Buy This Man a Blue Ribbon

This guy kicks ass.



Let this story serve as another potent reminder of Rule #1 and its variants.  In this case: Don't bring a BB gun to a hammer fight.

A 68-year-old Ardmore business owner armed with a claw hammer overpowered an armed robber forcing him to drop both the stolen cash and his pistol a little before 7 p.m. Tuesday. Ardmore police officers arrested the suspect, Christopher Ray Smith, 22, shortly afterwards. Although the store owner didn't know it at the time, Smith's weapon was a BB gun.

All things considered, a wonderful story with a happy ending.  But of course there's the usual line of BS from the local law enforcement.

"We don't encourage it," said Lt. Rickey D. Lawrence of the Ardmore Police Department about McMahan's behavior. "There are times when things don't go right. Realistically, it's best for citizens to get a description and a direction of travel and let us find the subject and put him in custody."

Realistically, it is extremely difficult for a citizen to provide that information to the police when he's lying face down with a .38 slug in his head, or a six-inch shotgun-induced chest cavity.  That's pretty much an indisputable fact.

"The risk isn't worth it," Lawrence said. "It's just property. It's not something that can't be replaced."

Sorry, Lieutenant, but if someone comes into my place of business brandishing a handgun and demanding money, I'm going out on a limb and wagering that the gun isn't there for dealing with an uncooperative Slim Jim display, or for shooting up the Ho-ho's.  The intended target of a firearm in this situation is the person it's aimed at, whether it's the store clerk, or the bad guy in the case of an armed citizen defending himself.