“I carry a gun for the same reason I wear a seatbelt”

Excellent reasoning for concealed carry. It isn’t that gun owners wants to use the gun they carry, just like no one ever wants to use the seat belt they fasten in their car. But, as I have said over and over, it is better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. Case in point:

Traveling jewelry salesman Leon Rozio and his partner were returning to Miami from a West Palm Beach sales call when they made an unscheduled stop to pick up a payment at the St. Moritz Jewelers store in Boca Raton.

Rozio and authorities now think a gang of sophisticated robbers was following him, targeting him in the latest of a series of brazen daylight heists of South Florida precious gem dealers that are the focus of FBI and local police investigations.

After his partner went inside the store Wednesday afternoon, Rozio parked. Robbers quickly boxed him in with their silver SUV, and three windows in Rozio’s Ford Explorer exploded.

“On that day, I think I was as close to being killed as any other,” Rozio recounted in a Thursday interview.

A robber grabbed the duffel bag filled with more than $100,000 worth of precious stones. He had a black shirt wrapped around his head and face, with only his eyes showing, “like they do in those riots in South America,” Rozio said.

Licensed to carry a concealed firearm, Rozio scrambled out of his SUV and fired several shots.

He hit and killed one of the jewel thieves, but three others escaped with over $100,000 in uninsured jewelry. If he didn’t have the gun, would they have have run before finishing him off? Hard to say, but it does seem they wouldn’t have had a problem with it.

Hat Tip: The Gun Shots