PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA — People forget that unlike other major metropolitan cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the citizens of the city of Brotherly Love can and do carry concealed. Thankfully, a customer at a gas station in Philadelphia was able to use his legally concealed carry handgun to stop an attempted carjacking and robbery from taking place.
According to FOX 29 Philadelphia, the concealed carrier was walking out of a gas station store with a bag of potato chips when he encountered a man first try to rob a gas station clerk exiting the building and then, when that failed, try to rob him.
The robbery suspect was parked inside a blue minivan as the store was believed to be closing. The gas station clerk walked out into the parking lot where he was confronted by the suspect and told to get in the minivan. The clerk ran back into the store for safety.
Undeterred by his failed attempt, the robber saw another guy eating from a bag of potato chips and must have figured he could recover by pointing his illegally owned handgun at him. Well, the guy holding the chips was a concealed carrier and he was armed. Seeing a gun pointed at him, he had seconds to react. He drew his pistol and reportedly fired three times — striking the robber’s abdomen, hand and back.
Police took the criminal to the hospital where he is undergoing surgery to save his life. The man who defended his life produced his concealed carry license to police and cooperated with the investigation. In this process, his gun was confiscated.
This guy did everything right and he survived a really tough situation.
To briefly touch on another point, if your gun gets confiscated by police following a defensive gun use situation, make sure to get a receipt for that gun and pursue it through the process of civil forfeiture. Police may have a right to take your gun as evidence if it was used in a situation, but they don’t have a right to keep it.
Get your gun back. Those things are expensive and if you end up using it and are alive to talk about it — it obviously did its part.
Also, carry everywhere you go. Nobody expects to run into an armed robber while walking to the local gas station to pick up a bag of chips. That bag of chips could have been a soda or a six-pack but it’s all the same to bad guys looking for easy prey. Defending your life takes a 24/7 commitment to concealed carry.
