With the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004, millions of common AR-15 style rifles hit the market, yet annualized homicides by rifle continued to trend downward. GOA opposes any new bans on these commonly owned weapons.
Well, to be honest, in a ‘free country’, I’ve never thought that the police could prevent any crime. That requires an authoritarian Police State the likes of which would be on par with North Korea. The poor people who always believed this, were always wrong, and that’s what’s sad; they were delusional
Confidence in Law Enforcement to Prevent Mass Shootings Plummets
A new poll from Convention of States Action and the Trafalgar Group shows Americans no longer trust local and federal law enforcement to stop mass shootings. This outcome should be no surprise after a long string of mass shootings where law enforcement knew the perpetrator before the tragedy.
The tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, is the latest example. However, school officials and law enforcement were aware of the risks posed by the shooter in Parkland, Fla., and the other mass shooting tragedies since then. It seems the left’s preoccupation with social justice rather than criminal justice prevents law enforcement at all levels from taking proactive action to prevent violence. The social justice push ended stop and frisk in New York City and ensured red flag laws in Illinois and New York were useless.
These examples may explain why a majority of voters report they are not confident local authorities can prevent a mass shooting before it happens. Sixty-two percent of voters say they are not sure their local law enforcement or federal agents could identify and stop a violent person before they started a mass shooting. More than a quarter (26.9%) report they are not confident at all. Only 9.8% indicated they are very confident in their local authorities’ ability to prevent a mass shooting.
Uvalde officers not immediately and aggressively confronting the gunman in the elementary school was reminiscent of law enforcement failures in the Parkland shooting. “Americans watched in horror as an active shooter was permitted to rampage through a school while the police stood outside and did absolutely nothing. Over and over again, citizens are given the clear message that—when it comes to protecting loved ones—you’re on your own,” said Mark Meckler, President of Convention of States Action.
Americans are painfully aware of the tragic results in these situations and believe in the “good guy with a gun” more than the gun grabbers would like. According to the poll, a plurality believes their fellow citizen with a firearm is the best protection for them and their family in a mass shooting situation. Almost 42% of voters believe that an armed citizen would be their best protection if they were caught in a mass shooting event. Local police retained the confidence of 25.1%, and 10.3% had the most faith in federal agents. Almost one-quarter said none of the above.
Results indicating how many respondents feel they will best protect themselves and their families would be an interesting supplement. Democrats appear the most fatalistic, with a plurality of 33.9% saying they do not trust anyone to protect them and their family in a mass shooting event. But, they are still the party pushing for strict gun control. Meanwhile, 70.4% of Republicans trust armed citizens the most, while only 16.8% and 1.6% trust local or federal law enforcement.
Yet, somehow, our leaders in Congress think more gun laws are the answer. The recent bi-partisan gun law does little to prevent these tragedies, especially in an environment where citizens are losing trust in law enforcement. “At the same time, we’re told guns are the problem, and we should give up our right to self-defense,” Meckler noted. “Voters are not stupid. They understand that responsible citizens offer the best means of protecting our schools, homes, and communities in this country. Pursuing such policies is not only bad politics, it puts all of us at risk.”
As if to prove the point made by a plurality of voters, an armed citizen stopped a mass shooter in a mall food court in Indiana yesterday. According to law enforcement, the gunman shot three people fatally and injured two Sunday evening before a good guy with a gun shot and killed him. The shooter entered the mall with a rifle and several magazines. Greenwood Police Dept. Chief Jim Ison said, “The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began.” The poll ended before reports of this shooting appeared in the news cycle.
A legally armed citizen recently thwarted another mass shooting in West Virginia. A woman used her pistol to shoot a man who had returned to a graduation party with a rifle. He had been in a verbal altercation with the partygoers earlier in the day. “This lady was carrying a lawful firearm,” Lt. Tony Hazelett of the Charleston Police Department said. “A law-abiding citizen who stopped the threat of probably 20 or 30 people getting killed. She engaged the threat and stopped it. She didn’t run from the threat. She engaged it preventing a mass casualty event here in Charleston.”
Examples like these may be why states like Texas, Georgia, and others are passing open and constitutional carry laws. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed constitutional carry in March of this year. As of July 1, no legal gun owner in Indiana is required to have a carry permit after passing the required background check. That law may have made all the difference for the Hoosiers in the mall on Sunday.
The Greenwood Mall Shooting Should End Claims of the Danger of Permitless Concealed Carry.
During the recent attempted mass shooting at the Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana, a 22-year old man who was lawfully carrying a pistol stopped the killing. For this heroic action, he’s been called “good Samaritan” by local law enforcement. Even the owners of the mall, (who ban guns on their properties praised his actions. That got under the skin of anti-gun activists.
Why? If they were forced to be honest about it like the main character in the 1997 film Liar Liar, they’d have to admit that a quintessential case of a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun is utterly devastating to their case against civilian gun rights.
Sadly (for them) the facts keep coming in, and they continue to be very bad for the gun control industry’s agenda. Not only does Greenwood Park clearly demonstrate that permitless carry (a.k.a. constitutional carry) saves lives, but one of the key arguments against permitless carry was also destroyed.
Constitutional Carry Allowed Lives To Be Saved
Recent reporting from WRTV News sheds light on an important detail in how this mass shooting was stopped . . .
According to [Greenwood Police Chief James] Ison, [Eli] Dicken did not have a permit for his handgun, but due to the passage of the “Constitutional Carry” bill in Indiana, he was legally carrying the weapon.
“I am 100% certain that many more people would have died last night if it wasn’t for his heroism,” Ison said.
If there’s a more devastating message for the forces of gun control, I don’t know what it would be.
It’s like they are mad that more people didn’t get murdered. Well, of course they are. They don’t care about people. They care about banning guns and once again, their narrative that people can’t really defend themselves literally got shot down.
Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: ‘Good Samaritan’ Who Saved Indiana Mall Goers Is Denounced as No Hero
What makes someone a hero? How about a Good Samaritan? Evidently, such questions are contentious.
And a Sunday incident has some insisting a brave bystander shouldn’t be celebrated.
At the Greenwood Park Mall in the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area, a man opened fire. As reported by Deseret News, 20-year-old Johnathan Sapirman got off 24 rifle rounds.
Tragically, three were murdered: Victor Gomez, 30; and couple Rosa Rivera de Pineda, 37, and Pedro Pineda, 56. Two more were injured: a 20-year-old female shot in the leg; and a 12-year minorly wounded by a deflected bullet.
After entering the mall, Sapirman headed straight to the bathroom and was there for over an hour before exiting the bathroom and opening fire.
“The most puzzling piece…was the amount of time that he was in the bathroom,” [Chief James Ison] said. “We believe he was getting ready.”
But the man’s plans were thwarted because more than bad guys carry guns. Elisjsha Dicken, 22, stopped the mass shooter’s spree.
Footage…showed that Dicken shot 10 rounds from his handgun, while motioning for citizens at the mall to exit behind him.
Chief James has praised Elisjsha’s intervention:
“Many more people would have died last night if a responsible, armed citizen hadn’t been present…”
On Sunday evening, the chief compared Elisjsha to a biblical character. He did so again Monday:
“The shooter was confronted by our Good Samaritan. … The Good Samaritan was armed with a pistol and engaged the shooter as he stood outside the restroom area firing into the food court. [Elisjsha] fired several rounds, striking the suspect. The suspect attempted to retreat back into the restroom [but] fell to the ground after being shot.”
Does that sound like a hero to you? It doesn’t to a Bloomington traffic anchor. Murrow Award-winning journalist Justin Kollar was flabbergasted by the chief’s framing. He expressed his dismay in a tweet:
“The term ‘Good Samaritan’ came from a Bible passage of a man from Samaria who stopped on the side of the road to help a man… I cannot believe we live in a world where the term can equally apply to someone *killing* someone… my God.”
And he was none too impressed with Elisjsha packing heat.
“It’s against the @simonmalls code of conduct for anyone to carry a weapon inside the mall. However, Greenwood Police are thankful the…man was.”
Some online were in agreement. One user offered, “What you have is two gunmen — one of whom obeyed the law for a little longer than the mass shooter.”
More remarks:
So goes America’s divide over guns. For many advocates, if a firearm is used to do evil, it’s apparently the fault of the weapon. But if a gun is used to stop the act, that implement earns no points. Nor does the person who rightfully employed it.
A New Report Casts Doubt on the Assumption That Gun Law Violators Are a Public Menace
The vast majority of federal firearm offenses involve illegal possession, often without aggravating conduct or a history of violence.
A new report on federal firearm offenses shows that the vast majority involve illegal possession, often without aggravating circumstances or a history of violence. The data undermine the assumption that people who violate gun laws are predatory criminals who pose a serious threat to public safety. They also highlight the racially disproportionate impact of such laws, which is especially troubling given their excessive breadth.
In FY 2021, the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) reports, 89 percent of federal firearm offenders were legally disqualified from owning guns, typically because of a felony record. Half of those cases involved “aggravating criminal conduct.” But in the other half, the defendant’s “status as a prohibited person solely formed the basis of the conviction.”
The aggravating conduct, which triggered sentencing enhancements under the USSC’s guidelines, covered a wide range.
In 11 percent of the cases involving aggravating conduct, “an offender or co-participant discharged a firearm.” In 4 percent of the cases where a gun was fired, someone was killed; someone was injured in 18 percent of those cases.
Some cases involved a stolen gun, a gun with an “altered or obliterated serial number,” or a prohibited weapon, such as a machine gun or a sawed-off shotgun. Some defendants were engaged in gun trafficking. In more than a quarter of the cases, “the firearm facilitated, or had the potential to facilitate, another felony offense (most commonly drug trafficking).” That last category would include drug dealers who never threatened or injured anyone but kept or carried guns for self-defense.
As you would expect, aggravating factors resulted in relatively long prison sentences. The average was 55 months for cases involving stolen firearms or guns with altered serial numbers, 58 months in cases involving a prohibited weapon, 62 months in cases involving gun trafficking, and 119 months—nearly 10 years—in cases involving “the use of, or conspiracy to use, a firearm in connection with a crime of violence or drug trafficking crime.” In other words, the combination of drug possession and gun possession can be enough to put someone behind bars for a decade, which starkly illustrates the interaction between those two kinds of prohibitions.
In half of the cases involving “prohibited persons,” the defendant “did not engage in additional aggravating conduct.” The average sentence for such defendants was about three years. Even in those cases, you might surmise, the defendants’ prior criminal records probably indicated violent tendencies that justified sending them to prison for possessing a gun. But that is not necessarily true.
What Happens When The Taliban Gets Ahold Of Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal
All administrations attempt to put a certain amount of spin on reality. They tried to paint things in the most positive light. The Biden administration has taken this to an entirely new level. It has dispensed with reality entirely. It has created a completely fictional universe.
A few weeks ago the Biden administration trumpeted the killing of a not particularly significant terrorist leader in Syria. This was obviously intended to convey the message that Joe takes threats to the homeland seriously.
Meanwhile, in Central Asia, a new terrorist super state that dwarfs anything previously seen is being completely ignored. Afghanistan is not just under the control of the Taliban. It is now a terror behemoth armed to the teeth with the latest in American weaponry.
The Afghan Taliban that now rules in Kabul have made a formal alliance with the Pakistani Taliban – their brothers in arms. Open war has been declared on Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban have made clear their intention to overthrow the government in Islamabad and create and substitute – an Islamic state.
Pakistani security services are fighting an intensifying insurgency. Casualties are mounting. Increasingly the insurgents are found to be armed with American weapons and even utilizing American manufactured vehicles.
17 days after permitless carry goes into effect in Indiana and a young man decides it’s up to him to TCOB.
Houston would-be robber shot and killed by victim: report
The victim pulled his own weapon upon the suspect attempting to rob him near an ATM Saturday night, authorities said
A suspected robber was shot and killed over the weekend by his intended victim who had his own weapon, Houston police said.
The robbery occurred around 10:30 p.m. when a man was leaving an ATM. Another man tried to rob him and the victim pulled out a gun, Fox Houston reported.
Both men fired their weapons.
The suspect was struck once and authorities pronounced him dead at the scene. The news outlet said the shooter remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators.
In case it slipped anyone’s mind, I’ll reiterate that I’m not ‘anti-cop’, I’m anti stupid, and in this case, coward cops.
Uvalde Shooting Report Undermines Calls To Ban Guns and ‘Back the Blue’
Only you can be relied upon to protect you and your loved ones.
Ignore anybody who claims otherwise.
If you really need further evidence of how foolish it is to surrender your right to protect yourself and defer to government employees who are supposed to assume that responsibility, the record of police non-response during the Uvalde mass murder should do the job. Those who, in the future, continue to insist that we disarm ourselves and venerate government enforcers who are tasked to protect us should be unceremoniously kicked to the curb.
“At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety,” finds a devastating report published July 17 by the Texas House of Representatives Investigative Committee on the Robb Elementary Shooting. “The first wave of responders to arrive included the chief of the school district police and the commander of the Uvalde Police Department SWAT team. Despite the immediate presence of local law enforcement leaders, there was an unacceptably long period of time before officers breached the classroom, neutralized the attacker, and began rescue efforts.
That delay (73 minutes in the report, or 77 minutes according to news stories) was documented in excruciating detail in video of police response published last week in both edited and full form by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE before it was formally screened by authorities.
“We know now…that some students quietly called 911 from inside the classrooms for help, a critically wounded teacher could hear officers just outside the classroom, and that 911 dispatchers were fielding their calls of desperation,” Manny Garcia, executive editor, wrote for the Austin American-Statesman in explaining the decision to publish the video. “We also know that exasperated parents, family members and bystanders standing outside the school begged authorities to do something. After 77 minutes, the video shows the officers breach the classroom.”
Before the release of the Texas lawmakers’ report documenting failures not just by police, but by school officials who ignored their own security measures, some Uvalde families and government officials criticized the media for publishing the video before a carefully planned screening by Texas lawmakers.
The last time it was this high was during another demoncrap administration? Sound like a plan, not a problem.
More than 2 million illegal border encounters so far in fiscal 2022.
More than 2 million people have been encountered or apprehended at the U.S. southern border in fiscal 2022 through June, according to official data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
It’s the largest number recorded in a fiscal year in U.S. history. They total 2,002,604 from over 150 countries.
In June, a record 207,416 people were apprehended, the highest number recorded in June in the history of the Department of Homeland Security.
The total includes those apprehended and encountered by U.S. Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations staff. They exclude gotaways first reported by The Center Square, which includes at least another 50,009 people.
The total for June, including gotaways, was 257,425, a record high for the month.
“Gotaways” is the official term used by Border Patrol to describe foreign nationals who enter the U.S. illegally and don’t surrender at ports of entry but intentionally seek to evade capture from law enforcement. They are currently in the U.S. and no one in law enforcement knows who or where they are.
The last time encounters were nearly this high was the last summer of the presidency of Bill Clinton. In June 2000, 117,469 people were encountered/apprehended at the southern border, excluding gotaways.
Sen. Chris Murphy Strangely Silent After His ‘Good Guy With a Gun’ Theory Goes Down in Flames
As we previously reported, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) appallingly declared in a tweet last Tuesday that the fact that it took the Uvalde police so long to respond to the horrific Robb Elementary School mass shooting “puts to bed, forever” the “good guy with a gun” scenario often cited by Second Amendment defenders in their arguments.
“We’ve always known it was a gun industry created lie, designed to sell more guns,” he also wrote. “Now we just have the gut wrenching proof”:
While the chilling 77-minute police response video from Uvalde was indeed gut-wrenching, it in no way proved Murphy’s point – in fact, it proved just the opposite for reasons I and thousands of others explained to him in response to his remarks.
In the aftermath of the deadly Greenwood, Indiana mall mass shooting Sunday where three were killed and two were injured, Murphy has gone silent on his “good guy with a gun” theory – perhaps because Greenwood Police Chief James Ison noted in a press conference that the shooter was shot dead “almost as soon as he began” by a “good Samaritan,” a 22-year-old unidentified man who Ison said was “lawfully carrying” his firearm:
“The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop that shooter almost as soon as he began,” Ison told reporters during a press conference on Sunday night.
Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers also confirmed that the suspect was “shot by an armed individual,” whom he called a “good Samaritan.”
“This person saved lives tonight,” Myers said in a statement late Sunday. “On behalf of the City of Greenwood, I am grateful for his quick action and heroism in this situation.”
Silence from Gun Prohibitionists After Armed Citizen Stops Mall Shooter
Once again, gun prohibition lobbying groups are locked in silence after a legally-armed 22-year-old intervened quickly to fatally shoot a would-be mass killer who opened fire at the Greenwood Park Mall in Greenwood, Ind., in an action police are hailing as heroic.
“The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began,” Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison told a press briefing Sunday evening.
Reuters quoted Greenwood Mayor Mark Meyers, who said in a prepared statement, “We do know that someone we are calling a ‘Good Samaritan’ was able to shoot the assailant and stop further bloodshed. This person saved lives tonight. I am grateful for his quick action and heroism.”
It is not the first time an armed private citizen has killed a killer. According to the FBI, last year armed citizens stopped six “active shooters.” In four of those cases, the perpetrator was killed. In each case, the gun ban lobby was mum.
CNN noted in its coverage of the shooting, “It’s rare to have an armed bystander attack an active shooter, according to a data analysis published by The New York Times.”
“There were at least 433 active shooter attacks in the US from 2000 to 2021, according to the data analysis,” CNN added. “Active shooter attacks were defined as those in which one or more shooters killed or attempted to kill multiple unrelated people in a populated place.”
“Of those 433 active shooter cases, an armed bystander shot the attacker in 22 of the incidents. In 10 of those, the ‘good guy” was a security guard or an off-duty police officer, the Times reported.”
Three people were killed and two others wounded before the unidentified armed citizen intervened. However, authorities have suggested things could have been much worse if the killer had been able to continue his mayhem.
There is a small bit of irony reported by Reuters, which notes the mall is owned by the Simon Property Group, and they have a “no guns” policy. Here is the mall’s Code of Conduct found online:
While visiting this mall, the following general activities will not be accepted:
- Violations of the law
- Any activity that threatens the safety of our guests, tenants and/or employees
- Any activity that threatens the well-being of the property
- Any activity that disrupts our pleasant, family-oriented shopping environment
- Any activity inconsistent with the general purpose of the property, which is shopping, dining, visiting theaters or offices for business purposes
- Any activity that would disrupt the legitimate business of the property and its tenants
Examples of specific activities that are prohibited include but are not limited to:
- Disruptive profanity, vulgar or threatening language
- Unnecessarily blocking walkways, roadways or storefronts
- Running, horseplay or disorderly conduct of any nature
- Excessive loitering
- Operating unauthorized recreational and/or personal transportation devices in the shopping center
- No firearms or illegal weapons
“The center is a privately owned property. Guests who do not act responsibly may be asked to leave. If they refuse to leave the property, they may be arrested and prosecuted for criminal trespass.”
Clearly, the dead gunman violated virtually all of these rules, while the armed citizen apparently violated only the last tenet.
Greenwood Park Mall posted this statement on its website:
“We grieve for the victims of yesterday’s horrific tragedy at Greenwood Park Mall. Violence has no place in this or any other community. We are grateful for the strong response of the first responders, including the heroic actions of the Good Samaritan who stopped the suspect.”
Spoiler Alert: It’s All a Scam
This is war. We need to go on the offensive. It starts by describing the four corners of deceit, exposing them, and actually taking them back. It is late, but never too late.
Here is the hard-discovered truth.
The Left, which now controls all the centers of power and the commanding heights of the world economy, seeks to codify their ideology as science, and thereby make it irrefutable. You can’t disagree with it or you are a kook or insurrectionist. You are outside what Thomas Kuhn, called the “paradigm of normal science.”
Think about it. Everything these authorities tell you is true is, in fact, precisely the opposite of the truth.
Global warming is a hoax.
Universities are about indoctrination, not education.
Government is a form of manipulation with a two-tiered justice system.
The media is fake and journalism died long ago.
The financial system is a Ponzi scheme.
Trump did not collude with Russia.
The border is wide open.
Inflation is not transitory.
Defunding the police increases crime.
The pandemic did not originate in a wet market from pangolins.
Joe Biden is illegitimate.
Crackhead Hunter is not innocent.
Epstein didn’t kill himself.
Black Lives Matter and critical race theory are not about racial justice.
Women are not men and vice versa.
Virtue signaling isn’t about virtue.
Religion is not malevolent.
The late, great Rush Limbaugh was one of the first to visualize and expose the “four corners of deceit” in our culture that altogether combined, suffice to lie to students, citizens, and the American people.
The four corners of deceit are: government, academia, science, and the media. I had a hard time coming to this radical conclusion myself, as I wanted to believe otherwise, was not a conspiracist, and have attained all the laurels on offer from our current system. Just read my memoir, Davos, Aspen & Yale. I have been behind the elite curtain.
Like an Orwell novel, the clock is striking 13 in America. The farm animals on top know it and are so cynical they are laughing all the way to the bank and the voting booth. The populace, like lemmings, just goes along. What else can they do? As in the Thomas Hardy tale, Far From the Madding Crowd, the sheep, listless and unknowing, just fling themselves off the cliff, one after the other.
Ron DeSantis’s ‘Anti-Racist’ Mandate Leads University to Scrub Websites
The University of Central Florida (UCF) is complying with Gov. Ron DeSantis’s law prohibiting schools from accusing people of racism.
In the spring, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the “Stop WOKE Act,” which took effect on July 1 and laid out the restrictions of how race is taught in schools. It includes barring instruction that claims an individual’s “moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.”
In its reporting of the development, the Associated Press (AP) noted that some critics are outraged that the content has been removed:
In an email, UCF spokesperson Chad Binette said the school recently removed departmental statements that could be seen as “potentially inconsistent with our commitment to creating a welcoming environment — one where faculty objectively engage students in robust, scholarly discussions that expand their knowledge and empower them to freely express their views and form their own perspectives.”
“UCF is committed to building a culture that values respect, civil discourse, and creating a sense of belonging,” said Binette, the school’s assistant vice president of communications.
“This is a complete infringement of academic freedom,” Ann Gleig, a religious studies professor at UCF, said. “The statement was crafted over a period of time with dialogue and input across a person plus faculty trained in philosophy, religion and cultural studies and the humanities.”
“The DeSantis regime has made the anti-racist mission of my alma mater against the law,” Democrat State Representative Carlos G. Smith, a UCF graduate, tweeted. “This is a consequence of HB 7 and the Governor’s out-of-control censorship agenda. This is not freedom.”
The AP reported that according to the Orlando Sentinel, the anthropology department’s website previously said, “We acknowledge that many of us are born with unearned privilege, while others are denied basic human rights.”
The attacker was a male with a rifle and several magazines. But what stopped him almost immediately, according to the police, was a good Samaritan with a handgun who saw the shooting and responded, shooting the attacker and killing him. The hero is a 22-year-old man who had a legal permit and is cooperating with the police. They have not yet identified who the shooter is or what his motive was.
Man shoots, kills robbery suspect during ‘violent crime spree’ in St. Charles
ST. CHARLES — A St. Louis man on a bathroom break at a QuikTrip here shot and killed an armed robber early Saturday.
Police said the robber was on a “violent crime spree” across three St. Charles gas stations.
The QuikTrip customer, identified only as a 26-year-old man from St. Louis, stopped around 3:20 a.m. at the gas station at 2260 First Capitol Drive to use the restroom and make a purchase, St. Charles police said in a release. The man was on his way back to his vehicle in front of the store when he saw a black SUV pull up abruptly.
St. Charles police on Sunday identified the deceased man as Lance M. Bush, 26, of St. Louis. Police said Bush was homeless.
Police would not release the name of the customer who killed Bush, saying St. Charles County prosecutors will review the case first to determine if the killing was justified.
The customer watched Bush get out of the SUV, run into the QuikTrip carrying a backpack, and approach a clerk by the coffee pots, police said. Bush then grabbed the clerk and dragged her to the front of the store while she was screaming.
The customer saw Bush inside the station holding a knife to the clerk’s throat. The customer got his 9 mm handgun from his vehicle, entered the store, and confronted the suspect, police said.
Bush grabbed his backpack, told the man, “I have something for you,” and walked toward him, police said.
The customer then fired several times. Bush fell to the floor. The customer and the clerk, who were uninjured, both called 911, police said.
Bush was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Police said they believed Bush was responsible for two other crimes just prior to the QuikTrip incident.
Just before 3 a.m. Saturday a suspect entered an On The Run convenience store at a Mobil gas station at 1401 South Fifth Street and announced a robbery. He held a knife to the throat of a clerk, 43, while she opened the cash register, according to police.
The suspect then pushed the clerk to the floor, stole money from the cash register and dragged the clerk toward the rear of the store asking where the safe was. When the clerk couldn’t open the safe, he dragged her back to the front counter to open a second register. This suspect also fled in a black SUV.
The clerk had knife cuts on her left wrist, right hand and neck, and was taken to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
Around 3:15 a.m., with officers en route to the On The Run, a call came in for an alarm at Midtown Phillips 66, 524 First Capitol Drive. Officers found broken glass and began investigating it as a burglary.
Investigators determined the black SUV was a 2013 Toyota Highlander, reported stolen in an armed robbery on July 15 from the 13500 block of Riverport Drive in Maryland Heights.
Items believed to have been stolen from the burglary at Midtown Phillips 66 were located in the vehicle, police said.
Police declined to release surveillance video from the three gas stations.
Bush’s criminal history includes a pending felony property damage charge in St. Louis County. Charges said Bush was a former employee of the Applebee’s restaurant at 11077 New Halls Ferry Road and that on March 30, he began smashing several stacks of dishes and tossing frozen food when the restaurant’s manager told him his final paycheck wouldn’t be available for several days. Police said he caused an estimated $6,000 in damages.
Bush also had citations in St. Charles municipal court earlier this year for driving on a revoked license, trespassing and stealing. The address listed on the trespassing and stealing tickets is for the Ameristar Casino. In addition, Bush had a March 2 larceny citation in St. Louis County at a convenience store in Earth City.
For those morons who might ask: “Why would any one need a semiautomatic rifle for protection?” Direct them to this.
Video Shows Florida Homeowner Open Fire on 4 Home Invaders With a Semi-Auto Rifle.
Safety tip: don’t mess with an armed Florida Man. Video captured aspiring criminals knocking on a homeowner’s door in Escambia County, Florida last week. When he opened the door, two of them pushed him back inside while a third pulled a gun. As he was being pushed, the homeowner dropped a handgun he was holding when he opened the door and one of the attackers picked it up.
That’s when the homeowner grabbed a rifle.
From wtvy.com . . .
“The homeowner went and got an AK-47 style gun and he started shooting for his own protection to get them out of his house and to protect himself,” explained Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons.
Here’s video captured by a Ring doorbell camera that Sheriff Simmons released . . .
Faced with a determined defender, the home invaders made a hasty retreat into the night.
Investigators are still trying to figure out who one of the guys is (they have him circled in the Ring cam). Three others have been identified:
Arrested is 20-year-old Da’Torrance Hackworth for use/display of a firearm during a felony, possession of a firearm by a felon, larceny, grand theft of a firearm, and robbery/home invasion with a firearm.
Antonio Dewayne Dean Jr., 19, is wanted for use/display of a firearm during a felony, possession of a firearm by a felon, larceny, grand theft of a firearm, and robbery/home invasion with a firearm.
Joseph Roman Sanders is wanted for home invasion with a firearm.
As for the defender firing at his attackers, Sheriff Simmons made it clear that the armed self defense situation in question happened in a home in Florida’s panhandle, not in a New York City bodega.
“So those of you who might ask the question — is the homeowner going to be charged for shooting at these people? — Absolutely not. The homeowner is protecting himself and in Florida — in Escambia County — you can protect yourself,” said Sheriff Simmons.