The Armed Citizen® June 2010

*Police said that early one morning, an armed suspect burst into a home office in an area described by one resident as "a quiet neighborhood." Hearing the burglar, the resident quickly armed himself with a firearm. When the burglar approached, the resident feared for his life and shot the suspect, killing him. "I'm not for someone being shot," said Nora Dietz, a concerned neighbor, "but you have to protect yourself." (The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, MD, 3/29/10)

*A crazed, knife-wielding man attempted to stab people at random in a convenience store parking lot. Police said he'd already chased a delivery driver and others when he ran down a car leaving the lot. He lunged at the car's driver with the knife, wounding him. That's when the driver, whose two young stepdaughters were in the vehicle, produced a handgun and fired about six shots, killing the attacker. The driver will recover from his injuries. "You've got to protect yourself," said witness Byron Cook. "He had his two kids in the car and they were terrified." (WREG-TV, Memphis, TN, 03/05/10)

The Armed Citizen Extra

(The following account did not appear in the print version of American Rifleman.)

One afternoon, two male suspects entered a jewelry store and demanded money from the store owner at gun point. The store owner then pulled his own gun from underneath a desk and fired a shot at the men, causing them to flee. Police later found one of the men with a gunshot wound in his chest lying in the grass neaby. The other suspect remains at large. (NBC-26, Green Bay, WI, 09/09/09)

From the Armed Citizen Archive

June 1960: Sixteen-year-old John Rubel was with his grandmother in the living quarters over her Chicago tavern when they heard glass break in a window below. John raced downstairs, grabbed the cal .32 revolver behind the bar, and pointed it at a man climbing into the window. "You're too young to use that gun," said the burglar, and John fired, the burglar tumbling out the window and fleeing the scene. Police soon arrested a suspect with a bullet wound in his shoulder. (Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago IL)