Wrong place, wrong guy.
A Palm Beach County jewelry store. You’re going to rob it because that’s where the money is. And the guy behind the counter is a frail-looking codger. Looks like a piece of cake.
But your intel is faulty. Store owner Arthur Lewis may be 89-years-old, but the World War II vet is also, as the headline goes, “Armed & dangerous.”
He demonstrated it four years ago, when Brandon Johnson entered the store shooting. Johnson fired one shot, Lewis answered with five. Somehow neither got hurt.
What happened several days ago was scarier than the 2010 confrontation, Lewis says. He was working behind the counter when Lennard Jervis thrust a gun at him; Lewis grabbed it and brought out his .38; the two grappled with and shot at each other. Lewis did okay. Jervis ended up taking four bullets to the chest and two more to the arm and leg before finally lurching to the exit and not getting very far. He is expected to survive his wounds.
Lewis’s girlfriend says: “People think because he’s 89, he’s frail. That irritates me because he’s anything but.”
“It’s a hazardous business,” says Lewis. “I thought he was going to kill me as soon as I saw the gun. I thought, ‘This time, I’m dead.’”
The right to bear arms isn’t just for geese hunting and target practice. Sometimes it really comes in handy.
Sometimes it’s life or death.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
13 replies on “Bearing Arms and Using Them”
More people depending on themselves and not government to protect them.
OT: Rand Paul: Iran And Syria Have The “Means And Ability” To Wipe Out ISIS
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=95e_1409825324
Classic avoidance of the real issues: whose right to bear which arms … 9 year old girl with Uzi, criminals with AK47s and no background check?!
Mr. Lewis, legally armed and obliviously trained in the use of his legal DEFENSIVE weapon, is still with us today because he has been, and continues to be, wise enough to exercise his Constitutional 2nd Amendment right.
Any politician who wishes to take this Constitutional and natural right of his constituents to defend themselves by the most effective means possible should be willing to lead by example. All gun control advocates should, openly. publicly and often declare themselves to be personal “gun free zones” and disarm any personal security details. They should rely ONLY on the same police force they provide the citizens. Obviously, that will not happen.
This is only another example of the progressive/elitist “do as I say, not as I do” philosophy imposed on the citizens, but not the rulers.
Lewis needs a better brand of ammunition, or something bigger than a .38; perhaps a .45 acp.
Mike, it is you who are avoiding the real issue. Criminals, BY THEIR ACTIONS, may forfeit many of their constitutional rights, including their freedom and right to arms. That is and never was objectionable.
Allowing a 9 year old to fire a fully automatic weapon is a clear example of terminal stupidly, and rewarded as such commonly is.
Your arguments are fallacious. You cannot protect rights and liberty by taking them, especially if that is away from everyone except the ruling class.
Apparently you cannot understand that this is actually market driven. Individuals would not invest their scare resources in defensive measures if there were no perceived need. All security sectors — weapons, alarms, surveillance, in both the private and governmental sectors, are booming. Why?
Approached from another angle, are you proposing the better result would have been that Mr. Lewis had been deprived of his property, and perhaps life, by Mr. Jervis as opposed to having the ability to defend himself.
If you believe, then live your faith, declare yourself, and you environs, openly and often “gun free”. Hopefully that will work out better for you than it has in Chicago and Washington, DC.
Please forgive me if I act opposite to your lead.
JFB, You make some valid points. However, when criminals and mentally-disturbed people can purchase AK47s at a Gun SHOW with no questions asked, the right to life of law abiding citizens (potential victims) is forfeited. Only a morally primitive society equates freedom with the possession of weapons. We need reasonable laws to license guns, cars, medical care, airline pilots, etc.
Mike,
We are much closer to a totalitarian, fascist government than you apparently believe. The right to bear arms protects you from an individual with bad intent as well as being a caution light to a fascist police force that would kick your door in in the middle of the night if you got on the wrong end of a political squabble with the local city council.
Germany regards the NSA as MORE intrusive than the Stasi ever was.
Look around. Militarized police invading homes with SWAT teams over minor issues. They WANT to disarm you because they need more and more of your tax money to prop up their over-extended pension systems and insolvent governments and they want no resistance from you. We are Europe in <5 years.
I would just like to be that healthy, strong, engaged & alert if I make it to that age.
Mike, I have no problem with background checks and restrictions regarding the mentally ill.
I have a major problem with a national gun registration and data base due to the probable use which an ever expanding nanny, moving to national socialist, state may eventually put it to.
Populations have been disarmed numerous times in the all too recent past, commonly with disastrous results. The slaughter of their own citizens by their governments is rampant in the last century, killing more than all of the “wars” combined. The criminal and mentally ill anomalies have been, nor will they ever be able to reap the havoc and evil which history teaches us occurred in Germany, Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia, and now the Middle East, just to name a few, against their own citizens. Each time those populations, ignoring history, believed it could never happen there.
Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to relive it.
I love and pray for my country, and fear all governments. I prefer to be able — if necessary — to defend myself as necessary against the criminal, mentally ill, or government.
Given the current, and declining, moral base of the country, I am no longer quite as sure as I once was that all three do not share similar definitions).
I would respectfully suggest that you review closely the letter and spirit of the Ten Commandments, google and read “The Law” by Bastiat, review current affairs of our county and its present politics, and read a bit of 20th Century history before you form your final opinion and recommended policy.
Hooray for Mr. Lewis! May others learn from his example.
We Americans enjoy many more freedoms and privileges than other countries, not because our government fears engaging in a violent confrontation with a gun-toting citizen militia (an historical anachronism), but because it chooses to support and protect our democratic culture. If the U.S. military wanted to create a fascist state, it would have easily done so long ago. It is paranoia to fear our government … a sad worldview. Indeed: the 10 Commandments abhor killing and demand love of neighbors (aka government). Jesus’ Beatitudes bless the peacemakers and pure of heart. Thanks for your concerns and candor.
” It is paranoia to fear our government … a sad worldview.”
The government consists of individuals in a certain organizational structure, with the power to use force in a legally protected way that the rest of us do not have. Sometimes members of behave well and appropriately. Sometimes they don’t, and destroy the rights of innocents and sometimes their very lives. When governments act to destroy the rights and lives of individuals, whether in this country or any other, what sense does it make to say that we should not “fear” its destructive power? Power that can be and often is abused? It’s because we rightly fear that power when out of control that we attempt to constitutionally constrain it to begin with.