Even though most people think about cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia when we talk about violent, crime, St. Louis actually has a higher crime rate than any of them. In fact, it’s one of the most violent cities in the United States according to the FBI. While the city’s leaders haven’t done much to combat the violence other than to call for the implementation of more gun control laws, at least residents who choose to do so can exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in self-defense without the draconian restrictions found in many deep blue Democratic-run cities and states. Oh, St. Louis is definitely a one-party town, but thankfully Missouri’s firearm preemption laws don’t permit the city to run roughshod over the Second Amendment rights of its citizens.
If St. Louis had New York’s gun control laws, a 37-year old woman may have made headlines for being a homicide victim on Monday night. Instead, she made news for defending her life from a pair of would-be carjackers.
The 37-year-old victim says just seconds after she parked outside her apartment Monday night, two young men passed her. She says at first the 13-year-old suspect asked to use her cell phone. He was with an older teen, about 16 years old.
“The other young man said, ‘So, you don’t have a phone?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t.’ And he pulled out his gun and said, ‘Well, give me your keys,’” the woman said.
The woman says the 13-year-old took off with her keys and kept trying to start her car. She says he kept his hand wrapped in a piece of clothing, as if he had a gun, but never revealed one.
“My mind frame was to keep the other gentleman calm, so therefore, he wouldn’t shoot. It was pretty frightening,” the woman said.
But despite her fears, the woman pulled her own gun out of her purse and fired multiple times.
According to police, the older teen got away, while the 13-year old was discovered about a block away with a gunshot wound to the leg. He’s now in custody, but the 16-year old hasn’t yet been found.
Now, gun control activists who dare to cast their eyes on a story of self-defense will undoubtably focus on the fact that a 16-year old (and potentially the 13-year old as well) got ahold of a gun. Missouri is a Constitutional Carry state, and several years ago it got rid of its requirement that all handgun purchasers first apply for and receive a permit from their local police to do so; two policies that the gun control lobby can’t stand and would surely blame for allowing the teen to get his hands on a pistol.
Yet we know that even in states with pistol purchase permit requirements like North Carolina, teens can easily get ahold of a gun. Let’s face it, even when we actually manage to ban something, we’re not really able to get rid of it. I mean, we’ve banned drugs like heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl completely, yet drug use among teens and young adults is widespread enough that there were nearly 5,000 overdose deaths last year. And guns aren’t illegal. In fact, we have about 400-million of them in private hands in the United States, with more than a million more being sold every month. The gun control movement is predicated on the idea of, well, controlling guns, which I’d argue is not only constitutionally problematic, but completely pointless as a serious public safety strategy.
Yet in most major cities, the prevailing cultural attitude imposed by city leaders and public officials for decades is that guns are bad, you shouldn’t own them, so don’t touch them. In fact, don’t even think about them. But while a culture of legal gun ownership has been frowned upon, a culture of illicit gun ownership has been allowed to flourish. We see how well that’s working out, right?
Would more gun control laws have prevented this carjacking? Ask New Yorkers, where carjackings are up 81% compared to 2020 (and up 277% from 2019). No, gun control prevents people from acting to protect themselves as the armed citizen in St. Louis did.
I’m glad this 13-year old survived his attempted carjacking, and I hope this near-death experience is the wakeup call he needs to chart a different course in life, as hard as it might be. I just can’t help but wonder if he would even have been there on Monday night if he had a chance to learn about guns from, say, a JROTC program in school instead of a buddy on the street.
