defensive gun use

Yesterday morning, just after 6:00 A.M., KSL.com reports that a frequent Starbucks patron may have saved a life while having his morning joe.

This happened in Millcreek, Utah. The commotion began when a 37-year-old man named Benjamin Overall started behaving aggressively toward customers at a 7-Eleven. The police had already been called, but as the 7-Eleven customers confronted Overall, he dashed across the street and into the Starbucks.

He then leapt behind the counter and started landing blows on the female checkout clerk. He hit her on the back of the head at least once, and possibly again with a metal object. Our hero, a man in his late 60s, created a distraction, attempting to divert Overall’s attention toward himself. This worked. As Overall approached the man, he pulled out his concealed handgun, which he is legally licensed to carry, and shot Overall once in the chest.

Stumbling out of the Starbucks, Overall was met by police, who had to subdue him with a taser before realizing he’d been shot. Both Overall and the clerk were taken to the hospital, and both are expected to live to tell the tale.

The concealed carrier has been “very cooperative” with law enforcement. It’s not clear whether he will face charges, but none have been filed at this time. The police detective, Ken Hansen, seems to think this was a justified self-defense shooting.

If we ran Starbucks, he’d get free coffee for life.

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54 COMMENTS

  2. He won’t be welcome in that Starbuck’s ever again.

    Every barista there will just see him as an ‘Evil Violent Gun Owner’.

    If the thug had died, he would be an ‘Evil Murdering Gun Owner’…

    • They’ll post his picture in every Starbucks worldwide and he’ll be charged with trespassing at the very least.

    • Geoff, would that really change anything?

      They all think gun owners are just ‘murderers waiting to happen’. That gun owners ‘want’ to kill, in their minds that is the end-goal of gun ownership.

    • Sadly more likely than free coffee for life, he will receive a perma ban.

      Leftists would rather you starve than eat something they don’t like. This man just decided he had more appetite for life than the left allotted him. Sounds like a good shoot.

  4. The right drugs can make folks invincible. I had minor surgery several years ago and the rest of the day I felt terrific and could do anything. Once the pain meds wore off the next morning, I could barely move. No wonder it sometimes takes 15 or 20 shots to bring someone down….they don’t feel a thing.

  5. Only thing wrong in this situation is Ben lived. 100’s of thousands of dollars will now be wasted on medical,legal and incarceration costs. Remember practice,practice.practice. Make every shot count. A well placed shot at 25 cents per round can save millions down the road.

    • To be fair, a $0.40-0.90 round will probably do better 🙂
      Friends don’t let friends shoot bad guys with FMJ.

      • And shooting out both eyeballs, then a ‘third eye’ shot, might be difficult to explain to the jury. 😉

      • I’ve seen it said plenty of times that “anything worth shooting once, is worth shooting at least twice” …or maybe more? I dunno…. Hope I never have to ponder it in a moment.

        Thoughts?

        • In theory I agree. In actual practice, it gets fuzzy. A few things I assumed happened:
          1. Shooter is in his late 60’s so maybe there was a physical limitation that did not allow for a quick follow up
          2. Shooter stopped when assailant turned away and headed for the door
          3. Shooter decided that a follow up shot may not have been an option as assailant was moving and he had others in his background he didn’t want to put at risk
          4. I hope this wasn’t the case, but firearm failure after first round

          Having not seen photos of him or video footage of the incident, I can only assume. In any case, he did what he was supposed to do in stopping the threat to himself and others. My hats off to him.

    • The vast majority of handgun wounds are survivable, particularly if only one shot is received. Even if the recipient dies, it doesn’t necessarily happen immediately. In this case, the shot was fired, the bad guy didn’t hurt anybody else, and the cops arrested him. All is well.

  7. It would be interesting to know A) what sort/caliber of weapon the CCW holder used; and B) the results of a tox screen on the perp.

  8. If this was anywhere but Utah I’d call it a fake; no self respecting gun owner would be caught dead in a Starbucks and the limp wrist liberal regulars would sooner see the poor cashier beaten to death than carry an evil, icky ol’g gun. Lol!

    I agree though, if this was my store that man would get free coffee and snacks for life. He DELIBERATELY put himself directly in harm’s way by drawing off the attacker. Heck, even if I was just a cashier that man would never pay for anything.

    • That is situationally dependent. I don’t like Starbucks but I have patronized their business.

      Most recently I was at a truck stop while traveling and, get this, all six (6), yes six, coffee dispensers were empty (you’re killin’ me here Flying J!). So, I gave up and got a cup of coffee from Starbucks before heading on my way.

      • You’re lucky they didn’t have one dispenser with one cup of thick, toxic, week-old coffee in there.

        But yeah, that must be a first – a truck stop with zero coffee…

        • You know what company I’ve never seen have logistics problems with their truck stop coffee? Sapp Bro’s.

          They must brew a whole new set of coffee jugs like every 5 minutes.

  10. the leftist idiot that owns starbuckets will more than likely exclude the good guy ,for carring a war-tool in his nasty coffee shop. he is a big-time marxist leftist. HIS TRACK RECORD SPEAKS FOR ITS SELF..

  13. Utah BTW does not allow businesses to ban firearms. They can ask you to leave and you can be charged trespassing for noncompliance. But they don’t have a no guns policy and if they did, it would have zero legal weight. All our guy has to do is wait a week until people forget his face and then not cause a scene.

  14. But he couldn’t have a gun because Starbucks corporate politely asked that no one carry concealed or otherwise in their stores. The CEO would prefer that the barista had called police and waited, you can’t defend yourself or have customers defend you.

  16. Why is this so difficult to some ppl? When you find a rabid animal attacking ppl and other animals the correct thing to do is to kill them before they spread their infection to others.

    Crime is a symptom of mental disease. It’s a refusal to agree to obey the written rules of ones community. It’s a sign of deeply flawed mentality and to resort to violence shows they are even further flawed than even other criminals.

    The death penalty is not a punishment it is prevention of that particular individual reproducing more mental defectives that will inflict themselves on the community.

  18. A man in his thirties causes a disturbance in one business, sufficient to warrant calling for police, then goes to another business. For no good reason, he punches and kicks a female employee who, most likely, is smaller and weaker. A senior citizen tries to rescue the woman by the non-violent tactic of distracting her assailant. The assailant switches his attention to the senior citizen who probably is weaker and definitely is much older. The senior citizen shoots the assailant once. Sounds to me like defense of another followed by self defense.

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