CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — In West Ridge, if you’re working as a clerk in a convenience store, you’re either armed or you’re a sitting duck. One 21-year-old clerk wasn’t going to just be another victim in a city plagued by endless violence.
Two teenagers entered his store at approximately 12:55 a.m., brandishing guns and announcing their intentions to rob him. He pulled his gun and shot both of them. According to DNAinfo, both robbers were hit with non-life-threatening shots and were apprehended by police. Police saw to their medical treatment and consider both to be stable.
The clerk received minor injuries and was cared for on sight. He wasn’t shot but he was likely banged up a little in the ensuing fight. He didn’t, however, take a threat to his life laying down.
Young gangbangers with “something to prove and nothing to lose” has become an all too common adage thrown about in Chicago. In a city with one of the worst homicide rates in the country, hundreds of thousands of people are held hostage by the chance that some young buck with a chip on his shoulder is going to barge into their place of work and threaten them.
For some, they don’t get back out alive.
Not that far away, on that same night, two women were robbed at gunpoint. When they failed to provide the cash the robber sought, he shot both of them. Both got lucky and only received non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
That’s not the type of luck anyone wants but when you’re the victim, that’s the only luck there is.
The robber didn’t get his way and decided to shoot them anyways. That’s how it goes in Chicago. That’s why it’s important to become a concealed carrier. Even if you comply with your attacker, there’s no guarantee he doesn’t use force anyways. He has all the time in the world to decide how he wants to permanently mar or end your life. If you don’t have a gun and know how to use it, you just have to wait and see.
For those two women, they got to wait and see. For that clerk who fought back and won, he doesn’t have to. Do the math. Don’t let some dumb criminal decide how the rest of your life goes. Make the decision to get armed up, permitted, and trained properly. And then, above all else, carry that handgun every single day, everywhere you legally can. The life you save could be your own.