Pizza Driver, Would-Be Robbers Exchange Gunfire

Indianapolis:

Two would-be robbers and a pizza delivery driver exchanged gunfire early Thursday morning after the men tried to rob the worker, police said…One of the men fired a shot at the driver, but missed. The driver also had a gun and fired back. Indianapolis police said they don’t think either suspect was struck, but the men haven’t been found.

Refreshingly:

The owner of the pizza shop said that he started having all his drivers carry guns while on deliveries about two years ago.

A sign that reads, “Warning, We Don’t Dial 911″ is posted inside the business.

“It’s a visual deterrent. Sometimes people are armed, sometimes they’re not. You just never know what you are going to run into,” said owner Darrell Kreitzer. “If you want to run in here and try something stupid, you don’t know what you’re going to get.”

The shop in question is Aunt Polly’s Pizza.

Surprising that no one hit if it all took place on a porch.

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?

Indiana Supreme Court Allows Gary Gun Lawsuit to Proceed to Trial

In a very rare win for a city against a gun manufacturer, the Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that a lawsuit by the City of Gary can proceed to trial. These lawsuits have been uniformly rejected on various grounds, including standing. Yet, Gary with one of the nation’s highest homicide rates will be allowed to sue companies like Smith and Wesson, Beretta and Colt as well as gun dealers for the harm caused by their products. They are proceeding on a nuisance theory.

I hadn’t seen this, and in fact thought all this was behind us. Obviously, I was mistaken. Gary is the last of thirty municipal suits. All of the others have been defeated or withdrawn.

Fran Quigley:

Glock 23 fully automatic pistols, Uzi nine millimeters, Colt 44 magnum Anacondas. Some cost less than $100.

Fully auto Glock 23s? Really?

Then there this from the writer’s companion:

He points to a Springfield XD 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol. “Not legal in California,” the box reads. “The only things these are used to hunt for is people,” Zelenka says.

No exaggeration there.

And regarding all the pants-wetting over the gunshow loophole, Tam happened to be at the same show and sold a gun. It seems that her experience didn’t quite fit Quigley’s narrative.

Yeah, so, that was my totally unregulated experience with selling to “anyone who plunked down the cash,” Mr. Quigley. But don’t let me disturb your preconceived notions with any pesky facts; you obviously went to the show expecting to see something, and anything you saw was going to be bent through the lens of your own perceptions.

And I see someone making ignorant comments about the Assault Weapons Ban.

Mike Westervelt, a junior in the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue has something to say in The Exponent, Purdue’s independent college newspaper:

I have noisy neighbors; that I can deal with.

And if I discovered one of my neighbors had pot in his or her apartment, honestly, I probably wouldn’t fret.

But last week, police found a loaded AK-47 assault rifle in one of my neighbors’ apartment. And that I fret about.

West Lafayette Police Chief Jason Dombkowski said the gun was loaded with 30 rounds, with additional magazines of ammunition nearby, “ready to go.”

The neighbor’s apartment apparently contained drugs and drug paraphernalia, and a “subsequent search” turned up more drugs, cash, and the weapon.

As of right now, the student is facing only drug charges. Why are there no charges concerning the weapon? Answer: The gun was probably in the residence legally.

I spoke with Dombkowski last week and he said the state requires permits for handguns but not necessarily for other weapons, such as rifles. Because the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004, if you can pass a background check, you can legally own such automatic guns.

This is what I was raised to call an outright L-I-E.

Several other states, including New York and New Jersey, have enacted legislation banning the sale of assault weapons. But Indiana has extremely lax gun laws with no such provision.

We don’t need to get into the cliche debate of general gun control, but I hope few would argue the need for automatic assault weapons within city limits.

Automatic weapons are NOT legal in Indiana or in any other state except in very specific circumstances. The AWB didn’t ban any automatic weapons at all.

My guess is that this is probably just a kid that doesn’t quite understand what he’s talking about who didn’t quite understand what the Police Chief told him. Or, maybe, that the Police Chief lied about the AWB.

Without more information we can’t know for sure, but it doesn’t seem likely that the rifle in question was even an automatic weapon. If it was an actual assault rifle, you can bet the owner would be charged with all sorts of things.

Again, we’re faced with a complete lack of even the most basic firearms terminology by those who think they’re doing good by telling everyone how things should be run. What else is new?

Police: Man Shot Himself In Genitals During Robbery

Indiana:

Kokomo police said they were called to a Village Pantry store at 100 North Ohio Street at about 4:20 a.m. after a clerk at the store called them.

The female clerk told police that a man came into the store with a semiautomatic handgun and demanded cash and cigarettes before handing her a white cloth bag.

The clerk said that as she retrieved the cigarettes she heard a gunshot and turned to confront the man, who yelled that he had shot himself…In-store surveillance cameras showed that the man, who police identified as Derrick Kosch, 25, of Kokomo, shot himself as he placed the gun into the waistband of his pants, police said.

Medical help ended up being called in and police found the bag of money. Ouch.

Armed customer thwarts grocery robbery

Indiana:

Charlie Merrell was in checkout line at Bucks IGA Supermarket, 3015 S. Meridian St., when a masked man jumped a nearby counter and held a gun on a store employee at 5:17 p.m. Monday, according to a police report made public today.

While the suspect was demanding cash from the workers, the police report states that Merrell pulled his own handgun, pointed it at the robber and ordered him to put down his weapon.

When the suspect hesitated, Merrell racked the slide on his gun to load a round in the chamber, Officer Jason Bockting wrote in the report.

Merrell is 51 years old and has a concealed carry permit. The suspect had a .380, though it was later found to be unloaded.