A concealed carry holder in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park was able to defend himself during armed robbery attempt on Tuesday morning. The intended victim was filling up his car at a gas station when a masked man approached and pulled out a handgun.
Surveillance video from the gas station shows the customer reaching behind his back and drawing a gun of his own before firing multiple shots. The would-be armed robber then dropped his gun and fled the scene.
Orland Park police described the incident as an attempted armed holdup and confirmed that the customer who fired the gun is an Illinois Concealed-Carry License holder.
"I would hope that he would just give up his keys, let him take his car, and the guy wouldn't have to use his weapon. Luckily, he had a weapon on him, and he wasn't afraid to take it out," Elmosa said.
Yeah, the problem with just handing over the keys to a guy with a gun is that the guy with the gun may decide to just shoot you anyway. I refuse to place my trust in the person who's pointing a gun at my face. It looks like the armed citizen has the same mindset.
It also appears that he's a decent shot. Police say the suspect was shot and was taken to a local hospital for treatment after he was apprehended just a short distance away.
ABC 7 reports that police have not identified either person involved and have not said whether charges are expected. I think we can make an educated guess, though, that the masked man who tried to rob the concealed carry holder is going to end up facing multiple charges, while the man who defended himself from an armed robbery will not face prosecution.
This defensive gun use happened just a day after another would-be robber in the Chicago area who was thwarted by an armed citizen learned he'll be spending the next few years in prison. Aaron White and his accomplice Kenneth Elliott actually tried holding up a sanitation worker who was on the job last January, but the trash collector was lawfully carrying a pistol and used it to defend himself. Elliott was shot and killed and White was wounded, but thankfully the sanitation worker was unharmed.
On Monday, White was sentenced to eight years in prison, though under Illinois' soft-on-crime policies he'll likely be released in about four years if he stays out of trouble while behind bars.
Defensive gun uses like these were virtually impossible in Illinois until fairly recently. The state was the last in the nation to allow for concealed carry, and the change was made only after the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the complete prohibition on bearing arms in self-defense violated the Second Amendment. Gun control activists, desperately hoping to avoid a Supreme Court ruling on the issue, convinced lawmakers to take the loss and pass a restrictive "shall issue" law, which took effect in July 2013.
According to the Illinois State Police, more than 500,000 residents now have a carry license. The state refuses to recognize permits issued by other states, and has a bizarre law in place that only allows residents from states with "similar" carry rules to apply for a non-resident permit. That bizarre scheme is being challenged in a Gun Owners of America lawsuit called Henrichs v. Kelly, and hopefully it won't be long before visitors to Illinois can defend themselves while gassing up just like the armed citizen in Orland Park did on Tuesday.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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