I just got off the blower with the Roger Witter. The Portland designer is all over the news, after he shot at an automobile driven by two thieves stealing iPhones from an AT&T store. It seems the press has left out several important details about the incident. The most important: the thieves drove a Chrysler sedan at his cousin, an employee at the store, moments before Witter fired his revolver. “These two guys grabbed the phones and ran out of the store,” Witter recounts. “The alarm was going off. It scared the crap out of me. My cousin who works at the store ran after one of them out one door. I ran after the other one out the other door. I saw the car coming out of the parking lot. It was facing us. I was yelling stop, stop, stop!
“I got down on one knee and drew my weapon [a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver] and aimed it at the grill of the car. It didn’t stop. The car was headed for my cousin. He jumped out of the way. I fired two shots.”
Witter rejects the idea that his actions put innocent bystanders in harm’s way.
“It was 8:30,” he told me. “The parking lot was empty . . . I told the police they were controlled shots. I told them I was aiming low, nothing above the hubcaps. But it doesn’t matter what I say. I’m the bad guy. I’m the guy with the gun.”
And now he’s the guy without the gun. A fact that hasn’t escaped his attention. “No one’s caught these guys. My name and face are plastered everywhere. Who’s gonna protect me and my family?”
It’s a question that led Witter to purchase a firearm in the first place, and receive his concealed carry permit.
“The crime in my neighborhood, Gresham, Lockwood, is escalating. The police are there only after a robbery, a rape, a burglary or an assault. It’s up to each individual to protect themselves.”
Which doesn’t really answer the key question.
“Was my life in danger?” Witter asks himself. “Was Duane’s?”
Witter leaves the question hanging.
“In hindsight, I wouldn’t have shot the car. At the time, I knew it was the right thing to do.”
The guy shot at shoplifters.I would guess that the security cameras had already taken a safer shot at the shoplifters in the store.You got to ask yourself one question; Would Dirty Harry have shot at shoplifter punks?
In many ways, having a conceal carry permit works a lot like the insurance business. Yeah, you've got "insurance," but if you ever try and use the policy/gun – you find out that they cancel your policy/permit. It's like waxed fruit – looks pretty, but leaves a bad taste in your mouth if you try and put the bite on it.
I had a theatre friend, had been in the Army, who was dating some woman with an angry ex. The ex used to slash his tires. One night he caught him in the act, and the ex tried to drive at him, so he shot out his tires. He got in all sorts of trouble.
I think it's one thing to be physically threatened and protect yourself, but introducing gunplay into lesser confrontation leads to the sort of frontier scenarios that fuel anti-gun activism.
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