“I don’t want to shoot him but if somebody comes here, sure I will shoot him. I’ll shoot him and I will kill him. If I’ve got to shoot my gun, you’re not going to believe it, these bullets will go all over his body. So next time, the people won’t do that to anybody else.” – Van Dyke Liquor Market owner Steve Bahoura quoted in Detroiter Sleeps In Liquor Store With Shotgun To Prevent Robberies [via detroit.cbslocal.com]
“Detroit police Chief James Craig is making a “Call To Action” this weekend, urging residents to stand up and take back city streets. ”
Suggestions on how they are supposed to do that? Are we going to have gangs vs residents shoot outs?
He must be talking about law abiding citizens assuming their duty and responsibility to carry weapons and act as the first responders when criminals committ criminal acts, at which time those same citizens would draw their weapons and make a citizens arrest; then they would call for the police to arrive to take the criminal to the police station to be charged.
That is what free American citizens once did; now; call 911 and then die as a defenseless and powerless subject.
Indeed, there was once a time when criminals feared being observed by a citizen while committing a crime. Now the citizen fears being a witness to criminal activity, a truly sick perversion of what it is to be a free citizen and almost entirely wrought by the hands of statist progressives.
I suspect to take back the streets we first need to take back the country so to speak. Concealed carry only provides the tools, SYG, Castle Doctrine and Shield laws actual enable the citizen to impose his rights on those who do not respect the law.
It’s an unfair proposition; the criminal doesn’t care about the law by definition, nor does he concern himself with civil suit, since he has nothing to lose in a judgment. Facing him are moral people, disinclined to violence by nature, with jobs homes and families to maintain and protect. Even grand jury proceedings which fail to return a true bill are disastrous to the honest citizen while apparently providing no disincentive to the criminal at all. It might be better for the armed citizen if the justice system were entirely suspended than for the criminal, for while the former would no longer fear imprisonment for defense of self or others the latter would have a massive disincentive to crime as it would come with great risk of serious injury or death. Not a hypothetical I’d like to see played out on the street, but illustrative of what the armed citizen faces.
An armed citizen has to be many steps ahead of a criminal since the criminal has so much less with which to be concerned. For the criminal to shoot or not to shoot is a matter of expediency while for the citizen it is a grave matter of necessity. For the criminal it is often a safer course to shoot and escape while for the citizen there must forever be hesitation as generally the safer course is not to shoot.
This is what comes when the rights of criminals are held equal to those of their victims. We’ve reached a state at which armed robbery is an offence for which one seldom receives a penalty that in any way approaches the severity of the crime. Using Connecticut as an example the minimum mandatory sentence for first degree robbery while armed with a deadly weapon is 5 years with a mean actual sentence of 10 years. However one is eligible for parole after serving 50% of the sentence imposed, and so a minimum of 2.5 years and an actual mean of 5 years. (Interestingly of the 6 offenses for which one is ineligible for parole in CT, 4 of which are various types of murder ,and 1 being 1st degree sexual assault(rape), the 6th is possession of a firearm within 1500 feet of a school, but that’s another argument.)
Just think about it, armed robbery with a deadly weapon implies intent; that is, to seriously injure or kill the victim if the robbery demands are not met. In all cases it creates the very ‘imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death’ that is the standard for using lethal force in self defense, and yet the average offender will serve only 5 years for this offense. In LE circles it’s well known that the majority of armed robberies are committed by a very small and extremely desperate minority of criminals. It requires too little ambition to sell drugs, too little intellect to steal identities, and too little motivation to burgle. That is, the average armed robber is violent, stupid, and lazy and doesn’t see himself as having a future. This offender will be back on the street in 2-5 years to do it again, only now worse off and even more desperate. We routinely sentence non-violent drug offenders to more time than we do armed robbers and in many jurisdictions require them to serve more of the their already more onerous sentences.
If the laws were truly for protection of the people there would be no law regarding what sort of substances a citizen may willfully ingest while the crime of depriving a person of their property under threat of death would certainly result in a period of incarceration lasting longer than one spends obtaining an bachelors degree.
When a citizen who kills an armed robber in self defense faces trial and a potential period of incarceration exceeding what the robber would have been sentenced to if convicted by several magnitudes to include life without parole there is truly something very wrong with the ‘justice’ system. In fact, there is something so severely wrong with the administration of law in many localities that it’s actually an impediment to public safety. This is the pathetic situation many of us find ourselves in, hamstrung and restrained even in extremis, worried about prosecution for acting in our own defense even in the moment of fighting for our lives against a criminal with little to fear save the citizen who is armed and willing to resist him. It’s a disgusting state of affairs which all too many would gleefully make even worse. We are a nation of laws. . . far, far too many laws.
Good for him – hard working, supporting his family, taking care of and protecting his own, and probably an all around good guy. Gold Star for him.
There was a gas station/ liquor store robbed about 2 months ago about 8 miles north of this shop and 1 mile West. The robber was armed with a steel framed semi auto and after the clerk complied and handed over cash the robber still violently pistol whipped the clerk. Although that above quote is pretty rough, he has to do something if he wants to keep his business.
There’s more than one story of robberies that end in executions even after the victims had fully complied. Compliance and passivity will will not save you.
If I was going to rob someone, I don’t think it would be Van Dyke Liquor Market.
As a former Detroiter, I couldn’t agree more. These thugs are like wild dogs running loose and they need to be put down.
Unfortunately, the liberals in charge won’t spend too much effort on stopping the gangbangers and thugs that plague these cities…unless of course these thugs start openly criticizing Dear Obama….or someone in Obama’s inner circle sneaks a related talking point onto Obama’s teleprompter.
Of course they won’t, thugs and thug enablers are their constituents!
Owning a liquor store in Detroit has to be a dangerous occupation. I think I’d rather do a tour in the sandbox than work a week in a Detroit liquor store.
I bet Iraq and probably even Somalia is safer than any liquor store in any large city in the US where the liberals have disarmed the law abiding citizen.
Sadly yes Iraq is safer we’re allowed to shoot back and we have body armor issued to us.
Detroit is not disarmed like most urban areas, thank God.
Detroiter Sleeps In Liquor Store With Shotgun To Prevent Robberies
I sleep at home with a shotgun for the same reason.
Sadly, there is no such thing as deterrence. Neither prison nor the death penalty nor armed shop/homeowners deter future crime, only the individual criminal. I hope he has a comfortable cot, because he will be sleeping in that shop as long as he operates it.
I thought this kind of statement is exactly what they teach you NOT to say in a concealed carry class. Now if a robber does come into his store, and he does shoot the robber, the police can say he was just looking for an excuse to shoot someone.
Yep. Exactly. The local DA will already have this photo and the accompanying quotation to show the jurors should this guy actually be involved in a shooting.
Comments are closed.