same races, then it’s obviously racist. (Irony alert)

        • Projecting would be if I was calling out the obvious racism while hiding my own, yet I’ve made zero racist statements, ever. Not even the “blame whites” strawman that ThomasR so unskillfully built.

  21. Just a few observations here. A group of Kangaroos is called a mob so they are saying a mob of teenage kangaroos attacked a gas station?

    Next no where in that “mob” did I see white teens. I saw white and black patrons in the station but only black teens on a rampage. Why is it so hard to say this in news reporting? The same type of crime is being committed all over the country by all black flash mobs like this but no one ever says who is doing it.To fix a problem you have to identify and address it.

  23. Holy crap, that looked like a flurry of angry ants after you step on their hill. I won’t mention the color of said ants, because I would be labelled racists by some commentators here.

  24. Hmmm…years ago I was in the southside of Chicago selling insurance(I think) when my car was surrounded by a large (30 or more)group of black youts. No guns or weapons on me at the time(I thought I was a badass). AS the young black mens(sic) reached into my car and I yelled “Im running you over!”. gunned the engine and barrelled through as the sea of “children” parted. The PO-leece are afraid of these mobs. Shoot to kill and hope to get away. BTW this was around 1990 and the same west Pullman neighborhood is FAR FAR worse-as is most of the city. LOTS more armed teens.

  28. That many people beating up on one guy would have been enough disparity in force to justify a defensive gun use. Someone in the store could have fired through the glass at attackers in defense of the victims life, and likely dispersed the mob. Hindsight is 20/20..

    • I was wondering about that. By the time the mob clearly demonstrates their intent it is too late … that guy would have had maybe 1 second to decide, draw, and start putting bullets on target before the mob was literally on top of him. And I can assure that 1 second isn’t enough time.

      It seems to me like you cannot prevail over a mob attack. There just isn’t enough time lapse between their demonstration of intentions and landing of punches.

  29. A mob that size isn’t exactly inconspicuous. If I saw that many people heading my way and pointing cameras around, I’m getting the fuck out of dodge before they close the distance. That size of group is definitely truck gun territory too.

  31. How dangerous would it be to fire a gun next to the pumps at a gas station? You’re not even supposed to have your cell phone on, and are supposed to discharge static electricity before filling up. Could this horribly go all Robocop on a lawful defender?

  32. This incident is proof, if proof were needed, that you shouldn’t go provoking an angry mob.

    Oh sure, I get it. They’re feral and they’re maladjusted and there’s no excuse for their savagery. Those sound like even more reasons not to taunt or challenge the powder keg . Just walk the lady to her car, then quickly go get onto your own and keep quiet.

  34. So if we can’t blame this on America’s gun culture where should the blame lie? Wow that’s not an easy one to answer with all the regime promoted racial and economic class division…

  35. You know, this mob and the last one reported on here had something in common… Weird how that works.

  36. I don’t think there’s much you can do with a handgun with that many people attacking you. No matter what you’d be relying on most of them decide to retreat. This is what SMGs are for.

  37. I see more and more multiple assailant attacks in my (here to fore) low crime area. Wilding, knockout “game”, roving bands of “feral” youth, etc. My edc is 6 in the mag, one in the pipe, 8 in the back up mag. Back up gun in my vehicle with 20 more rounds. Is a glock with a 30rnd mag still considered bad form?

  38. Orrden Williams simply was not afraid for his life – and those are his words. Sure, he’s got a lot more patience than I, but as he was not afraid for his life, he did not have the right to use his firearm. His own words, he thought about it, but couldn’t live with the thought of taken a life. If you can make that distinction, you clearly don’t fear for your life, or in his case, the life of his child. As I say in every class I teach – if you can do that logic in your head, you clearly are not afraid for your life. IF you ever are – and I have been – I can assure you, you are not thinking, you’re responding. Let’s all hope that at least one of these knuckle heads does good by the gift that Mr. Williams has given them, and does something reasonable with their life. As for Mr. WIlliams, he’s running for Tennessee State Senate for District 88. Makes me wish I lived in TN…

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