A Philadelphia man who did a crappy job of concealing his handgun was targeted and nearly killed by a robber who took his gun in a crime of opportunity:

Surveillance video captured an intense fight inside a Philadelphia deli in which a shot was fired after a suspect tried to rob a customer who happened to be armed and licensed to carry.

The suspect walked into the Hoagie City deli on the 600 block of North 40th Street back on August 9 at 12:10 a.m. Police say the suspect then grabbed a 22-year-old customer inside from behind and tried to rob him.

Surveillance cameras captured the customer, who was armed and licensed to carry, fight off the robber. As the two men fought, the customer’s gun fell from his hip. The two men then struggled over the gun until the robber was able to gain control. Police say he then fired one shot that narrowly missed the customer and struck the ceiling vent. The customer then chased the robber out of the store. The robber managed to escape however.

The suspect is described as a man in his early 20’s standing between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-10. He was last seen wearing a plaid checkered shirt with a red or orange colored shirt underneath and a red baseball cap.

This is the third (or is it the fourth?) time in a year that a bad guy has “made” a open or concealed carrier and decided to attempt to take the weapon. In all but one of the attempts that I can recall, the robber was successful, and in the unsuccessful attempt the victim was still injured.

What were the contributing factors here?

• poor concealment/choice of cover garment
• inadequate holster
• poor plan/training to retain his weapon

The video shows the suspect walk into the store, step up behind the concealed carrier, and immediately identifies the clear outline of the poorly concealed gun on the concealed carrier’s right hip under a too-tight tee shirt. The bright green of the shirt helps define the outline of the gun, and you can clearly see the grip casting a shadow even in this poor-quality surveillance film.

For all intents and purposes, this was open carry.

You can see an actually see the criminal do a double-take in the other camera view as he spots the weapon as soon as he walked up. He then makes the decision to relieve the concealed carrier of it.

Once the criminal goes for the gun the concealed carrier does his best to protect it, but it falls out of the holster (suggesting the holster is poorly made) and hits the ground. The criminal picks the gun up in the scramble, fires a shot, and flees. The now unarmed concealed carrier gives chase out of the store, but the criminal gets away.

Fortunately, police have a positive ID on the suspect (suggesting he is a known criminal) and are in the process of getting a warrant for his arrest.

Say what you will of appendix carry, but if the same concealed carrier was carrying the same gun in the same clothes in an adequate appendix carry holster, the criminal would not have seen the gun so easily, if he saw it at all. If the criminal had gone after an appendix carrier, the appendix carrier would have been in a much better position, physiologically, to protect/retain/deploy his weapon in a fight.