FL: Bystander Shoots Robber In Mall Parking Lot: "Police continue to search for two men who tried to grab a woman's purse as she walked toward the Fashion Square Mall on Tuesday. A third man was shot and arrested, apparently by a bystander who saw the robbery, police said Wednesday. Willie Keys-Fairclough, 29, who is hospitalized with minor injuries, was arrested in connection with the incident. The incident began about 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday when the woman got off a LYNX bus and walked to an ATM to check her balance. She then continued toward the mall. "She felt people come up to her, maybe one, maybe two," Sgt. Barb Jones of the Orlando Police Department said. "They tried to grab her purse...She resisted. She started yelling, that's when everything started unfolding." One shopper, who saw the men with guns, got his own. "You had a citizen engage the suspects," Jones said Wednesday. "There were some rounds fired." The suspects ran across the street, and police said they found one man hiding behind a dumpster. The man had been shot in the leg but didn't know it. The man, later identified by police as Keys-Fairclough, is charged with armed robbery and aggravated assault with a gun. Two other suspects remain on the run."


AL: Robbery suspect shot dead, alleged accomplice wounded: "A would-be robber was shot dead overnight Wednesday and his alleged accomplice was wounded after they attempted to rob the owner of a gas station near Anniston. Calhoun County Sheriff Larry Amerson said the gun-toting suspects and the owner got into a shootout around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Fuller's Oil Company on U.S. 431. Amerson said 21-year-old Takeem Pope of Anniston appeared to have died of a single gunshot wound. The other man, 19-year-old Blake Jackson, also of Anniston, was shot in the arm. Amerson declined to name the owner, but said he acted in self-defense. He was not injured. Authorities said charges are pending against Jackson, who was taken to UAB Hospital for treatment.


Crazy Philly man fatally shot after pulling pellet gun on cops: "It's a neighborhood so notoriously crime-riddled that police parked a marked trailer curbside at 23rd and Tasker streets to intimidate thugs and ease surveillance efforts. So maybe it's no surprise that a thug reached for his gun, shouting that he was ready to shoot, when a uniformed police officer came there late Wednesday. The threat ended fatally for the thug, who ignored the officer's repeated orders to surrender his weapon. The officer shot the man once in the chest as he reached into his waistband, said Lt. Frank Vanore. The man, who died 20 minutes later at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, remained unidentified yesterday. At the scene, investigators found the man's weapon, a replica pellet gun, Vanore said. "The last thing an officer wants to do is use deadly force, but sometimes he is forced to do that to protect himself and the public," Vanore said. "This was a brazen act, and it was a split-second decision that unfortunately in this case was fatal." Gunfire is common in the area, which is plagued by drug activity and home to the notorious Bey family, a clan police have called urban terrorists. The officer, a seven-year veteran, was placed on desk duty, pending outcome of investigations by the homicide and internal-affairs units. Outside Lid's Cafe yesterday, passersby had little sympathy for the dead man. "He had to be crazy to draw a gun on a cop. You get what you look for," said Lawrence Walters, 66" [He was probably so bombed out of his brain that he thought his gun was real]


Gun Availability, Crime, Freedom & Liberty: "In Jacksonville, do we have a gun availability problem or a black problem? Neither. One must look to Sweden for an example. In Sweden, all adult males keep fully automatic rifles at home. Using the logic of "it's a gun availability problem not a black problem," then Sweden should be filled with the shot-worn bodies of its citizens riddled dead by the readily available, vicious assault rifles. But that's not the case. No, not at all. You see, those of us with a modicum of understanding and discernment, and a classic education into the meaning of freedom and liberty, know that what we have is a cultural problem, and not a gun availability problem. The root of the problem is not being willing to, nor bothering to care to obey the laws of the city/state/country in which one resides. When we find an answer to that root cause, then we will be closer to a solution. Blaming the availability of guns is intellectually lazy, and boilerplate DNC/HCI tripe. Anyone with half a brain knows and acknowledges that criminals will never, ever turn in their weapons, and banning guns will only create a gigantic black market for guns -- exactly the result we have seen with keeping drugs illegal. And we have not yet touched on the millions of law-abiding citizens that would be made criminal by our government issuing a gun-ban proclamation, who would then rise up at such an unjust usurpation of personal liberty -- a disastrous consequence for sure -- yet entirely foreseeable. But, in the end, and foremost: It is about freedom. Freedom to come here and speak my mind. Freedom to read whatever I want to read. Freedom to worship a god or not, freedom to own a personal defense weapon that can equalize things between men. This country was brought about with such great precepts central to its founding. Tell me, one and all, the further we get from these principles, does our country prosper and flourish? We're about as far as one can get and still "have a toe in the water." Are things good? Are we more free or less?" [I think that the writer above meant Switzerland rather than Sweden. Gun ownership is strictly regulated in Sweden]