American justice

This story from the AP wire caught my eye:

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) — When two men walked into a popular country store outside Atlanta, announced a holdup and fired a shot, owners Bobby Doster and Gloria Turner never hesitated. The pair pulled out their own pistols and opened fire.

The armed suspect and his partner were killed. The owners won't be charged, according to local officials, because they were acting in self-defense.

"I just started shooting," said Gloria Turner, 56. "I was trying to blow his brains out is what I was trying to do."

Shoats Grocery & Package near Crawford, 70 miles east of Atlanta, is a well-known spot where locals stop for breakfast biscuits or lunch. Gloria Turner said the two men who came there Monday had something else in mind.

She was rearranging boxes of soda by the store's front door when a man wearing a wig walked inside, the fake hair draped in front of his face.

"I asked him, 'Can you see to walk?"' Turner said. Then she noticed a second man behind him wearing a mask. He announced a holdup.

One man grabbed Gloria Turner and pushed her toward the register. She said the other kept his gun on her 62-year-old husband, who also goes by the name Shoats.

She said she tried to open the register, but one of the men told her she wasn't moving fast enough and tried to shoot her husband. He missed—and his gun jammed.

At that point, Bobby Doster pulled out a .380-caliber handgun and shot one of the suspects. Gloria Turner then went for a 9 mm pistol she keeps near the register.

"All hell broke loose," she said. "I was trying to shoot and dial 911 at the same time."

Both suspects took cover behind the store's meat counter as the owners opened fire. Gloria Turner said she doesn't know how many bullets were fired, or how many times the suspects were hit.

Police arrived about five minutes after receiving Gloria Turner's call; the suspects died a short time later at a hospital.

I feel obliged to note that, had this incident occurred in one of the "civilized" countries of Europe, Bobby Doster and Gloria Turner would, at this moment, be either (a) in police custody; or (b) dead.

But I guess that's just the price you have to pay for being a responsible member nation of "the new global consensus."

UPDATE: This seems to have caught more than just my eye. Peaktalk writes that the fact the owners weren't charged "pretty much sums up the difference between an American and European approach to dealing with crime." Daily Pundit comments: "It sounds to me, just from the brief account, like the store owners, Gloria and Bobby, were practicing fairly good 'gun control,' particularly on a couple of fast-moving 'targets.' An outstanding expression of Second Amendment rights, I'd say." James Joyner at Outside the Beltway echoes the thought: "It's been said that gun control is being able to hit your target." Walt at Truth, Lies & Common Sense notes: "We have a heard of a "robbery gone wrong" where innocent people died. I may be a little insensitive here, but I think this is an example of a 'robbery gone right.'" Acidman at Gut Rumbles writes: "I like stories with happy endings." As Glenn Reynolds would say: Indeed.

UPDATE: Lee Bowman—an American who has lived in England for two decades now—sends this link to a story by Richard Munday from The Telegraph: "While American 'gun culture' is still regularly the sensational subject of media demonisation in Britain, the grim fact is that in this country we now suffer three times the level of violent crime committed in the United States."

UPDATE: Here's a follow-up letter to the Athens, GA, Banner-Herald (free registration required) from Andy Totten:

I applaud the courage displayed by Bobby Doster and Gloria Turner during the attempted armed robbery of their Oglethorpe County store Monday by two teenage street thugs.

Doster and Turner demonstrated the only logical way to deal with criminals who are willing to kill for a few dollars. Their actions not only saved themselves, but also put an end to the criminal careers of two teenage hoodlums who likely would have committed more violent crime in the future.

There will be no lengthy trials, no excuses, no plea bargains for these teenagers, because they chose the wrong people to victimize.