A knife-wielding 25-year-old home invader didn’t phase 92-year-old World War II veteran Hugh Mathis and his 89-year-old wife Ruby in the slightest.  Robert Kelly Jr. demanded money.

Mr. Mathis offered him something else in return.

“He stuck the knife out there and said ‘Give me your money,’ and I said ‘You go to hell!'” Hugh Mathis said.

“They were talking real low, and I came in to see what it was and when I did he was standing in front of Hugh with a knife saying, ‘Give me the money out of your pocket,’ so when I heard that I ran to the bedroom and got the gun,” Ruby Mathis added.

Hugh Mathis said he had no intention of handing over his money.

He said Kelly knew they didn’t fear him.

“He ran out the door. I was getting up to get a club and then I was going to work him over real good,” Hugh Mathis said.

Springfield Township issued a warrant and Kelly was arrested a short time later.

While it seems unlikely that Mr. Mathis—who walks with a cane—would be able to give the much younger criminal the beat-down he promised, Mrs. Mathis’s firearm could certainly have ended Kelly’s criminal career if he hadn’t chosen to flee when he did.

It is incidents like this that remind us that criminals don’t typically prey on those that they think are strong. They target the elderly, the infirm, the small, the weak, and the lone individual.

This is why in a civilized and intelligent society, the citizenry should always be armed against those that are neither civilized, nor intelligent.