Monday, August 3, 2015

If Only He'd Had A Gun To Defend Himself. Oh, Wait.... (Yet Another Gun Shop Owner)

The NRA says that carrying guns makes us safer and scares away the "bad guys with guns."  With that philosophy, shouldn't gun stores be the safest places in the U.S.?

And yet, here is yet another case (like THIS ONE and THIS ONE) where that simply wasn't true.

Jon Bieker and his wife Becky were in the gun store that they own, called the cutesy name "She's A Pistol" (which targets women as customers) in Shawnee, Kansas, both of them were armed with loaded handguns, when a "customer," came up to the counter to talk to Becky about a handgun.  Then three more people came in, armed. According to one of the suspects, the plan was for them to grab a handgun and then make a run for it, stealing it.  But that's now how things went down.

One of the four robbers leaped over the counter and punched Becky in the face, but then Jon, hearing the commotion, came out of a back room and opened fire.

What followed was a massive shootout which left two of the robbers injured and Jon Bieker injured and dying, surrounded by hundreds of his guns.  

Bieker later died in the hospital.  The suspects were captured after they tried to knock on the back door of a woman's home and the woman called 911 (instead of trying to shoot them, I'll add).

From an article:

Jon Bieker was killed and the man who allegedly shot him was placed in a medically induced coma following the Jan. 9 shootout. Three other suspects are in jail on first-degree murder charges while Becky Bieker is preparing to reopen her business, which specializes in offering personal protection options to females.
Yet the irony is that they can't protect themselves!

The irony is increased considering Becky's comments a few years ago:
In 2013, Becky Bieker explained why she is in business during an interview with KCTV. 
"People understand now that they can't rely on someone else or something else to protect them. They have to do it themselves," she said.

If Bieker hadn't opened fire, there's a good chance that no one would have died and the only problems would have been a stolen gun and Becky's bruised face.  Instead there was a shootout.  Jon's guns and all of his training didn't save him.

[this post is part of an ongoing series of people being shot to death or attacked despite being armed (and sometimes because they are armed)]