Obey a bad gun law... and get killed for it!

May 28, 2003 -- Two Harlem bodega clerks stood in two separate stores, both staring across the counter at armed robbers. One clerk used an unlicensed gun to kill his assailant and is now facing charges. The other didn't - and he's dead. According to José Fernandez, head of a 7,000-member association of grocery owners, thousands of bodega employees in the city's high-crime areas are faced with this terrible choice.

"We have to choose between going to jail for having an illegal weapon or protecting our lives," said Fernandez. Gun control makes it impossible for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against violent criminals who ignore gun laws just as easily as they ignore laws against murder, rape and robbery.

These comments were made shortly after Mohamed Dramy's bodega store was robbed by violent criminals. The 40-year old Dramy had just returned from his wedding in his native country of Gambia. Unarmed and defenseless in compliance with New York law, Dramy could only stand helpless as he was shot in the chest and killed.

José Acosta, 69, chose a different option. With his life on the line, Acosta drew a small handgun and fatally wounded one of three masked holdup men.

"Acosta is facing charges for saving his own life, while someone who complied with the law is dead and leaves a family crying," said Fernandez, President of the Washington Heights-based Bodega Association of the United States. "We have to choose between saving ourselves or going to jail." While is a miserable pair of options, that is precisely the predicament that gun control legislation creates.

The dead criminal was identified as Luquarn Washington, a wanted army deserter. In classic denial of responsibility for violent criminal action, Washington's father was quoted as saying "He was a victim of this environment. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time." No, sir, "innocent bystanders" are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The victims of criminal attack are in the wrong place at the wrong time. When you don a mask and enter a store to rob it by force you are committing a crime. Luquarn Washington paid the price for making the decision to prey on another human being.

For millions of Americans, the fallacy of gun control is obvious. Gun-control laws can only disarm honest citizens. A gun ban didn't deter Luquarn Washington's gang of thugs from getting guns and using them in violent criminal attacks. Violent criminals remain just as dangerous and, in areas where gun control is in effect, criminals know that their prey has been left defenseless. Gun control increases the probability of violent crime and decreases the victim's chances of survival for citizens who obey the law.

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