Happy Endings

I just love stories with happy endings. From the MetroWest Daily News comes this lovely bit of news:

SHREWSBURY -- Two men suspected of up to 10 area bank robberies were in custody yesterday after three bank customers chased one of the men and wrestled him to the ground, police said.

I'm not one to judge a book by its cover, but looking at the picture of these two individuals, I'm gonna go with "guilty" on this one. Unfortunately though, every rose does have its thorn, just as this story contains these comments made by local law enforcement officials.

When asked whether armed security guards in a bank would deter potential robberies, both Sampson and Westborough Police Chief Alan Gordon were skeptical.

"If the person coming in doesn't have a weapon, then you've already introduced one," said Gordon. "If he were to disarm the security guard, then you've got a weapon that person can use."

Yeah, and if I were to shit gold coins, I'd be rich. This is a such a weak argument. Following Chief Gordon's logic, none of the officers under his command should be carrying sidearms. After all, all a person would have to do is disarm a police officer, then he'd have a gun he can use.

An individual who is intent on committing armed robbery WILL find an easier way to obtain a handgun than attempting to physically overpower an armed guard or, more likely, they will move on to an easier target - a bank with no armed security presence. Given the choice, they're gonna target the easy prey, knowing that the tellers are instructed to comply with their demands. Clearly that plan seems to have worked quite well for them in the past. They just didn't count on ordinary people actually standing up and protecting their community from scum such as them.

Kudos to those citizens involved with this arrest.