Suspect Robs Family at Miami Burger King, Then Man Shoots Him: Police

[Paul E Ester]

A father who was robbed while eating with his family took out his own gun and shot the suspect, Miami Police said.

It happened at about 1 p.m. Friday at the Burger King restaurant at Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast 17th Street, police said.

The robber walked in, flashed his gun to the family, demanded their valuables, then headed for the door, according to police.

The father, fearing for his life, took out his gun and shot the suspect in the leg as he stood outside the restaurant, police said.

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Suspect-Robs-Family-at-Miami-Burger-King-Then-Man-Shoots-Him-Police-201700291.html

[Loudly]

1. Not only is this a guns-as-solution-to-guns story

the good guy shot the bad guy while he was already outside and leaving the scene.

Just make guns and ammo generally unavailable and this story doesn't even commence.

[bossy22]

3. removing guns doesnt mean something like this wouldn't happen with other weapons

the idea of defensive firearm ownership/usage is the same as any other emergency equipment/supply. You have it "just in case" with the knowledge that you will probably never have to use it.

[Loudly]

4. Repeat: This story doesn't happen.

If you think a different story happens, that's your choice.

[Straw Man]

32. No, without a gun, no one gets shot.

It's a pointless tautology, because people can still get hurt.

Why are you still here? It's obvious to everyone that you are Shares United, who was banned from this forum for wishing harm on other DU members and for indulging in graphic and sadistic fantasies.

[CokeMachine]

41. Apparently he's one of the chosen few.

Same shit, different day for him though.

[rdharma]

6. Hammers at ten paces? nt

[AtheistCrusader]

63. Sure. Hammers can kill.

I hear people can be stabbed to death sometimes too, in the absence of firearms.

[Jenoch]

8. How would you suggest

is a way to "make guns and ammo generally unavailable"?

[Loudly]

11. Treat them like we treat child pornography. With intolerance.

If those kids at Sandy Hook school had had naked pictures taken of them, there would be no question what society would do about such contraband.

Instead, their corpses are piled up like cordwood and the nation wrings its metaphorical hands trying to decide how to politely debate the subject of so-called "gun rights."

That's pretty inconsistent, I'd say. In fact, it's goddamned absurd.

[gejohnston]

12. there would be no call to ban cameras

so the analogy fails.

[Loudly]

13. The contraband is the thing which is dangerous in and of itself.

The images, for their enduring power to re-victimize and their potential to groom future victims.

The guns and ammunition for their power to kill and injure and their potential to unpredictably do so in literally anyone's hands.

This analogy is perfectly relevant.

The 1st Amendment does not protect kiddie porn as permissible speech.

What does the 2nd Amendment protect?

[gejohnston]

15. not how it works

cameras and guns are devices that can be used for good or ill, depending on who uses it.
You are comparing a mechanical device to an act. You have to be consistent
device with device
human action and human action.

[Loudly]

17. Contraband and contraband.

Images and guns.

Things dangerous in and of themselves.

Put more clearly:

Sexually exploited children and slaughtered children.

[DrDan]

26. guns sole purpose is to kill - cameras have a purpose other than porn

[petronius]

29. A camera records an image of whatever is in front of it.

A gun propels a projectile toward whatever is in front of it.

It's clearly nonsense to claim that a camera's only purpose is to create porn, because the camera can be pointed at many other things.

And it's equally nonsensical to claim that a gun's only purpose is to kill, because the gun can be pointed (as most always are) at many things other than the living.

I understand the rhetorical purpose of the latter claim, but that purpose doesn't make it any less fallacious...

[DrDan]

30. play with your rhetoric all you like - the purpose of a gun is to kill

[kudzu22]

64. The purpose of a camera is to capture images

Just like with a gun, what makes them good or evil depends on what they're pointed at.

[DrDan]

65. you are making the "good" vs "evil" claim - not me

I am just stating that the purpose of a gun is to kill.

[kudzu22]

66. You're implying that all killing is evil

[DrDan]

69. you are just reading into my posts what you want to read - I know there

are responsible hunters who hunt for meat vs trophies. I have no problem with that. (Not for me but I know some like to hunt.)

Also guns for use by law enforcement and military (for defense) are necessary.

[gejohnston]

70. but an individual using a gun for defense is what?

[DrDan]

71. is it good or evil?

I certainly do not consider the "self-defense" on the part of George Zimmerman to be good.

That said, I am not going to broad-brush all self-defense one way or the other.

Do you consider it all to be good?

[gejohnston]

72. since the trial hasn't happened yet

and the media coverage has been bad and made worse by various ideologues and ambulance chasers, I hold judgment on Zimmerman. One thing I have noticed about trial by media is that the media's narrative and conventional wisdom is almost always wrong. I knew a guy who was on the Chicago Seven jury. He stopped taking anything the media says seriously, since the media accounts were nothing like the the facts that came out in court.

For example, the media talks about SYG, but the case has nothing to do with SYG since it is either murder, if the conventional wisdom is true, or self defense even under a duty to retreat law if Zimmerman's account is true. Also, how does one have a Hispanic mother, African American grandparent, about the same skin tone as Martin, and still be a white racist?

That said, I don't see killing someone in self defense as "good" or "bad". it is an unfortunate necessity but not as bad as the alternative.

[DrDan]

75. agree - however the truth seems to often be stretched to justify "necessity"

[gejohnston]

80. not in the police investigation

In this case, it seems more like false claims of racism and altering details to push a political agenda. See NBC editing.

[GreenStormCloud]

67. Killing isn't always bad. N/T

[DrDan]

68. I never claimed it was

[GreenStormCloud]

73. That was your implication.

Please don't piss on my leg and try to tell me it is raining.

[DrDan]

74. well - you know what "assume" means - and I appreciate you not putting words in my mouth

[spin]

23. So is the solution to child pornography to ban digital cameras?

Cameras have a lot of uses. They can be used for both good and evil purpose and the decision on how to use them is up to the person holding the camera.

Firearms are similar. They can be used for sporting purposes such as hunting or target shooting. A firearm can also be used for self defense and can enable an individual to take on an armed attacker or a much larger individual and have a good chance of stopping the attack. In the wrong hands they can be misused for criminal purpose or to cause a massacre.

The purposed assault weapons ban is a lot like banning digital cameras to stop child pornography and limitations on magazine capacity is like limiting the power of the battery in a digital camera so it could only take 10 pictures before it would have to be changed.

To me it makes far more sense to better enforce existing laws and improve them in a manner that would help to make them more effective if you wish to stop child pornography or tragic gun violence.

[Duckhunter935]

27. almost right

The purposed assault weapons ban is a lot like banning certain digital cameras that have a specific feature but not all digital cameras.

[spin]

38. I should have said, "banning digital cameras with a tripod or an external flash." (n/t)

[Loudly]

31. You don't need to own a camera or have access to children

in order to spend dozens and dozens of years in the penitentiary.

Possession of the images is enough.

The images are the thing deemed harmful in and of themselves.

The analogy of cameras to guns is what fails.

The correct analogy is the images to guns.

Mere possession is enough.

[spin]

37. So do you feel all guns are evil? ...

Which if you do is your opinion and your right.

I feel guns are neither good or evil. The good or evil use of these weapons is determined by the minds and intentions of those who own them. That's why I support enforcing and improving gun laws that are designed to insure as much as possible that firearms are not owned by criminals and those with serious mental issues.

Reliable statistics show that gun violence has decreased to levels not seen in the last 40 years despite the increased sale of these items. Still we can do far better.

Of course it might be argued that the only real way to eliminate all most all gun violence would be to ban and confiscate ALL firearms. If you support that argument then a new AWB or a ban on the capacity of magazines is just a "good first step" as some have stated. A long journey begins with a single step.

It may be possible to gather up most firearms in many nations as they lack the strong gun culture and the number of firearms and firearm owners that our nation has. Many of these nations have far more trust in their governments than we do in the United States. We are a rowdy bunch largely descended from immigrants who left their mother nations in hope of finding freedom and opportunity. We value the Bill of Rights that the Founding Fathers gave us and appreciate the Second Amendment and feel that it is in that position for good reason. Many of us are patriotic to say the least. We have no desire to live under the thumb of a tyrannical government and feel that our firearms serve as a deterrent to the establishment of one. While this may prove to be a delusion, we are fond of it.

There are many good ways to reduce gun violence and tragic massacres in our nation but sadly the gun control movement seems to believe that only way is to ban certain weapons because of their cosmetic features and have a theory that limiting the number of rounds in a magazine will make it extremely difficult for an insane person to run amok and carry our a massacre. If our media would live up to its responsibility under the First Amendment, they could show the foolishness of such ideas but the media feels that it must help promote gun control and unwilling to fairly investigate the issues. The media's bias and its lack of firearm knowledge only exacerbates the situation.

So we muddle along and do little to solve the problem we face. Our police catch individuals with a long criminal record carrying an illegal firearm and our judges give them a slap on the wrist. A year later they murder someone and get caught and we wonder how this could happen. A few people with severe mental issues wave red flags but find no help inside our mental health care system. Their names do not even make it into the NICS database so they are still able to buy firearms at a gun dealer. Once again we wonder how this could happen after they slaughter a large number of people but we do nothing to try to prevent it. We put signs on the doors of our schools that say the firearms are not allowed but resist having trained and armed guards inside in many of these schools and wonder why a shooter would consider them a shooting gallery that offers an opportunity to rack up a high score of "kills". We fail to admit that our War on Drugs was lost decades ago and then are distressed at the number of people who are killed in the crossfire between drug gangs fighting over turf.

I feel there are ways to solve our problem but they are far from simple and inexpensive.

[Loudly]

45. So you reserve the right to engage in armed rebellion.

That's the constitutional purpose of the 2A?

I happen to agree with you.

Prior to the Civil War, that is, and when the population of our entire nation was 4 million people.

Now moot. The "tyranny" opposed in 1861 was freeing slaves from their owners. It met as empassioned a resistance as we have ever known.

And there was nothing righteous about it.

Since that time, we have lived under the Covenant of Appomattox.

Which is that armed rebellion is never legitimate in this country.

The 2A is as relevant as the three-fifths compromise.

[Straw Man]

48. Yup, you're Shares.

Still peddling that tired "Civil War made the Second Amendment obsolete" meme too.

You're a zombie. You've been banned from DU already. Why are you still here?

[Loudly]

50. Look inward, friend. Why do you walk the earth? To advocate convenient murder?

[Straw Man]

51. I look inward daily, friend.

I don't advocate acts of violence. And I'm not a zombie.

Begone, zombie ghoul.

[Loudly]

52. I'm not alerting on that blatant name calling.

You're welcome.

[Straw Man]

55. You're not alerting ...

... because you're afraid you'll get popped for violating TOS. You were banned from this site, were you not?

[Loudly]

57. You called me names. Ignorantly, I might add.

It's frowned upon. But you're frustrated by the limits of your ability to defend yourself.

Which is why, I suppose, you like guns and ammunition.

[Straw Man]

58. Not frustrated.

Just appalled at your lack of shame and your willingness to flout the rules.

I guess rules and laws are for other people, eh Shares?

[Loudly]

59. I understand that you want to clear the field of opposing arguments.

It's easier than an appeal to reason.

It's easier than stating your case in a manner which is manifestly triumphant.

But you can't. You might as well have chosen to defend race slavery.

You prefer to take the lazy route of attempted disqualification.

Don't drag me down in responding to you further, ok?

Just put me on ignore.

You are wandering in a desert devoid of thought.

[gejohnston]

53. why zombie instead of reincarnate?

they do come back with different names. If they came back with the same names, they could be resurrections. I wonder if any zombies used Lazarus as a username?

[Bazinga]

39. Wouldn't a more effective analogy equate the images to a corpse?

In this context I find it more consistent to equate guns with cameras, both of which are simply instruments to be used for good or ill. The misuse of either of these instruments produces an end product that is always immoral, the pornographic image on the one hand and the murdered corpse on the other.
I think that differentiating the instrument from the end product in the case of cameras while equating the instrument with the product in the case of guns is disingenuous and inconsistent.

[Straw Man]

33. Contraband.

Still peddling the ludicrous guns/kiddie-porn analogy, I see. So they are equally utterly evil? Yet you would make exceptions to allow police and the military to be armed, would you not? Is there a parallel exception to be made for the use of kiddie-porn? No? I didn't think so.

Your analogy fails.

Why are you still here? It's obvious to everyone that you are Shares United, who was banned from this forum for wishing harm on other DU members and for indulging in graphic and sadistic fantasies. Begone, zombie!

[Lizzie Poppet]

9. "Just make guns and ammo generally unavailable."

Gee, great idea! then we can "just" cure cancer, "just" end poverty, and "just" send a colony to Mars...since we'd have already accomplished the more difficult task.

[pipoman]

14. Wasn't it you who used to

score these stories...or I may be thinking of Shares United...

[Loudly]

16. Do you think this story supports an argument favoring guns and ammo in the hands of the public?

To me it demonstrates intentional misuse by both the robber and the victim.

[pipoman]

19. I don't think it is a very good arguement against it..

seems to me that a criminal used a gun to rob people...he didn't shoot any innocent people this time..nobody died and a person who is obviously inclined to point a gun at people while robbing them is off the street along with his gun...seems, while maybe not perfect, not too bad of outcome..

The Burger King incident followed an earlier incident in which the duo teamed up to rob a young woman of her iPhone 4S at 2200 NE 4th Ave. at about 10:15 a.m., with Smalls driving the truck as they fled, police said. Her phone was later found inside the truck, police added.

No chance anyone tomorrow or the next day would be shot/killed for their ipod?

[Loudly]

21. You could have stopped with the observation that

"a criminal used a gun to rob people."

Access to a gun is where this story commenced before the curtain even went up.

Everything which happened afterward, despite your sense of justice and public safety about it, is kind of an empty victory.

A lot of risk and disruption and emotional and physical pain just to finally recover the thing which was a danger in and of itself to indulge whatsoever in the hands of the public.

[pipoman]

22. So a criminal without a gun is no threat to others?

Or is it that the gun *made* these guys rob? In the absence of guns they would be working happily or studying vigorously for their aerospace engineering degree?

[Straw Man]

35. Begone, zombie.

Why are you still here? It's obvious to everyone that you are Shares United, who was banned from this forum for wishing harm on other DU members and for indulging in graphic and sadistic fantasies.

[CokeMachine]

42. Can I use this when I respond to Loudly/Shares United going forward?

[Straw Man]

44. Feel free.

Zombies begone!

[JoeBlowToo]

28. The father neither stopped the robbers nor captured them...gun immaterial

Police said they found him and the driver, 38-year-old Ramon Smalls, a few blocks away thanks to a Good Samaritan who followed them and alerted police. The two suspects were taken into custody at a gas station at Northeast 2nd Avenue and 26th Street after they apparently ran out of fuel, police added.

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Suspect-Robs-Family-at-Miami-Burger-King-Then-Man-Shoots-Him-Police-201700291.html

[Straw Man]

34. Zombie.

Why are you still here? It's obvious to everyone that you are Shares United, who was banned from this forum for wishing harm on other DU members and for indulging in graphic and sadistic fantasies.

[CokeMachine]

40. That's the Shares that I know and love!!

Thanks for keeping the score up to date.

[fredzachmane]

60. The person who would have been the next victim of this criminal probably appreciates it

[Loudly]

61. No doubt. But it sounds very much

like you want access to guns and ammo to citizens in the first place.

So aren't you reaping what you sow in a way?

Otherwise, how do the bad guys get guns?

[holdencaufield]

2. Hear's guessing the robber ...

... will think twice about pulling a gun on a family again. He took his chances when he threatened to use deadly force on a family.

[sylvi]

5. You mean a dozen bystanders weren't mowed down in the process?

That's what I keep hearing - you can't use a gun in a public venue without it turning into a Quentin Tarantino movie.

[holdencaufield]

10. I "LOVE" Tarantino movies!

I even liked "Death Proof"

[Loudly]

18. Check out the donut shop scene in "Boogie Nights."

[sylvi]

20. I guess they ended up going to Krispy Kreme that night.

Better creme-filled ones there, anyway.

[Straw Man]

36. Yes.

We can learn so much about life from movies.

Why are you still here? It's obvious to everyone that you are Shares United, who was banned from this forum for wishing harm on other DU members and for indulging in graphic and sadistic fantasies.

[Loudly]

46. Sounds like you're entirely familiar with the scene to which I refer.

An armed citizen with the best of intentions inadvertently causing a mass killing.

And a serendipitous windfall for Don Cheadle's character.

It's a real twist for the storyline of Buck Swope's.

[Straw Man]

47. Begone, zombie.

And take your memes with you.

[Loudly]

49. If you're out of arguments, I'll take that as admission of defeat.

Ad hominem bullshit advances your position not a millimeter.

[Straw Man]

54. I already gave the arguments the last time ...

... you were here, when you were "Shares United." You were banned. Now you seem to think it's fine to slink back in under a new name and carry on with the same old tired memes.

You were tombstoned, yet you walk among us. Hence "zombie."

Not an ad hominem -- merely a statement of fact.

[AtheistCrusader]

62. This is your fallback? Movies?

How about real life examples of it happening, given the US DoJ puts defensive gun uses in legal conditions at 60-100K per year depending on year.

[Revanchist]

24. What, can't you read????

It says it was a father who fired fearing for the safety of his family, not a NYPD officer.

[CokeMachine]

43. Very good!!

I had to read it a couple of time to get your sarcasm. Bravo!!

[bubbayugga]

7. that's awesome. Good for him. nt

[quadrature]

25. what's not to like?

the father, at great personal risk
(of going to jail)
takes action that puts
two bad perps in prison

[mia]

56. I've been to that Burger King. No more.

It's in an area where condo skyscrapers border the inner-city.

"The Burger King incident followed an earlier incident in which the duo teamed up to rob a young woman of her iPhone 4S at 2200 NE 4th Ave. at about 10:15 a.m., with Smalls driving the truck as they fled, police said. Her phone was later found inside the truck, police added."

[HockeyMom]

76. "headed for the door"

I don't get this at all. If the robber was leaving/fleeing, how is the man's LIFE threatened by that? Is this why he shot the prep in the leg and not in the BACK? Florida's SYG is very, very bad.

[madmom]

77. I was about to ask the same thing. If the robber was headed toward the door, how was he

in fear for their lives? Sounds fishy to me.

[kudzu22]

78. I doubt SYG would apply if the suspect was leaving.

The guy would have a hard time establishing "fear for his life" when the guy is already out the door. Then it becomes revenge/fear-for-my-wallet, and that's the difference between justified shooting and murder.

[gejohnston]

79. has nothing to do with Florida's SYG

perhaps reading the law would be better than taking what some C and R blogger claims. It is not protected, if the media account is to be believed. Two reasons I don't really bother with these.
The media usually gets important details wrong
There are might be a lot of relevant details missing.