An armed robber got more than a close shave when he attempted to rob a Milwaukee barbershop Friday afternoon, as it turns out that one of the customers was a concealed carrier who waited for just the right moment to put him down:

The robbery happened about 12:30 p.m. at the Level Up Barber Shop and Auto Body Repair near 31st Street and Cameron Avenue.

A co-owner of the store, who asked only to be identified as Ty, talked about the fatal shooting and attempted robbery.

“He asked some questions about how much a haircut costs, then went into the bathroom to put his mask on and get his gun ready or whatever,” Ty said.

Milwaukee police said the robber started patting down customers when one of them pulled out a gun and shot the man.

The co-owner said his customer protected himself and other patrons.

“One of the customers acted in self-defense. He had his (concealed-carry permit), a registered firearm, and unfortunately killed the robber,” Ty said.

Her’s the kicker: the customer who fired upon the armed robber wasn’t even the only concealed carrier in the shop. The co-owner who spoke with the media, Ty, also carries.

I have to wonder if this is an inkling of a trend.

Concealed carry has continued to normalize over the past few decades as an accepted social practice among an ever-more diverse group of people.

The number of concealed carriers continues to climb across race, sex, and class lines,  and may be approaching a tipping point—especially in high-crime neighborhoods—where lawful and trained concealed carriers not only over-match criminals with better training and skills, but with more numbers in some areas as well.

There are now more than 11 million licensed concealed carriers in the United States, and that doesn’t include the significant number of legal concealed carriers in four states (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Vermont) where a carry permit isn’t required.

We don’t know if anyone is specifically tracking concealed carry defensive gun uses (DGUs), or if it is even possible to accurately track DGUs, since most do not result in shots fired.

Many of these successful “display-only” DGUs are never reported to police.

Purely as a practical matter, we seem to be having more “Guns Saving Lives” stories to pick and choose from every month, suggesting that there are either more defensive guns uses out there, or the media is simply reporting them better.

We’ll call either one of those possibilities a very good thing for society at large, and an “inconvenient truth” for the supporters of citizen control.