Tuesday Morning Feel Good Story
Chief Tango sends us our feel good story this morning, this time from Seattle when two men entered a convenience store late Saturday night;
Robert Moore was ringing-up a customer around 10 p.m. at the Morning Star Mini Mart, located in the 8800 block of 9th Ave SW, when two men entered the store wearing ski masks. One of the men stayed near the entrance of the store while the other attempted robber approached the counter and pointed a gun at Moore.
“This is a robbery,” Moore said the man told him.
Moore said the attempted robber’s gun didn’t look real.
“I looked at his gun and said ‘I have a bigger one than you do,’ ” he said.
Moore then turned to reach for his own gun and that’s when the attempted robbers took off in a white SUV with dark markings toward the rear of the driver’s side and a sun roof.
I guess the incident has sparked a debate about gun-free zones in Seattle;
KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson says this is a perfect example of why the gun-free zone business campaign in Seattle doesn’t make sense.
“Here’s what would have happened if that had been one of the gun-free zone stores. The crooks would have walked in with their toy gun, everybody not knowing if it was real or not and not able to defend themselves, probably would have had to have kowtowed to them, turned over the cash, and the crooks would have gotten away so they could buy drugs,” says Dori.
“But at the store where a store owner keeps a gun to defend himself from the punks, the punks run off, nobody gets hurt and nothing gets stolen.”
Apparently, more than a hundred businesses in Seattle have signed on to be “gun free zones”. Maybe this will bring that to a screeching halt.
Category: Feel Good Stories
Signing on to be gun free zones? That makes sense. Do they display a sign in the window for customers and potential armed robbers to know? I would hope so. That would relieve those that do not participate of any worry of being robbed. The armed stores won’t have to get worry about getting robbed, and the in theory, the gun free zone stores will just turn over their cash and nobody will get hurt. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go feed Skittles to my herd of unicorns.
Hack.Stone: now I’m confused. I thought unicorns produced Skittles, not at them. Is your herd a variant species? Or are you just playing a nasty joke on them? (smile)
Regarding the article: I guess it simply proves that there are at least 100
moronsmentally-challenged individuals who own businesses in Seattle, along with at least two crooks in the same category.Unicorns are perpetual Skittles producers. They average 1:10 production rates across the herd.
I was following the APL business plan. Shit in; shit out.
“It’s a good place and Robert’s so great to the locals and stuff like that,” said customer Rich Morris. “It’s just a shame when people get desperate like that.”
Who told him that the robbers were desperate? For all anyone knows, they could be robbing people weekly or daily. It’s a potentially dangerous job but the hours are good, overhead is low, there are no taxes on the take, and one never knows when he’s going to score big.
@1: I was thinking the same thing; do these businesses put up signs that say “gun free zone”? That would make sense and if I owned a business in Seattle (yeah, like I would ever move to Seattle) I would demand that those snarky bastards would have to put up a sign stating they were a “gun free zone”. That way I would have more business and I wouldn’t have to worry about being robbed.
Who in the hell would want to sign their name to anything that said gun free zone? If that list is public the criminals know exactly where to go…
*facepalm*
Okay boys and girls. Gun free zones are a public service ’cause robbers told the stores that they didn’t want to drive around a pick places at random, that is disorderly. They wanted a short list of places to hit. It also makes it easy for the convenience stores — they can keep a pile of cash in a paper bag and hand it over on demand. After all, they are called convenience stores for a reason.
Any place of business today can declare itself a “gun free zone”. No new law is required.
Enforcing it, however, can be problematic. Criminals don’t tend to care that much about such laws.
It’s also an open question whether doing so is a good idea in the absence of on-premises armed security and metal detectors at the doors. For many businesses, both might tend to be counterproductive to making a profit.
While I was applying for the Seattle PD, I found out that some of these business owners were fighting tooth and nail to include police in the umbrella of gun free zones. They wanted police to remove their weapons before entering their businesses. Obviously the police union balked, but it’s alarming that people are even thinking this.
I’m disappointed. I thought this was going to be one of those ‘two men enter, one man leaves’ stories, with the shop owner as the ‘one man’.
My understanding about unicorns is that they do eat skittles, but the refuse is either small colored marshmallows or smarties, depending on the time of year.
What in the blue-eyed world is an ‘attempted robber’?
Ex-PH2: I think it’s called “an example of p!ss-poor written English”. I could be wrong. (smile)
State gun law in Washington is actually pretty good. Local municipalities only have minor powers to regulate discharge of firearms and zoning of gun ranges. We have had concealed carry and open carry since 1964. If someone is discovered in a so called gun free zone with a legally carried weapon (university, business) the police will ask them to leave and if they don’t it could bring only a trespassing charge. Of course University students and employees could be dismissed. Every once in a while someone is arrested by a police officer who doesn’t understand the law but I think it gets straigtened out.
Unicorns and Skittles! Must be a regional thing, because unicorns here produce nothing of value and the only way to get Skittles is with a bunch of expensive cultivation. Neither are worth the time and money it takes to keep, much less replicate, them.
Meanwhile – any business owner should be free to post his or her property as gun-free. It really should be a decision made by the owner and none of my business. OK, sure, I think it would be a very stupid decision, especially for a convenience store owner, but it is just not mine to make for the owner of a private business.
Gun free zones only work if you follow the sign. Last time I checked, it was the same way with laws. If a criminal isn’t going to follow the law, what makes people think they will follow the writing on a little plastic sign that tells them there are defenseless sheep within?
“Gun free zones only work if you follow the sign.”
Yup. I try to scan the front doors of businesses that I enter for any “no weapons allowed” signage. (An old habit from my RKBA activist days in Phoenix.)
And on the rare occasion that I actually SEE such a sign, I ignore it and go right in anyways. I carry concealed, and what they (or their customers) don’t know, won’t hurt them.
I know that technically I’m probably committing trespass. Like I said, “What they don’t know …”
“Gun free zone” … heh.
Attempted robber: See “intended robber”? (Or “failed robber”?)
BTW, the piece in the still looks like a Dan Wesson. Haven’t seen one a them in probably 20+ years.