Some folks have had enough

God says he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I'm not as perfect as Him, so I'll just take quiet satisfaction while reading this article again:

They strode into the restaurant supply store in Harlem shortly after 3 p.m. on Thursday, four young men intent on robbery, one with a Glock 9-millimeter pistol, the police said. The place may have looked like an easy mark, a high-cash business with an owner in his 70s, known as a gentle, soft-spoken man.

But Charles Augusto Jr., the 72-year-old proprietor of the Kaplan Brothers Blue Flame Corporation, at 523 West 125th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue, had been robbed several times before, despite the fact that his shop is around the corner from the 26th Precinct station house on West 126th Street.

There were no customers in the store, only Mr. Augusto and two employees, a man and a woman. The police said the invaders announced a holdup, approached the two employees and tried to place plastic handcuffs on them. The male employee, a 35-year-old known in the community as J. B., struggled with the gunman, who then hit him on the head with the pistol.

Watching it happen, Mr. Augusto, whom neighborhood friends call Gus, rose from a chair 20 to 30 feet away and took out a loaded Winchester 12-gauge pump-action shotgun with a pistol-grip handle. The police said he bought it after a robbery 30 years ago.

Mr. Augusto, who has never been in trouble with the law, fired three blasts in rapid succession, the police said...

The first shot took down the gunman at the front. He died almost immediately, according to the police, who said he was 29 and had been arrested for gun possession in Queens last year and was the nephew of a police officer.

Mr. Augusto’s other two blasts hit all three accomplices, who stumbled out the door, bleeding.

According to the article, the district attorney is considering a misdemeanor weapons charge because Mr. Augusto didn't have a permit for the shotgun. Sometimes I wonder who's the bigger threat: the growing number of violent nihilists in our midst, or the idiotic officials who want the public disarmed and vulnerable. Rarely, if ever, will the "authorities" arrive in time to do more than set up a crime scene investigation. But it seems they often have time to make life difficult for law-abiding citizens who exercise the right to self-defense.

Meanwhile, if this miscalculation by four miscreants causes others to think twice about how "easy" armed robbery seems to be, so much the better.

(HT: Instapundit)