hat trick

One important thing for all firearm-carriers to remember is thankfully also quite simple: all handguns suck. No, this is not going to devolve into some 1911 vs. Glock debate, or something along those lines, but it is rather an honest observation regarding the relative efficacy of handguns, and handgun rounds, at stopping a threat – in short, they ain’t too great. To be certain, any kind of firearm – even a handgun – is better than your swinging cod, but the age old thought that one should use one’s handgun to either get entirely clear of the situation, or fight your way to a “real” gun (i.e. shotgun, rifle, etc.) continues to hold true even today.

That thought might just have saved this couple’s lives:

Two men were in an east Houston jewelry store Thursday afternoon pretending to be customers when a third man entered the store and stated, “This is a robbery,” Houston police spokesman Kese Smith said.

All three men pulled out pistols, tied up the owner’s wife and took her to a back room, Smith said.

As they were trying to tie up the store owner, the 52-year-old took out a handgun from his waistband and fatally shot one of the suspects, Smith said. He then grabbed a shotgun and shot and killed the two other suspects in the ensuring gunbattle, Smith said.

The Houston Chronicle identified the store owner and his wife as Ramon and Eva Castillo, 48.

I do not go out too much, but if we ever happen to share a bar, Mr. Castillo, everything is on me.

The story, so far as I can assemble it, is that two scumbags walked into Mr. Castillo’s jewelry/pawn shop, and asked to see some rings, effectively distracting him and his wife. Then, a third came in, pulled a firearm, and declared that this was a robbery, whereupon the other two pulled out their own handguns, and the whole group of them herded the Castillos into the back room of their shop. If the scumbags had simply left the couple back there, or locked them back there, or something like that, and done their smash-and-grab and left, they probably would all be alive to this day… however, in a fit of Darwinian stupidity, the robbers decided to tie up Mrs. Castillo, and then her husband.

Thankfully, they never got that far. Historically speaking, if a criminal restrains you in any way – be it tied to a chair, locked in a trunk, or whatever – and remains in the same area as you, robbery/theft is not the only thing they are interested in… Bob S. has a particularly disgusting story from once-Great Britain where the lowlife thugs strapped an iron to a man’s back after already robbing him of around $400,000 in cash and property, and that is just one of many examples. Whether Mr. Castillo was aware of this pattern or not, we probably will never know, but he unquestionably took the right course of action.

Once his wife was secured, out of the line of fire, and in a known location (remember, always know your target and what is beyond it), Mr. Castillo drew his own firearm, stopped the most-immediate threat to him, and went directly for heavier firepower. Could he have continued the fight with his handgun? Absolutely. But given that a generally more-effective tool was just steps away in his office, I dare say the brief delay to retrieve it was a necessary risk/cost, and the events play out to support his decision as well.

All three scumbags are now sporting toetags at the local morgue, Mrs. Castillo emerged from the incident completely unscathed, and while Mr. Castillo had to be transported to the hospital in critical condition with shots to his left shoulder, abdomen, and legs, he is expected to survive (and did not even realize he was shot until he went to untie his wife, and she saw the blood… which only further substantiates the point that all handguns suck).

Moving beyond Mr. Castillo’s choice of tools, there are a few additional points to consider from this news report:

1. The criminals already had their firearms out, and possibly even pointed at Mr. and Mrs. Castillo, and he was still able to draw his own handgun, kill one, and go for his shotgun. This debunking of the notion that “if a criminal already has his gun out, you should give him what he wants” is starting to turn into a regular feature here.

2. This robbery transpired at 1408 on a Thursday – broad daylight, in a populated area of town. Do not count on either to dissuade criminals intent on committing a crime.

3. Likewise, Mr. Castillo had something of an awesome security set-up, with a buzz-in-buzz-out front door system, cameras all over the place, and so forth. However, each and every one o those security measures is passive, and, once again, did not convince these criminals to go somewhere else.

4. Know your tools, how to use them, and where they are. I do not know if Mr. Castillo trained for these kinds of incidents or not, but through his previous preparation and presence of mind, he was able to save his and his wife’s lives.

5. Just because you are hit does not mean you are done (see: all handguns suck). Adrenaline does amazing things, and Mr. Castillo was able to defeat three armed thugs, secure his premises, and release his wife before he even realized he had been shot thrice – it ain’t over ’till the fat lady sings, so you might as well keep pushing.

In the end, our law-abiding, average, every-day citizens survived the encounter – not unscathed, but alive – while the law-breaking, society-destroying, scum-of-the-earth criminals ended up ventilated on the floor… but only because the victim in this circumstance had a choice, as all American citizens should have, at all times. Thank God for that.

(Courtesy of Hell in a Handbasket and The Munchkin Wrangler, who brings up some tangential points about “mom and pop” stores.)