Posted on 03/20/2004 6:28:32 AM PST by OldBlondBabe
Four years ago, she was helpless as a man robbed her at gunpoint. On Friday, legally armed with a handgun, she may have saved her life. And Farmington Hills Police Chief William Dwyer, who dreaded a change in the law in 2001 to make it easier to receive a concealed weapons permit, admits that he's changing his mind about that law.
Dwyer said the woman could easily have been killed after she was targeted by a couple looking for an easy score. They were waiting at 6:30 a.m. outside an office building at the southeast corner of 12 Mile and Drake roads.
Angela, a married mother of two, was arriving at the office where she has worked for six years. She asked that her last name and hometown not be made public.
She saw a car in the lot that she did not recognize, with two people inside, putting her on her guard. When she left her car, a man got out of that car and walked toward her.
He passed the entrance to the building and continued toward her. The man came within 10 feet of her, and she knew she had to act.
"I didn't get a chance to get in the office," she said. "He had his hands in his pocket with his hood pulled up. I opened my purse and pulled my gun out.
"I felt my life was in trouble. The first instinct was to pull out my gun."
The man turned tail and walked away, and the car pulled up to him near the roadway. He jumped in and they drove off.
No shots were fired.
Dwyer said there was "no question" she was in trouble.
"She took the appropriate action," Dwyer said. "She probably saved her life. She is a very fortunate young lady. (Also) she did an excellent job as far as giving a description of the vehicle and the suspect. She's a very courageous young lady."
Her calm demeanor and quick thinking - she called police from her cell phone immediately after the suspect drove off - led police to the man and his female accomplice within a minute of the robbery attempt, Dwyer said.
He said the couple - a 21-year-old man and a 28-year-old woman from Detroit - would be charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
Police confiscated a loaded 9 mm handgun from the couple's car. The man has several outstanding warrants and the woman was convicted for receiving stolen property.
Later Friday, Dwyer said a 28-year-old Southfield woman who knows Angela had been arrested for setting up her robbery.
Police are seeking a fourth suspect.
Dwyer, who as head of the state's police chief's association opposed the change in state law that made it easier for residents without criminal backgrounds to carry guns, acknowledges that the law has saved at least one person.
"I always said the CCW (Carrying a Concealed Weapon permit) legislation is somewhat controversial," he said. "I'm certainly rethinking it."
He credited her for taking the appropriate training and, equally important, using common sense.
"I'm just a woman," Angela said. "You hear about things like this. I didn't want to be a victim again."
(I don't post much, so I hope I did this right.)
I don't understand why someone in law enforcement would even consider disarming the noncriminals. They see the bad guys. You'd think they'd want us to protect ourselves. I guess it's because they don't visit the millions of decent people sleeping quietly in their homes at night, they see only the perps on the street.
What a strange title. How about "Woman defends herself with gun"? This is like those stories about how an "SUV goes out of control and hits a tree", or something like that.
People use objects. The objects don't, in this sense, use themselves. Is there a subtle bit of thought control going on here?
Most excellent. These perps have learned a lesson...if this isn't proof-positive for the Second Amendment, I don't know what is.
I work at 12 Mile and Halsted, about a mile away. If I knew who she was I would go and congratulate her personally.
Well, maybe not...she's got a gun.
ROFL! Well, an armed society IS a polite society, after all!
First of all, the International Association of Chiefs of Police is a notorious anti-gun organization as are almost all administrator level cops. NOT the street cops usually, although that is changing. For the "Chiefs" it is indoctrination to the notion that a "police state" is the most crime free situation. Many fail to see beyond this to see the inherent evil of such a society.
Next, the reason that many MANY of the formerly pro-gun street cops are becoming anti-gun is that the old guard street cops who entered the force straight from the military are retiring and the new pups are increasingly products of recent public education and many have college degrees with even more anti-gun rhetoric inside their brainwashed noggins.
NOW, think of our military forces being products of public schools as well. I fear that the final barrier to preserve our freedom in case of a revolution is rapidly disappearing. We used to believe that in the event of a Clinton style usurption of the Constitution and a call to confiscate citizen guns by force (maybe even under color of law) that much of the military would split away from the tyrants and fight for freedom, for the Constitution. But when you intentionally fail to teach the Bill of Rights and the true meaning of the Constitution on a nationwide scale then you create a race of stupid automotons who will indeed kill citizens in the act of taking away their freedoms because they are only "following orders."
The man turned tail and walked away, and the car pulled up to him near the roadway. He jumped in and they drove off.
No shots were fired.
But ... but ... but ... the VPC tells us that you can't use a gun to deter a crime without shooting someone! What gives?
I dunno. Here's one guy who may think otherwise.
It is so ingrained in people's thinking that I doubt it is intentional. There is a core belief that people are just random bits of matter that react when encountering other random bits of matter, whether these other random bits of matter be an SUV or a tropical forest or other people. According to this theory, people do not act with intention or intelligence, they are just mindless robots that react the way their environment forces them to. This leads to a superstitious way of thinking where people are the helpless "victims" of "bad" things like guns, SUVs, etc.
... at the same time that they also say guns are so simple to operate that children need to be kept from getting at them, hence the need for lock-up-your-safety laws.
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