Smash and grab robbery jewelry store san bruno
Screen grab courtesy ABC7

There has been a tidal wave of smash-and-grab robberies in California in recent weeks with no end in sight. But at least some business owners fought back against the thieves with their legally carried firearms and won.

At a jewelry store just East of Los Angles, four men sprayed bear repellent on everyone in the showroom. When the store owner pulled out his legally owned firearm, the suspects went running.

In a second incident in a Bay Area jewelry store, another group of thugs attempted to break into a display case with a crow bar when the store’s owner intervened, pulling his firearm and scaring off the robbers.

Business owners increasingly have no choice except to protect themselves and their livelihoods in cities with progressive district attorneys like George Gascón in Los Angeles and Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, who have turned the most populous parts of California into safe havens for criminals.

It appears the public is giving up on the politicians and have increasingly decided to take matters into their own hands.

 

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47 COMMENTS

    • you say that

      but the moment a ‘misunderstood youth’ gets shot robbing the place I would not put my money on the shooter getting out without charges or, at least, their business getting burned down

      unless, of course, the skin pigmentation is in their favor

      • Southern Cross, Here in the US we can use a gun in self defense. A crowbar such as the one used in this smash and grab, is a deadly weapon. Why would the storeowner be arrested??????

    • The law is fine, in fact California has some of the strictest criminal laws in the country, along with Texas and Florida. It is their enforcement that is lacking. do to some idiotic belief that the only reason (black) criminals are engaging in crime is because they were discriminated against by “The System” and therefore “The System” must be reformed to allow these utes to turn their lives around.

      Arm up people. You are on your own. And don’t forget that having a firearm in your own place of business (or with the permission of the owner of the business) does not require a CCW.

  3. Depending on your municipal government, “warning shots” can land you in jail. Rock salt or bird shot is “attempted murder”. Even dye packs are tightly regulated. Maybe 2A advocates need to address laws which restrict our ability to defend our property, not just our lives. By forbidding non-lethal means of protection, our only choice is shooting to kill or doing nothing at all. And doing nothing isn’t really a choice.

    • Birdshot IS lethal.!
      With 3″ to 5″ of penetration depth in soft tissue at normal combat range, you have dozens of chances of inflicting an injury that is lethal. You only need an inch of penetration to slip between the ribs to reach the heart.

      • Husband comes home to find nekked guy in bed with wifey. Husband retrieves 20 ga. single shot shotgun and points it at nekked guy, ordering him our of the house. Nekked guy grabs end of the barrel of the shotgun. Unfortunately for n.g., the gun is loaded with a round of birdshot and hubby has cocked the hammer and has his finger on the trigger. The act of grabbing the barrel of the gun caused the the gun to discharge directing the load of birdshot into the n.g.’s abdomen. The coroner testified in court that if the n.g. had been in an operating room fully staffed ready to repair the damage to abdominal organs, there was nothing that they could do. The liver was so badly damaged it could not be repaired. A large being had been completely severed causing massive blood loss that would have been next to impossible to repair due to the amount of the being that had been destroyed by the shot column.

        The old shibboleth that a shot column spreads one inch for every yard traveled is an urban legend. Testing done with various shotguns at various lengths by different testing groups has demonstrated time and again that is incorrect. A defensive shotgun needs to be patterned at the distances in your home to determine how far that particular load will spread. At bad breath distance against a nekked guy a 20 ga birdshot creates a devastating wound. A wound beyond the skill of the most skillful surgeon in the country to repair.

    • Smash and grabbers almost always bring tools like crowbars, hammers, clubs to smash with.

      When confronted, especially between the loot and the exit, those can be considered deadly weapons making the shoot about self defense, not protecting property.

      • There was a girl killed recently as a bystander in a police shooting. She was in a dressing room, behind a wall where the guy who was shot was standing. A warning shot or a miss, either way, that bullet is going somewhere. It’s one thing to miss by accident. It’s another thing to miss on purpose.

  4. Look closely at the video, the one with the crowbar (or what ever it was – I’m just gonna call him crowbar guy here) breaking the glass on the case. The store guy confronts him then moves back from him as the crowbar guy turns towards him slightly then hesitates just for a second then starts to move slightly towards the store guy until he sees the store guy going for his gun then crowbar guy decides its time to leave.

    That right there, is a good example of that moment of decision (the trigger pull) about to arrive and it can be that fast and that close.

    • avatar Geoff "A day without an apparently brain-damaged mentally-ill demented troll is like a day of warm sunshine" PR

      A damn shame the owner didn’t begin the draw as soon as he saw a deadly weapon (the crowbar) when he turned at the sound of glass breaking.

      Then, if ‘crowbar guy’ had made a move towards the shop owner, that would have been a good shoot…

      • “shame the owner didn’t begin the draw as soon as he saw a deadly weapon (the crowbar) when he turned at the sound of glass breaking”

        if he’d drawn and then moved forward, that would have been considered offensive action, not defensive.

  5. Pass a federal law that protects citizens from any actions they may take to halt a violent criminal act until the police show up.

    So once you got the thug down…its free shoot and torture time.

  6. What did the Kalifornia state government expect when they all but legalized robbery?

    The crooks would get more brazen and pick better targets.

  8. “voters, who by a 60-40 margin in 2020 voted down the Proposition 20 attempt to make organized retail theft a felony regardless of amount”

    the citizens were outvoted by dominion.

    • avatar Geoff "A day without an apparently brain-damaged mentally-ill demented troll is like a day of warm sunshine" PR

      “Interesting that word is now acceptable speech.”

      ‘Thug’ is a behavior, not a description of skin color.

      A thug is what a thug does, ‘thuggish’ behavior…

      • Thug is from the Indian word thugee used to described a gang in India doing exactly what the folks in the video were doing.

    • now? I’ve heard it used all my life and its been acceptable to describe a person who acts like a thug.

      The word ‘Thug” originated in the 14th century in India. There was a gang of criminals in India known as the ‘thuggee’. The word got picked up by travelers to and from India later in about the late 14th – early 15th century and shortened to ‘Thug” to mean a person (or ‘Thugs’ for more than one) that participated in criminal related or bad anti-social activity (e.g. bullying or threatening) and has been in acceptable common usage since.

      • The Thugee were a cult who would befriend and then murder travelers as sacrifices to their goddess Kali. The loot would be used for living expenses with the local maharaja getting a cut for allowing the Thugee to operate.

        One thing the British administration did was to stamp out the cult so effectively they ceased to be a significant threat.

  10. Remember the Korean shop keepers from the L.A. Riot. They did what was necessary to defend their stores. How history repeats itself again.

  11. Good thing that store owner didn’t open fire as they were running away. Looks like a shopping mall location that would have endangered lots of others. But it was cool the way the crowbar shopper changed his/her/it’s mind when they saw a shootin” iron come out!

  12. Ya’ll know why is pretty safe 99.9% of the time for people to move around in a zoo among all the violent predator animals on display there?

    Its because all the violent predator animals are in some sort of confinement that separates them from their prey which would be the people looking at them.

    You know what happens when an animal predator gets close to the prey? Its either fight or flight for the prey. But the problem is not all animal prey have a definitive means of life saving defense for a fight when they can’t get away. So if they fight they need to stop the predator either by demonstrating the will to resist by making it really tough for the predator until the predator gives up and leaves or strike back in a fashion that seriously injures or kills the predator.

    If the prey does not have that definitive means of defense and can’t get away what happens to the prey? That’s right, the predator has its way and kills or injures or takes something from the prey (e.g. steals a birds eggs, their young, their nest/home). Does that sound familiar? Kinda sounds like, oh I don’t know, criminals. For the human animal the only definitive means of life saving defense is the means of lethal force and that is available in the … wait for it … firearm.

    That, if the law would place violent predators (criminals) in confinement away from the people they prey on and keep them confined away. But noooooo… the human species is the only animal species on earth that allows violent predators (in the form of criminals) to have the right to roam freely among their prey so we create laws and policies by government that give rights to violent criminals and release them or do not lock them up so they can continue to roam freely among the prey to pick and choose their next meal like a buffet. Then, the gun control freaks want to blame the prey and remove the definitive means of defense (firearm) from them when that means of defense is absolutely needed thousands of times a day around the country to save the prey from the predator.

    It is a crazy world.

    • 40 cal,
      That was way too long!
      I agree with your post.
      But You have to keep it shorter or no one is going to read it.

    • Not to forget that the human animal species is the only animal species on earth that penalizes and/or ostracizes members of its own species for using valid self-defense to save their lives from serious injury or death.

      But, we are evolved and more intelligent than the other animals the argument goes from the gun-control and anti-gun and pro-criminal politician, and the supposed ‘intellectuals’ and ‘experts’ who assert their self-serving elite status by opinion and studies with false and incomplete and biased slewed data to serve the agenda of those others. The very fact that known violent predator criminals are allowed to roam freely among their public prey shows that maybe the gun-control and anti-gun and pro-criminal politician and their agenda supporting supposed ‘intellectuals’ and ‘experts’ are not as evolved and intelligent as they think they are.

      Defensive gun use takes place in the United States ~ 8,000 times a day against predator criminals. Shots are not fired by the victim good guy with the gun victim every time, like in the video with this article, but critical and needed life saving defense it is.

      The studies by Kleck and other pro-gun researchers may seem to be wrong or flawed according to the anti-gun/gun-control people. Yet, those studies by Kleck and other pro-gun researchers are proven true and substantiated by real word fact ~ 8,000 times a day in the U.S. and the studies by the anti-gun/gun-control people are either dis-proven or still remain unsubstantiated by real world fact. Even here in this article, Kleck and other pro-gun researchers are proven true and substantiated by real word fact in the video with this article.

      So, I’ve posted this before but here once again …

      According to Kleck’s “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America” – the leading authority on the subject of compliance:

      1. Any form of resistance, except with firearm, carries with it an injury rate of 52%.

      2. Resistance with a firearm carried with it the risk of injury of 17%, but use of a firearm early in an encounter carries with it a risk of injury of 6%.

      Overall, in Kleck, you have a minimum of a 25% chance of being injured if you comply, but you are 4 time less likely to be injured if you have your firearm and are prepared to use it.

      Take away here summary: compliance may still result in injury (which includes death), resistance without a firearm carries a 52% chance of injury (which includes death), resistance with a firearm lowers chance of injury (which includes death) to 17%, resistance with a firearm early in the encounter further lowers risk of injury (which includes death) to 6%

      If you are armed are you willing to gamble that you are not in the 25%?
      if you are not armed are you willing to gamble that you are not in the 52%?

      Compliance or not, resistance or not – is not a decision one needs to make. The answer is already provided, non-compliance via firearms resistance offers the best chance of less injury. Don’t give the predator a chance and stop them definitively, they certainly are not going to give you a chance if they can sink their claws into you and would not hesitate to stop you definitively.

        • Seriously though, if you have a such a short attention span being so used to the snappy on liners on the internet that this length bothers you then simply do not read it. I do not understand the logic that its necessary to post a comment complaining about something in a comment section being too long to read, just simply do not read it.

  13. Fun fact: Under California law, businesses and malls are “public places.” It is illegal to carry a loaded firearm in these places without a license. The owner of the store (not employees) can “have” a firearm but he can’t carry it.

    • Can you cite the Penal Code section that says that? If you can’t, then you shouldn’t be practicing law, giving legal advice. Too many folks whose only experience with courts has been traffic court or divorce court think that makes them a leagle beagle.

      I had a sergeant major who happened to be in his position by mere longevity whose name was Seagle. Seagle rhymes with legal, does it not? Therefore legal should be spelled leagle. I had to wait until he was in the john or out of the office to sneak documents to the adjutant to get them signed by the CO if I spelled legal the way most folks do. If he got hold of it first it came back to me with legal encircled in red. More unfortunately, he was unwilling to look at anything I had printed by CMC or CincPac that spelled legal the way most dictionaries do.

    • Ridiculous!
      If he has a carry permit, which he obviously does or he would have been arrested, than he can carry in public places.

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