Fighting back by Robert A. Waters
Fighting back by Robert A. Waters
The anti-gunners tell you to give your local
robber the money. Don’t fight back, they say. Your life isn’t worth the
few dollars he’s going to take from you.
Yeah, right!
Our nation’s graveyards are littered with victims who followed that
advice.
A recent case brought the subject to mind. In St. Petersburg, Florida,
store clerk Mounir Saghraoui was shotgunned as he lay helpless on the
floor.
On April 21, 2002, at 11:45 p.m., two masked gunmen burst into the
Haines Corner Beverage Depot. One held a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun,
the other a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun. They ordered the two
clerks on duty to lie on their stomachs. Then they took $ 803.00 from
the till. Before leaving, the assailant holding the shotgun placed it
point-blank against Saghraoui’s body and pulled the trigger.
The blast tore away the clerk’s femoral artory. He would have bled to
death had neighbors not heard the shot and rushed to his aid. They
wrapped the wound until paramedics arrived. Even so, Saghraoui was in
critical condition at a local hospital.
According to Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Paul Martin,
the clerks did everything the robbers demanded.
In some cases, though, bandits don’t have it so easy.
For instance, a ski-masked robber tried to hold up the Family Market in
nearby Dade City, Florida. Manuel Abed was having none of it. He pulled
a handgun and fired at the man. Abed missed, but the thug fled
empty-handed.
In Ward, Arkansas, a masked bandit wasn’t so lucky. On the evening of
January 19, 2000, Shane Edward Williams entered Buddy’s Food and Fuel.
He pointed a gun at the clerk and demanded money. Pam Sowell,
moonlighting from her teaching job, pulled her own Ruger semiautomatic
.40-caliber handgun and drilled him with one shot to the heart. Williams
died at the scene. When police identified the thug, many were surprised
to discover that he was a star football player on the local high school
team. He too had been moonlighting for nearly a year–as a robber.
When Larry Spencer Burchfield tried to rob Sam and Jerry’s Market in
Knoxville, he got shot for his trouble. The career criminal and drug
addict entered the store holding a tire iron. He pushed a female clerk
out of the way and tried to open the cash drawer. The clerk grabbed a
.38-caliber pistol and shot him in the chest. Burchfield managed to flee
the store but was quickly captured.
And so it goes. Manchester, New Hampshire store owner Robert Baroody
placed a warning shot above the head of a robber, sending the thug
running. In Jacksonville, Florida, Warren “Boo” Grant was gunned down by
a clerk as he attempted to rob a convenience store. In Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania, a robber punched store owner Andres Rivera in the face–an
employee then grabbed a pistol causing the robber to flee. In Tampa, the
owner of an auto repair shop shot and killed a gunman who had ordered
him to “give it up.”
It reminds me of a time not long ago when the prevailing wisdom was that
women should submit to rapists. Whatever you do, they were told, don’t
fight back. The fallacy of that advice became abundantly clear as woman
after woman was abducted, raped, and murdered by men who had no fear of
the consequences. Now, women are told to do everything in their power to
get away, even if it means fighting back.
Mounir Saghraoui did what the anti-gunners tell store clerks to do. He
let the robbers have the money. He was non-threatening. He obeyed their
orders and lay compliant on the floor.
He still got shot.
The prevailing wisdom isn’t always right, particularly when there’s a
political agenda behind it.
Robert A. Waters is author of “The Best Defense: True Stories of
Intended Victims Who Defended Themselves with a Firearm.” His second
book, “Guns Save Lives: True Stories of Americans Defending Themselves
with Firearms,” is due out later this month.
