Wouldn’t it be great if criminals would get into the spirit of the season and offer up peace on earth and good will towards men this time of year? Unfortunately, that’s apparently too much of a Christmas miracle to ask for. Thankfully, we live in a country where we’re not at the mercy of violent robbers, carjackers, and home invaders. Anti-gun activists may be doing everything they can to negate our right to keep and bear arms, but there are tens of millions of us who carry our lawfully-owned firearms every day in order to be prepared if the unthinkable happens.

In Rochester, New York, for example, a store owner recently stopped a string of armed robberies with the help of his legally-owned gun.

Investigators say the suspect began by robbing a Kwik Fill in Victor and then robbed a FastTrac on West Ridge Road and a Family Dollar on Dewey Avenue. They say the suspect was shot while attempting to rob Angelo’s Grocery. The timeline is as follows:

• 3:38 p.m.: robbery at Kwik Fill in Victor (a suspect and vehicle description was broadcast to RPD)
• 6:49 p.m.: robbery at the FastTrac at 375 W Ridge Road
• 7:07 p.m.: robbery at the Family Dollar at 706 Dewey Avenue
• 7:26 p.m.: attempted robbery at Angelo’s Grocery and Deli at 579 Thurston Road

While attempting to the last of the robberies, RPD officials said the store owner produced a legally owned hand gun and fired at the suspect, striking him. The store owner stayed on scene until police arrived.

A similar scene played out in New Orleans earlier this week when an armed robber entered a convenience store and fired a shot at one of the clerks. Another employee pushed her out of the way and drew his own firearm, ordering the armed robber to the ground.

But when robber continued shooting, the employee returned fire and killed him, said owner Nick Hingel, who wasn’t present during Tuesday night’s holdup, but watched the events unfold on video recorded by the store’s surveillance cameras. Neither of his employees was injured, Hingel said.

“This has been very traumatic for them,” Hingel said Wednesday afternoon while standing outside of the store, located in the 6500 block of Morrison Road.

Meanwhile, a Christmas Eve carjacking was thwarted in Denver, Colorado when the would-be victim pulled a gun of his own.

It started around 6:30 a.m. Thursday with a carjacking at Speer Boulevard and Colfax Avenue. The man who was involved in the carjacking then tried to carjack another driver in the area of Buchtel Boulevard and Downing Street, according to police. The driver at the second location shot and wounded him.

The injured carjacker was found by police a short time later and taken to a local hospital, while the driver who shot the carjacker was unharmed.

While these stories aren’t likely to receive any national media attention, they’re all incredibly important. Lives were saved because of the actions of these armed citizens, and if they hadn’t been able to exercise their Second Amendment rights these attempted robberies and carjackings would have likely had very different outcomes. All the gun control laws in the world wouldn’t have stopped these violent criminals from committing their crimes. It took armed citizens exercising their right to bear arms to put an end to these attacks.