How Not To Do It...

We all love tales of plucky convenience store clerks who respond to an armed robbery attempt by pulling their own gat and turning the tables on the holdup man.

However, it's important to understand your state's use of force laws when playing Captain Good Guy, as one Indiana c-store clerk recently learned...

Police say the cashier pulled a gun and followed the suspected shoplifter as he left the store and walked to his car. Investigators don't know whether the employee pointed the gun or threatened the man. At some point, he drove off and someone called police.

Officers caught up with the suspected shoplifter and arrested both men.

Twenty-three-year-old Stephen Robinson is charged with theft and driving with a suspended license. The cashier, 31-year-old Ahmad Al-Rafie, is charged with intimidation with a firearm and pointing a firearm.

This is what Claude Werner would refer to as a Negative Outcome.

Your Indiana LTCH is not a Batman Badge, it is just a license to have a gun with you. Introducing a firearm into a situation is using (or threatening the use of) deadly force. We, as a society, have laid out certain parameters under which one may use deadly force. Shoplifting does not fall under those parameters.

Even if the guy's lawyer gets him off...say that video camera footage proves he never pointed the handgun and the intimidation charge is pretty 'he said, she said'...he is still going to be out several thousand times the cost of the cigar.
.