A 51-year-old security guard was confronted and them murdered  in a Greensboro, NC, Food Lion Saturday night, for no apparent reason other than the suspect wanted the guard’s gun.

A security guard from Winston-Salem is dead after being shot inside a grocery store Saturday night, Greensboro police said. No arrests have been made.

Anthony Smith, 51, died at the hospital after being shot around 7:20 p.m. at the Food Lion at 2316 E. Market St. near South English Street. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head, police said.

Smith worked for Guard One and was on-duty at the store at the time of the shooting, police said. Smith was in the store when the armed suspect confronted him and shot him at close range, police said.

The suspect took Smith’s gun from his holster and fled the scene on foot, police said. He was last seen heading south on South English Street, police said.

There were no signs of the suspect trying to rob the store or any customers, police said. No disturbances involving Smith were reported or observed inside the store before the shooting, police said.

Police released surveillance images of the suspect on Monday and described the suspect as a light-skinned, heavy-set black man in his early 30s standing 5’10” to 6′ tall. He was wearing a black hoodie, black pants, a black hat and Nike shoes, police said.

The killer made no attempt to rob the store or any customers. His singular intent was to murder this guard and take his handgun.

Uniformed security guards are hired by stores to provide peace of mind and serve as a deterrent to casual criminals, such as petty shoplifters and aggressive panhandlers. They are not law enforcement officers, do not generally have good training, and the physical and mental screening for security guards isn’t that high (which is perhaps why we’ve had two security guards go on terrorist killing sprees this year alone).

Aggressive predators are not deterred by either unarmed or armed security guards, but it is relatively rare to seen a criminal so callous that he would murder a guard just to acquire an additional handgun.

A man who would murder someone for a handgun would presumably have no problem doing the same with an open carrier who typically has even less training and general awareness than armed security guards.

We’ve noticed that there are generally only four kinds of open carry stories.

1. a group of people open carry as a form of political protest (generally without law enforcement involvement)
2. an individual open carries as a form of political protest (often with law enforcement involvement, including occasional arrests)
3. an individual open carrier who is oblivious to his surroundings has his/her picture posted to gun forums pointing out his/her utter lack of awareness and generally poor choice of gun and holster.
4. an open carrier is attacked for his weapon, with the criminal generally being successful.

We would love to report that open carry deters crime, but there is simply no data suggesting that this is a true statement. Folks, criminals laugh at open carriers. They view them as targets, no different than someone with a cash-filled wallet hanging out of their back pocket as they stand in the checkout line, nose buried in a smart phone and oblivious to the world.

There is a reason that the supermajority of defensive firearms instructors carry their handguns concealed, folks.

Avoiding becoming a target is just one of them.