Having a weapon gives you a clear advantage in an altercation. It's why we view introducing a weapon into an argument or fight as something pretty serious. The thing is, not all weapons are created equal. There are less lethal weapons, obviously, and lethal ones. Even among lethal weapons, though, there's a hierarchy.
As they say, don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
The problem is that a lot of people don't realize they're headed to a gunfight when they try to knock over a bank with a knife.
Yes, it went about how you expect.
Authorities said an armed suspect was shot and killed by a witness during a robbery at a Chase bank location.
...
Cedar Hill police said the person entered the bank off Highway 67 shortly after 9 a.m. and demanded money from employees while armed with a knife.
A witness inside the bank shot the suspected robber, according to police. The person then ran from the bank and was later found by officers.
Police began life-saving measures before the suspect was taken to a hospital, where they were pronounced dead.
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how the bad guy thought this would go. Yes, a knife is a deadly weapon, but it doesn't give you an edge over an armed guard.
So, it seems like he at least did his homework and made sure there wasn't one, or else he planned and adjusted so that the guard wouldn't be a threat somehow.
The problem for him was that armed citizens can be anywhere, especially in a state that doesn't get in the way of the right to keep and bear arms. As a result, this guy not only wasn't successful in his robbery, but instead of a trip to Cabo or something with his ill-gotten gains, he's lying out at the morgue.
It's not difficult to see the upside here.
And it's why the right to keep and bear arms matters.
Whether there's an armed guard or not, criminals will still find a way to do criminal stuff. Knives are easy to get, being sold at the grocery store, for crying out loud, and can then be used for nefarious purposes.
But no one with any sense wants to get into a knife fight. It's not a matter of if you get cut, but how badly you get cut. I say this as someone who actually teaches dagger fighting. You're going to bleed.
Which is what knife-wielding criminals are probably counting on.
So, rather than drop to that level, we had an armed citizen with a firearm who took care of business pretty quickly. The shooter is cooperating with authorities, but this seems pretty clear-cut. Armed bank robbery is a violent felony, which means he should be free and clear under the state's Stand Your Ground law.
Good guys: 1
Bad guys: 0
That's a good score by anyone's estimate, and if we saw more of these incidents and actual broad news coverage of it, we might start seeing a lot fewer of these kinds of crimes. Sure, violent crime is dropping, but we could always do with even fewer, right?
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