Armed Citizen Success Story

As I've said before, I don't post every one of these that I see in the news, as there are always a few a week that I hear about. I do promise to post every single story I find about a legally licensed citizen committing violent crime. After two years in Ohio and many, many years for the rest of the country, I'm still waiting for those...

Those that don't keep their radar tuned to self-defense stories are probably not aware of what recently happened to Lumpy Lambert. That is because armed citizen accounts rarely make it to print. When they do, the vast majority of them report that, "Mrs. Smith is lucky to be alive" rather than "Mrs. Smith used her legal firearm for self-defense. If she hadn't, she would now be dead." I know I don't have any facts/statistics to back that up (how would I?). You'll have to trust me that's the case. The closest I can come is that the official FBI stats predict that a firearm is used 1.5 million times a year in justifiable self-defense. Do you hear about all of those in the news? I certainly don't.

That is what makes this story a bit of an anomaly. It comes to us from Knoxville, Tennessee and actually made its way to a few other papers around the country. However, it certainly didn't get the widespread coverage it deserves.

Here's what happened:

A Knox County Commissioner, Greg "Lumpy" Lambert was working at his car dealership when a 19-year-old man entered and wanted a test drive. After it was over, the customer said he's ready to buy and had $12,000 in cash for the purchase. Lumpy asked for the customer's driver's license and started the paperwork. The customer then went outside to have a cigarette. Lumpy said he was always suspicious as he didn't see any bulges in the guy's pants that would indicate he had such a large sum of cash with him. Also, he never tried to negotiate a better price. The customer came back in, continued acting suspicious, and began to draw a handgun. Lumpy, who trains with his legal firearm, was quicker and drew his first.

From this story on WBIR.com:

"He [the robber] said he didn't want any trouble, that he just wanted to leave. I said he was not going to leave with his gun. This man is obviously pulling a gun on people, he's not, the rest of society out there was not safe as long as he was carrying this weapon. So I made him drop his weapon. And told him to get out of there and prepare to be arrested that our good sheriff's department would catch up with him, which they did about 12 hours later," said Lambert.

I believe that the reason why this was originally reported was because it was painted as an amusing human interest story. The media kept making fun of the robber since he previously gave Lumpy his driver's license (allowing the cops to apprehend him). Plus, Lumpy was wearing a "Friends of the NRA" hat at the time. Finally, the good guy's nickname is Lumpy and he's from Tennessee. All of the accounts made sure to mention those facts and have a good chuckle about the moronic robber rather than focusing on Lumpy's heroics. (For example, see the original news article).

That's fine. Whatever gets the word out.

However... this story became a lot more serious yesterday. (From the same link above):

The man who pulled a gun on a Knox County commissioner is charged with murder.

Late Tuesday afternoon, a grand jury indicted 19 year-old Kane Stackhouse with the murder of 53 year-old David Lindsey.

Lindsey was shot and killed at a Walgreen's in Powell earlier this month.

Stackhouse is also charged with aggravated robbery after officers say he pulled a gun on Commissioner Greg "Lumpy" Lambert at his car dealership about ten hours after the murder.

So, the media should not focus on a good ol' boy in an NRA hat that got the drop on a stupid thief that left behind his driver's license.

They should focus on the fact that a legally armed citizen used his firearm to defend himself from someone that allegedly committed murder a mere ten hours before the encounter. It also needs to be noted that (like the vast majority of self-defense encounters) a shot never had to be fired.

Good for you Lumpy. I'm glad you're not dead.



UPDATE: Just for fun, I've posted a pic of the handgun Lumpy had with him mainly to note that it is arbitrarily banned in many cities across our nation (Toledo, OH is one) because it's too small in size. This is one of the more common restrictions in a "Saturday Night Special" law. Whatever.

I also think it's good for normal, everyday folks (like you, Constant Reader) to see firearms as the morally neutral tools they are. They're not inherently evil. They can be used for good. Normally, people only see guns on CNN in the hands of terrorists or in a hazy surveillance tape during a robbery.

Kel-Tec P-3AT