I don’t know...but I think there were some Korean shopkeepers that a hell of a lot more talent than this group.
Valid point.
Let's not forget that unlike lots of other property owners during the Los Angeles riots who decided to get out of the way of the rioters, knowing they could collect their insurance money and either rebuild or shut down their business, significant numbers of Korean business owners lived in the upper floors of the inner-city stores which they had spent huge amounts of personal effort to reopen when other people weren't willing to take the risk to start an inner-city business. Also, many had minimal if any insurance.
When you see a mob of angry people approaching your business and your wife and daughter are cowering upstairs in your bathroom, you're much more likely to get out a rifle and start shooting.
Considering some other comments on this thread, I'd better say this has zero to do with race. I've lived in inner-city communities, both black neighborhoods in the north and Hispanic barrios in the southwest, where I was virtually the only white person in my neighborhood. Most black or hispanic people, even in high-crime neighborhoods, are decent people. The problem is they've been intimidated into silence by a small percentage of thugs.
Rather than gun bans, personally I think the best thing we could do for the inner cities is to encourage handgun ownership for everyone living in a high-crime neighborhood who doesn't have a criminal record, with free training for women and elderly people, on the grounds that a handgun in the hands of a woman or an older person neutralizes the physical strength advantages of young angry males. Burglaries and home invasion rates would drop quickly, and lots of crime victims with good aim would have the beneficial side effect of reducing our prison bills.
Is this an unconstitutional income redistribution scheme in which the government shouldn't be involved. Of course.
But hey, sometime we have to compromise in politics. If we're going to give "Obamaphones" to poor inner-city people, as long as we're going to spend government money on something anyway, why not give "GOPguns" to poor inner-city people?
This will never happen, of course, but if it did, it might actually work.