Saturday, I wrote about the violent crime in East St. Louis, IL, and the fact that Mayor Alvin Parks doesn't want citizens getting uppity, and thinking that the Constitution protects their right to, well . . . defend their lives (my emphasis added).
Parks gave a reminder that Illinois does not allow concealed carrying of guns.Today, we find that someone was apparently not listening:
"You have the right to bear arms, but you have the right to bear them within your home, not on the streets, not in your cars, not inside stores," Parks said.
Illinois State Police are investigating an attempted robbery that ended when an employee shot and killed one of the robbers.It gets a bit confusing, because the article is titled "East St. Louis store owner kills robber," but then the body of the article says the chlorine was added to the gene pool by the actions of an employee.
The shooting happened around 4 a.m. Thursday at the Quality Food Mart store at 1032 Bond Ave. in East St. Louis. According to police, several armed men entered the store and attempted to rob it, but the store clerk pulled a gun and shot one of the men in the chest. He died at the scene.
Granted, either way, even Illinois law would permit the owner to have a gun in the store, and/or to allow employees to do so (assuming the owner/employee had a valid FOID card, and complied with all the other Illinois bureaucratic hoops), and Mayor Parks may well have meant to deny the right to bear arms "inside stores" only to customers, rather than owners/employees.
Still, are customers' lives somehow less valuable? Something to think about before doing business in Illinois.
Update: We get a little more info here:
Illinois State Police Lt. James Morrisey told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the shooting victim, whose identity was not released, was one of four suspected robbers who broke into a secure convenience store.Someone apparently defines "victim" differently from how I do so--I'd call him the dead (and unmourned) would-be robber. We apparently also have different ideas about what constitutes "secure"--the meaning here, apparently, is that after 11 pm, the door is locked, and transactions are conducted through a small window--but that "security" didn't last long, because the thugs simply broke in. The only real security was provided (possibly illegally?) by the armed clerk.
Morrisey said the 21-year-old store clerk, whose identity was not released, reacted to the attempted robbery by producing a pistol he carries for protection.Hmm . . . if that's not simply sloppy wording, then the clerk could be in trouble, because carrying a pistol for protection is illegal in Illinois (can't go around letting people protect themselves, can we?), and that's exactly the kind of thing Mayor Alvin says we can't do.
Stumble it!
2 comments:
At the link below at the end of the article it mentions that the police are looking into seeing if the shooter was allowed to have a gun in the store. As long as he had a FOID and with the recent change in the law he had permission from the owners he should be OK.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/illinoisnews/story/525869218324E5A98625767300478123?OpenDocument
Thanks for the update, Ray.
What prompted my concern for the clerk's legal well-being was this:
Morrisey said the 21-year-old store clerk, whose identity was not released, reacted to the attempted robbery by producing a pistol he carries for protection.
Just the way I read "carries" gave me the idea that maybe he carries like that even in transit to and from the store--as opposed to unloading and casing it to go to the store, then taking it out of the case, loading it, and holstering (or stashing it) at work--then unloading it, casing it, and taking it home. I, of course, believe he would be absolutely justified in carrying it all the time, but I'm not the one who would decide whether or not to prosecute him.
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