A furniture store owner in Indianapolis, Indiana, fought back against a would-be robber who held him up at gunpoint.
The suspect walked into the store and demanded money from owner Doyle Stinson on July 5, Stinson told Fox59 on Aug. 18.
“I know you’ve got more money than that because this is a business,” Stinson said the man told him. He added, “Once he gets me back to the back room that was a mistake. I go back here, I hit my silent alarm emergency button.”
Stinson said that he could tell that the robber’s gun wasn’t loaded, so he reached for his own weapon.
“I knew when he pulled the hammer back on the automatic weapon there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber,” Stinson said. “I know the sound.”
“I’m watching the camera looking where he’s at. I grew up in this neighborhood. I know how to protect myself,” Stinson told WTHR. “I was looking for a chance to grab his arm, break it.”
He pointed his firearm at the suspect but didn’t fire because he said he saw a boy in front of his store.
“If you’re shooting a 40 caliber, it’s going to go through him, through this merchandise, through that window, and what’s beyond that window,” Stinson told the Fox affiliate. “He’s got a lot more to live than me. That’s true, that’s a little boy there.”
“If he’d have shot me, I would’ve shot him. But I was more worried about the people out in front of my store,” he told WTHR. “A child out there across the street. It ain’t worth it.”
The store owner then called 911 and chased the suspect. “I jumped in a vehicle before he got in his getaway car. Followed him down 11th and Arlington,” Stinson said.
Police described the suspect’s vehicle as a black Chevy Trailblazer from the 2004 or 2005 model year. It has Indiana license plates.
Latest Gun Violence Statistics
“Gun-related homicide is most prevalent among gangs and during the commission of felony crimes. In 1980, the percentage of homicides caused by firearms during arguments was about the same as from gang involvement (about 70 percent), but by 1993, nearly all gang-related homicides involved guns (95 percent), whereas the percentage of gun homicides related to arguments remained relatively constant. The percentage of gang-related homicides caused by guns fell slightly to 92 percent in 2008, but the percentage of homicides caused by firearms during the commission of a felony rose from about 60 percent to about 74 percent from 1980 to 2005,” says the U.S. National Institute of Justice in its latest report.
In 2011, there were 467,321 victims of a crime committed with a gun, the agency said.
And, “In the same year, data collected by the FBI shows that firearms were used in 68 percent of murders, 41 percent of robbery offenses, and 21 percent of aggravated assaults nationwide,” it added.
But the Heritage Foundation think tank noted that amid the reporting on mass shootings, “Violent crime is down and has been on the decline for decades.”
“Gun-related murders are carried out by a predictable pool of people,” the think tank said, adding that higher rates of gun ownership aren’t associated with higher rates of violent crime.
Meanwhile, “There is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates,” it said.
From The Epoch Times
