Winter Haven, Florida:

Two would-be thieves didn’t count on a motion alarm and a gun-toting 70-year-old Winter Haven man when they tried to steal the batteries from his golf cart, according to Polk County Sheriff’s Office reports.

A lot of people will look at this and ask, “Are golf cart batteries really worth shooting someone over?”

The question really is, “Are stealing someone’s golf cart batteries really worth getting shot over?”

When the homeowner confronted the would-be robbers, they moved on him.

Disabled Shooters & Their Gear of Choice

Next time you go to the range, jump out of your car and prepare to shoot, think about how you’d manage to train or protect yourself if you were in a wheelchair. Next time you train for self-defense or go hunting, think about how your options and tactics might change if you only had 4 percent vision… from only one eye.

Good article on Joe Cartabona, who lost a leg, and Ed Harris, who has serious vision deficiencies, at Tactical-Life.com. Runs down what they do and what they use to keep on keeping on.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Via Sebastian: TV cameras miss how guns save lives

Of course, corpses are newsworthy in our sensational culture, but when an armed citizen stops an attack, the heroism rates barely a blip on the national radar screen.

Well, for one thing, if people realized how often guns were used defensively, a lot of the anti-gun message would go down the toilet.

Over at the Firearm Blog:

“Buy a gun,” a member of a recently busted inner-city gang told The Buffalo News last week when asked what could be done to curtail homicides. “Hey, I’m just being honest. You asked.”

Buffalo police say that they don’t agree. Surprise surprise.

The Buffalo News disabled comments on the story.

Earlier I posted about a local story in which a Grand Rapids robber was shot where

It wasn’t immediately clear how the man was shot

Well, guess what? Turns out the store owner shot him. Big surprise.

What’s more, the store owner was himself shot by a robber in March. Guess he had had enough of that for one lifetime.

Christmas present comes in handy:

A teen trying to rob an espresso stand in northern Idaho met his match in a gun-toting barista.

Police say the 17-year-old confronted Sunshine Espresso owner Michelle Cornelson with a gun Wednesday morning, demanding all her money.

Plans, however, often don’t survive first contact with the enemy. This victim was armed with a Kel-Tec her husband had given her for Chirstmas. Robbers hate that sort of thing, so he ran. He was quickly caught.

Pizza Hut employee shoots would-be robber

A police report said Spencer Simmons, 44, attempted to rob the Pizza Hut on Broadway Street at about 11 p.m. Wednesday.

The report said Simmons pointed a .25 Raven Arms semi-automatic handgun at the store’s cashier and demanded money. The cashier loaded about $720 into a small bag.

Simmons wasn’t aware that a delivery man, Michael Shaker, had heard the commotion and snuck to the back as well, the report said.

Shaker shot the robber in the back of the head. I’m a little fuzzy about how he managed that if the criminal tried to point his gun at Shaker after a verbal warning, but all’s well that ends well.

Last I heard, Pizza Hut policy forbids weapons. Will Shaker lose his job over this?

Florida:

Gary Wroblewski says he was watching television in the Silver Springs Shores neighborhood off County Road 464 late Monday night when someone knocked on his door.

Wroblewski slightly cracked open the door and found a man claiming he needed help with his broken down car. He says he was immediately suspicious of the man and his story.

“So I went and got my gun. I held it behind the door and I opened the door,” said Wroblewski.

Wroblewski says he tried to send the man away and suggested he go to another house or call AAA. He says that is when another man, this one wearing a mask, appeared out of nowhere and forced his door open.

Wroblewski was knocked out his wheelchair but was able to hold onto his gun and shot the masked invader.

This is a great example of why even the magic wand solution to gun control, the one where all guns everywhere disappear forever, would be a Bad Thing. The story doesn’t say whether the bad guys had any weapons whatsoever, but if the homeowner had not had a gun he would have been powerless.

The same thing goes for old people, women, and most men. You do not want to fight a bad guy on even terms.

Here’s another bit on the Pizza Guy issue:

Southside precinct officers go undercover to prevent robberies

Savannah cops posing as delivery drivers in hopes of catching criminals in the act. Or at least making them think twice before robbing someone.

Navies have used “Q-ships,” vessels that look like merchant ships but are well-armed with concealed weaponry, to lure enemy submarines into attacking. Then the guns come out and the predator becomes the prey. Though the actual results of Q-ships in action weren’t stellar, the principle is sound and it’s a solid tactic in deterring attack.

The same thing can be said for defense of cops working to deceive would-be pizza delivery robbers. They’ll no doubt make robbers take the time to be sure of their target, which can help legit targets get out of the danger zone before things go bad. And maybe the cops will even nab a robber or two. That’s great, for what it’s worth.

But overall, the results are likely to be minor. Worth the effort, but not a solution.

Pizza Delivery Persons Face Robbery and Driving Risks

A driver’s “topper,” the lighted box magnetized to the top of the vehicle, works as a double-agent. It advertises the driver’s employer, but the topper also says, “The driver of this vehicle has cash.”

“The topper makes you a target,” says former Jet’s driver Danny Rowe, 21, of Lakeland. “It’s like driving around with a target on your car.”

Typical no-weapon policies make it an even more inviting target, I’d guess.

I’ve never worked as a delivery driver, so I can’t speak from personal experience. But if I really felt that I was threatened, and I imagine I would if I delivered pizzas, I would carry a weapon every day and get fired later if I ever had to use it. My guess is that most readers of this site feel the same way.