Utah County, Utah saw a couple of deadly interactions over the weekend between miscreants and concealed carriers. We featured one of them, an attempted carjacking gone wrong…for the carjacker. Sunday morning, a homeowner ended a home invasion in progress with extreme prejudice. Two clear self-defense situations, two dead suspects. All of which, if you believe ksl.com, has sparked “discussion” about the use of deadly force by armed citizens. Just who’s doing the discussing — besides KSL’s reporters — isn’t really clear. Well, reader RA is having none of it . . .
Here are his thoughts as communicated to TTAG central command:
I’m sorry, I hate to sound callous here, but the only discussion we should be having is about how these two gun owners are coping with the situations. I understand that at one time both cold bodies in the morgue were warm, loving and cuddly. However both men made poor choices. No one forced Mr. Matafeo to steal that car and no one forced Mr. Chichia to get drunk and break into the wrong home. Mr. Matafeo’s mother said,
“Remember that owning a gun comes huge responsibility, the individual who shot my son will now have to carry that burden with him forever,” she wrote to Orem police. “He shot someone’s son, father, brother, uncle, someone who was loved tremendously.”
Yes, owning and carrying a gun is a huge responsibility, but so is being a good citizen. I don’t know the shooters and I can only imagine what they may be thinking. However, I do know that had I been in the same situation I would have done the same thing. I would much rather live with the “burden” of shooting a bad guy, than the “burden” knowing they harmed my family and I could have stopped it.