Know Your Surroundings. Stay Situationally Aware

In the late 70’s my friend worked with friends, in New York, in a restaurant they owned and had just opened. Since they had sunk their savings into the store, we thought it would be a good idea to have some guns in the store, because they couldn’t afford a robbery, it would have shut them down.

New York at that time had a waiting period before you could take possession of the gun you just bought and pass a background check on, and you couldn’t pick it up ON the 15th day, come back on the 16th.

So, we sweated through the days, praying we wouldn’t be an unarmed victim of a robbery. Fortunately, we made it.

We all, 4 of us, picked up our pistols on the 16th day, and were sitting around the shop checking them out when someone buzzed for entry, looking up at the monitor we saw there are two guys wearing long jackets. Not suspicious at all on a sunny 95° beachfront day. One of the owners went out front, with his pistol under his apron, to let them in and wait on them, the other two owners and I watched them on the monitor.

We had told the one up front that if they pulled a weapon to fall to the floor, because the other two owner and I were following the two guys movements on the monitor, and if they did pull a gun, that we would be sending lead through the plaster wall behind him.

The “customers” produced a junky little ring saying they wanted it cleaned, the other owner took it and did it while the first owner stayed out with the “customers” as me and the 3rd continued to watch the monitor.

The customers could be seen scanning the store and whispering to each other, they couldn’t see into the back work room because there were swinging doors on doorway, and you could see them pointing at the doors and talking to each other about them. They also were pointing and talking about the door since they had to be buzzed in. Naw…. just two fine upstanding citizens, just getting a ring cleaned for a girlfriend.

We returned their cleaned ring, and they left. Guess they didn’t like the odds, couldn’t see how many people, CCTV, buzzer, and I firmly believe they knew that we were all armed, and looked for an easier victim.

Next day we talked to a jewelry store owner down the street that came in to warn us that there were armed robbers around, that he had been robbed the previous day. The same two guys that were in our store, from the description he gave us, came into his store.

The guy had a dog which the “customers” asked to have locked away because it “made them nervous”, and he did so. (Personally, I would have said “That’s his job. And move slowly around him, he’s kind of protective.”, but that’s just me.) The “customers” pulled out guns and robbed him of thousands of dollars of his jewelry.

Think of this - ONE day sooner had they walked in our door, we would have been out of business. So, who did the waiting period law” help? Do you think the guys that tried to rob us obeyed gun laws? Bought them legally? Are even, BY LAW, allowed to own them?

I’m getting a LOT of “why didn’t you wait to open” type of responses, so here’s the answer:

The owners were not gun people, they never thought of guns in the restaurant. I was the person of the group and suggested it after they’d already been opened about a month, explained why, etc. We went to the gun store that very day. The story tells the rest.