Posted 2/04/2012 02:17:00 PM by Douglas

Texas is one of 49 states that allow you to carry a concealed weapon in public (suck it, Illinois), and I've thought for a long time that they are pretty silly. If you have a gun in your pocket and whip it out while, or hopefully before, someone goes nuts in the Luby's, no one is going to charge you for carrying a gun illegally. And if you just keep it in your pocket, no one is going to care because no one will find out. Obviously, if you pull it out and start shooting at people, you'll go to jail anyway, and NOT for breaking the concealed weapon law. Turns out it's illegal to shoot at people.

So I've never understood the rationale behind being able to "opt-out" of the concealed carry law. In Texas, as in most states, businesses and public places can effectively opt-out of the law that allows permitted gun owners from carrying concealed weapons on their premises simply by posting an appropriate sign. So what happens, then, if someone is otherwise legally carrying a concealed weapon, but enters a place with such a sign posted, and then shoots a guy with a shotgun pointed at a convenience store clerk? Spoiler alert: he's a hero.

The Aldi customer who shot an armed robber in the store Monday won't face any criminal charges, prosecutors confirmed Friday.

The customer, Nazir Al-Mujaahid of Milwaukee, held a news conference to discuss the incident. Al-Mujaahid, 35, called it nothing to brag about, but that "sometimes you have to do what you have to do."

Al-Mujaahid said he and his wife stopped at the store, at N. 76th St. and W. Villard Ave., for some last-minute dinner items. They'd never shopped at the store before, he said.

He said they had just walked in when he noticed the suspect approach the cashiers holding up a shotgun with the stock cut off and a bag, demanding money in a very agitated way. Fearing for the safety of himself, his wife and others in the store, he said, he unholstered his semi-automatic 9mm handgun, cocked it and kept it down at his side as he motioned another customer behind the robber to move away.

When the robber turned the shotgun toward him, Al-Mujaahid said, he fired six or seven shots from about 20 feet away. He said he hit the suspect in the leg and forehead. The robber then dropped the shotgun and bag, and fled the store. Police arrested a suspect and an accomplice later. They had not been formally charged as of Friday morning.

Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I'm sure the owner of the store is sorry he put that sign up. . .AND glad this guy ignored it. Wait, he hit the guy seven times from 20 feet away, in the leg and the forehead, and he fled the store? Am I missing something here? Also, here's the part everyone that puts up one of those signs should read:

He said he did not notice the sign at Aldi prohibiting weapons in the store, and that if he had, he would have gone elsewhere. He said since he began to carry a concealed gun, he has stopped from going into other businesses where he did see the sign.

Think for a minute what kind of gun-toting person is going to be deterred by a sternly worded sign. Choose wisely.