A heartwarming story

From WorldNewDaily:

A grocery store customer in Indianapolis is being credited with halting an armed robbery by pulling his own weapon and pointing it at the assailant until police arrived.

According to a report in the Indianapolis Star, Charlie Merrell, 51, was in a checkout line at a grocery store called Bucks IGA on the city's south side when a "masked man jumped a nearby counter and held a gun on a store employee."

The police report cited by the newspaper said the incident happened at 5:17 in the afternoon Monday as Merrell was doing some year-end shopping.

"While the suspect was demanding cash from the workers," according to the police report, "Merrell pulled his own handgun, pointed it at the robber and ordered him to put down his weapon."

The newspaper noted that Officer Jason Bockting, in his documentation of the incident, said when the suspect seemed to hesitate, "Merrell racked the slide on his gun to load a round in the chamber."

At that point, the report said, "the suspect placed his gun and a bag of cash on the counter, dropping some of the money … the suspect removed his mask and lay on the floor."

Merrill, meanwhile, held the suspect at gunpoint until officers arrived and took him away in handcuffs.

Police reported Merrell had a valid permit to carry the handgun, and they recovered an unloaded .380-caliber handgun and $779 cash from the suspect.

Police records show Dwain Smith, 19, was being held in the Marion County Jail on a bond of $30,000 on initial charges of robbery, criminal confinement, pointing a firearm, battery and carrying a handgun without a license.

Kudos to Mr. Merrell for both having a gun and the courage to use it, but here is a tip for future reference. A semi-automatic firearm without a round in the chamber is not loaded and an unloaded pistol is useful only as a hammer. And it isn't a very good hammer at that.

A free man is formidable, a free man with a gun is downright deadly

From The Brussels Journal:

A quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? [...] The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if... We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation. [...] We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.

Yes! Absolutely true.

The Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising proved that even a relatively small number of people who are willing to take up arms and fight can bring even a mighty army to a standstill. What would have happened if all of the peoples in the Nazi occupied lands had shown the same resolve and courage?

What would have happened in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina if the criminal thugs, who happened to be wearing badges, who went from house to house stealing the firearms of private citizens had been dispatched by those citizens. I have a friend who has spent most of his adult life in law enforcement who thinks that is exactly what should have happened. Kill them and throw their bodies in the river and defy the other cops to prove who pulled the trigger.

A free person cannot be oppressed. He can be killed, but he will not be oppressed. If that free man is joined by other free men and women who are likewise unwilling to be oppressed, and to die, but take as many of the jackbooted thugs with him/her as possible the tyrant will find he has a very tough row to hoe.

Former beauty queen defends herself with a firearm

Reader Heather sent this in:

1944 Miss America Defends Farm With Gun - Phil Pendleton Reports

She's 82 years old and today says she's not afraid to use a gun to protect her community. This comes after she did just that shooting at a man's car she says was trying to steal metal near her home in Pulaski County. WYMT's Phil Pendleton spoke to the woman and found out something else about our gun totin' grandma.

Venus Ramey knows it would be easy for someone to take advantage of her. She's 82 and needs a walker to get around.

"I'm an old woman. They figure they can get away with a lot," Ramey said.

Last Friday, she says some people tried to get away with some of her scrap metal. They were caught in the act and police say Curtis Parish was the ringleader.

"And he said if you get out of my way, we'll leave. And I said oh no you won't and I shot 2 shots in one of their tires," Ramey said.

Only that wasn't enough for this former Miss America who fired again.

"I shot one and it wouldn't go down. I thought it would go woosh and flatten, but it didn't. They're not made that way, so I shot it again," Ramey said.

Police say stealing scrap metal is an epidemic and they arrested Curtis Parish and charged him with trespassing. Police say he took the rap for the others involved.

Ramey won the Miss America crown in 1944. Now spends her time selling trees on her farm and trying to protect her property from thieves.

"The first time I was robbed on the other side road about 6 or 7 years ago, I caught one man," Ramey said.

But now both police and Ramey say they don't think this man will try to steal from her again.

Police say Ramey had every right to fire the gun since they say she witnessed the men committing a crime on her property.

Now there's a lady who deserved to wear the crown. Like the elderly Jewish professor who died buying time for his students to get to safety during the Virginia Tech massacre Ms. Ramey was born in an earlier and better time.

A new Glock for Lemuel

Unlike those of you fortunate enough to have revived a refund from Uncle Sam this year I am one of those self employed who winds up owing our dear uncle nearly every year. So when I have recovered from the quart of blood, arm, leg and several internal organs which I am required to pony up to help to pay minority women to have illegitimate children I will begin saving my pennies for a new firearm.

I have chosen the new Glock 21 SF for my next firearm purchase.

Glocks are simply the most durable and reliable handguns on the market today. I have never had a failure to feed or fire or eject with an unmodified Glock in the thousands and thousands of rounds which I have fired with them starting with the first generation model 17 and going all the way to the subcompact model 36.

My personal preference for a handgun caliber is the .45 ACP. The full sized Glock in .45 is the model 21 however its grip is simply too big for my hand. In fact it is too big for most people's hands. It is possible for a person with small or normal sized hands to shoot a Glock 21 quickly and accurately once one has a proper grip on it, however there are issues with proper drawing and presentation and there are issues with weapon retention which are important in a firearm which is carried for self defense.

The large grip area of the Glock 21 distributes the recoil of the .45 ACP cartridge over a large area of the hand lessening the felt recoil and helping to control the pistol in rapid fire. However that same large grip area makes it difficult to consistently obtain a proper grip on the gun when drawing, especially from concealment where getting past clothing can be an issue. Any errors in one's grip must be dealt with before firing or one is very likely to miss the target. And if the target is an enraged rapist, mugger or campus shooter the first shot might be all you have time to get off before he is upon you.

Weapon retention is also an important consideration for the armed citizen. Suppose you hear a noise at night that could be a home invader or perhaps is just the cat. You do not wish to call 911 for every bump in the night, but you also don't want to simply roll over and go back to sleep with the possibility that Richard Speck may be heading toward your daughter's bedroom. So you get up and investigate. Not being an idiot you take a firearm. If there really is an intruder in your home you might wind up struggling for the gun. In this case you want to have a good grip on the weapon. But if the gun is too big for you to get a proper grip on it you are at a disadvantage. For this reason it is important to match the size of the handgun with the size of the hand which will be holding it.

When I heard that Glock was making a version of their model 21 with a reduced grip area I was interested, to say the least. Having now handled the Glock 21 SF (the SF stands for short frame) I can tell that while it is on the large end of the range of handguns which I can comfortably use, it nevertheless is within that range.As an added bonus the larger size of the frame spreads the finger grooves out and makes them properly spaced for my hand.So, as I said earlier, I am saving my pennies for a brand spanking new Glock 21 SF and at the rate I'm socking back cash I should be able to celebrate my 50th birthday by taking my new Glock .45 to the range!