Injustice Delivered: Pizza Hut Demotes Delivery Guy For Defending Himself

Dec. 30, 2012 - I don't usually go for boycotts, but Pizza Hut needs to be on the receiving end of one for this. Sam Swicegood, college student and pizza delivery man in Maryland, defended himself against attackers while delivering pizzas. His mistake: He used a "weapon." To show him their moral support and compassion, Pizza Hut demoted him.

The trouble began as Swicegood tried to deliver pizza. He said he was "sucker punched" and his glasses flew off his face. Dropping the pizzas, he swung a piece of a tent pole he had up his sleeve.

“It’s a little fiberglass [rod] I had up my sleeve not thinking I would actually have to use it but more or less having a little comfort up my sleeve,” recalled Sam. Swicegood faced five attackers and said those odds “is just not a good situation to be in.” The rod is part of a tent pole, he explained, and it might have saved him from being more seriously injured. Hat tip to Freedom Outpost.

Swicegood said he was attacked previously, "so before he got out of his car, he grabbed something to protect himself," reported Fox News Balitmore on Dec. 28. Fox News also said that one of Sam’s co-workers was held at gunpoint last month and robbed "in the same area Sam was attacked; luckily in Sam’s case police arrested 3 out of 5 of the individuals - all of which are juveniles."

Pizza Hut: Now crap in my eyes.

Pizza Hut's outrageous reaction to Swicegood protecting himself: They demoted him, making him a cook earning less money than as a driver. Why? Because he violated Pizza Hut's no-weapon policy that forbids drivers from being armed.

Comment:  Suppose, instead of the tent pole rod, Swicegood hit his attackers with a pizza box? Those boxes are stiff and have sharp corners. You could take an eye out with ont. Could a Pizza Hut box be considered a weapon? After all, any solid object could be used as a weapon. A ball point, for example, is not a "weapon" until it is intentionally plunged into somebody's throat. 

Sam Swicegood deserves to work for a better employer. Here's a link to his resume. Additionally, there is a Facebook group now called "Support Sam Swicegood," so please check it out, "Like" it and share it. And the next time you want to go out for pizza, forget about Pizza Hut. At the Facebook page, somebody wrote the following:

Keep the pressure on Pizza Hut to reverse their silly decision to demote someone for protecting their life while delivering their product. I am not saying they need to be armed, but if in the course of defending oneself they pick something up to use as a defensive instrument, they should not be demoted or fired.

Pizza Hut Corporate Office Headquarters
14841 Dallas Parkway 
Dallas TX 75254
Phone: 800-948-8488

Concealed Carry: Politicians Get Armed Protection, But Not School Kids

Dec. 15, 2012 - Within minutes of the terrible school shooting in Newtown, CT politicians and ordinary folks started screaming for tougher control control laws. The only armed person at Sandy Hook Elementary School was Adam Lanza, the demented killer. Reports say that Lanza forced his way into the building. Had there been an armed door guard, things might have turned out very differently in Newtown.

As I wrote yesterday, schools are known to law enforcement as being attractive targets for criminally insane people bent on killing. That fact makes it hard to understand why so few schools have armed guards to protect the children and staff.

One factor that killers consider when choosing their targets is the amount of armed opposition they might encounter. Even the criminally insane are smart enough to choose a location where nobody else will have guns, where guns are banned. It should be pointed out that if Adam Lanza had a gone into the school without a gun but swinging a machete, he still would have killed a lot of people.

"Policies making areas 'gun-free' provide a sense of safety to those who engage in magical thinking," wrote Glenn Harlan Reynolds in USA Today on Dec. 14, "but in practice, of course, killers aren't stopped by gun-free zones. As always, it's the honest people — the very ones you want to be armed — who tend to obey the law."

The loudest voices now renewing the cry for more gun laws are politicians, mostly Democrats.  They argue that schools should be gun-free zones, and that allowing school staff to be armed would be dangerous. But which is more dangerous: Having yet another school left vulnerable to yet another armed crazy person's homicidal whims, where he can walk about shooting people at ease for many minutes until the police arrive? The moment the killer enters the building, it is in fact no longer "gun-free."

So, a bad guy is walking the halls of the school: Someone calls 911, but how they must wait for  police to arrive - with guns. Guns, not anti-gun laws, will save them from the bad guy. Police do what armed staff could have done minutes before, and needless deaths sooner, and that's shoot the attacker. But people died in the time it took police to arrive and get a bead on the bad guy.

Guns Could Have Saved Lives In That Colorado Theater

When I first heard about the horrific shooting during a showing of "The Dark Knight Rises"at the Century 16 complex in Aurora, Colorado my first thought was, "What a shame that some of those moviegoers weren't armed." One woman was quoted as saying that the gunman, James Eagan Holmes, 24,, stood "right in front of me" and pulled the trigger. Her reaction: "I dove over the seats" to take cover.

James Eagan Holmes

Think about that. If she'd had a gun, she could have shot the bastard and saved some people. Another person aimed his cellphone camera at the gunman. Too bad that guy didn't have .38 to aim at him instead.

I have not heard or seen a single report of anybody shooting back at Holmes. 

Reuters sums up the nightmare: A gunman in a gas mask and body armor killed 12 people at a midnight premiere of the new "Batman" movie in a suburb of Denver early on Friday, opening fire on moviegoers after hurling a gas canister into the theater. Armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, he wounded another 59 with gunfire during a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" at a mall in Aurora, which turned into a chaotic scene of bleeding victims, horrified screams and pleas for help, witnesses said. More from Reuters....

We'll be hearing from imbecile liberals all weekend and next week as they use this as an excuse for more gun control. The irony is that more guns - legal guns in the right hands - would have saved lives. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama had the good taste to express their horror at the shooting . I have no reason to believe that either was not sincere. The Repugnant Jesse Jackson, Sr., on the other hand, practically wet his pants, in such a hurry was he to make anti-gun political hay out of tragedy by calling for a ban on guns. Jackson, by the way, is often accompanied by armed bodyguards.

The weapons used by Holmes included an AR-15 assault rifle, a 12 gauge shotgun and a Glock .40 caliber handgun. All of his weapons were purchased legally, reports say, and this will undoubtedly be cited by liberal anti-gun extremists as further evidence of a complete ban on firearms. That would be a ridiculous argument, however, because most of the baseball bats, knives, meat cleavers, bottles of Drain-O and automobiles that are used to kill people every year are also legally purchased. No weapon, legally purchased or otherwise, kill  makes the decision to kill. That's done by the person who possesses the weapon, and the fact is that some people will always commit violence. Banning all firearms would leave the rest of us defenseless. (Please read the excellent opinion piece by Tom Weaver below.)

Must-Read: Dark Knight Rises Shooter Could Have Been Stopped 'If Members Of The Audience Were Armed,' Says American Guns Star - RadarOnline.com

Tom Weaver, candidate for Congress, understands that:
http://tomweaverforcongress.com/news/2012-07-20/another-senseless-shooting

We wake up this morning to the news of a terrible tragedy carried out in Colorado. Innocent people watching a newly released movie were suddenly facing a deranged shooter. And the effects are devastating.

Our prayers must go out to the victims and their families.

Why did this person commit these horrific acts? The answer is simple – no one will ever really know. Throughout the history of man, individuals, groups and governments have committed these crimes – destroying both life and liberty.

But as once stated, we have a natural right to life, a natural right to liberty, and a natural right to the pursuit of happiness. Our Founders believed in those natural rights and understood that the right to life means we have a natural right to defend our lives. And hence, they placed a guarantee within the Constitution that Government will never interfere with a person’s natural right to self-defense.

And yet, Government has done just the opposite by creating so many rules and regulations which limit the ability of people to defend themselves. Government has created an atmosphere which allows the right of self-defense to be forfeited for almost any reason. Government has created the façade that only they can protect us. This is wrong. Why? GOVERNMENT CANNOT PROTECT US – it is up to us, the people, to provide that protection.

One country that understands the natural right of self-defense is Switzerland. Switzerland has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world, yet, there is hardly any gun crime.

This tragedy may have been avoided had the person known that everyone in the aisle seats had the ability to defend themselves, their children, their loved ones and their neighbor. Our Founders were correct in stating that government must protect the right of citizens to self-defense, to keep and bear arms.

UPDATED: Chicago, Defend Yourself

Update, July 2, 2012:  No arrest is known to have been made yet in any of the shootings during the weekend of June 24, 2012.

June 24, 2012 (Updated, Sunday, 3:30 pm) - So far, three people have died this weekend in Chicago's ongoing street violence. Despite having one of the strictest sets of anti-gun laws in the nation, gun violence in this city seems out of control. 

From last Friday night through this morning, three people have died and 26 were wounded by bullets in Chicago: 

The dead victims:

Antonio Davis, 14, of the 800 block of South Eberhart Avenue, who was fatally shot at approximately 8:40 p.m. near the intersection of South Union Avenue and West 69th Street, officials said. Tyquan Tyler, 13, of the 6500 block of South Rhodes Avenue, "died after being shot in the chest in a drive-by shooting about 1:30 a.m. Sunday in the 6200 block of South Rhodes Avenue. About 30 minutes later, 29-year-old Hansen Jackson was shot several times in the chest in the 3700 block of West Chicago Avenue, and later died at Mount Sinai Hospital." (More at CBS2)

The Chicago Tribune reported that Davis "was walking with at least one other person when a grey van pulled up and a passenger, a man wearing a dark-colored hoodie, exited with a gun." According to a police spokesman, the shooter fired at Davis, hitting him, then shot him several more times after he fell to the ground. "The shooter then got back into the van, which was driven by another man about the same age – between the ages of 20 and 25," said the Tribune.

NOTE:  Shortly after I posted this, I ran across a news story about a 14-year old boy in Arizona who saved his own life and the life of his siblings thanks to the fact that he had a gun. According to the Arizona Republic on June 22, "A man with a rifle had forced his way into the home. He aimed the gun at the boy, and the boy shot him, police said."

The Trib's list of the other shootings during the same period reveals what similar lists from the many violent weekends in Chicago always reveal: The shootings are most often gang-related or seemingly random in nature.

The shooters are almost exclusively criminals engaged in illegal activity. It is always interesting that the local media never seems to note whether the guns involved in these shootings were registered and legally possessed. I will go out on a limb, however, and guess that more than 99% of those guns are not registered and are, therefore, not legally owned. In other words, these gun crimes are not being committed by law-abiding, upstanding citizens who follow the rules.

You know, the kind of people for whom the state legislators of Illinois work so hard to make legal gun ownership so damned difficult. The folks for whom Chicago's Mayor and City Council work so hard to deny full Second Amendment rights.

This is in spite of the fact that outside of Illinois, 49 states have legalized concealed carry in some form, allowing citizens to possess a firearm outside of their homes for protection. For some reason, the Democrats who oppose their own constituents' right to bear arms cannot accept the fact that concealed carry actually lowers violent crime and makes the citizenry safer.

The Chicago's mayor and city council do not want its citizenry to be safer. If they did, they would allow us to carry guns (concealed carry).

Chicago aldermen are allowed to carry a concealed weapon if they choose to, and the mayor has armed bodyguards, but those hypocrites are either too stupid or too uncaring to allow you and me the same right to protect ourselves.

One of their lame "solutions" to the problem of criminals shooting the hell out of Chicago is to buy back guns. But that's a waste of time and of taxpayers' money.

"The city government has a great fondness for gun turn-in events," wrote Steve Chapman in The Chicago Tribune on June 17. "It's done six of them in the past six years, collecting more than 23,000 weapons. This one will be held at 23 churches, and anyone handing over a firearm will get a $100 gift card. The guns will then be destroyed. The motive behind these efforts is not hard to understand in a place that had 433 murders last year and has seen a spike this year. Dozens of shootings take place in Chicago every week."

Sure, the motive is easy to grasp. However, the logic is another matter. Chapman noted that in 2010, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley said, "We have just too many guns in our society. When someone has access to a gun, they use it." Mayor Rahm Emanuel, wrote Chapman, says that a gun buy-back is a way "we can reduce the number of guns on our streets." Idiots, both Daley and Emanuel. Do they really think that the dangerous lunatics are turning in their guns?

Chapman's brilliant commentary was right on the money. "Contrary to Daley," he wrote, "most people who own guns never use them for anything but legal purposes (hunting, target shooting, self-defense). Contrary to Emanuel, the weapons this sort of venture yields are probably not the ones carried in the streets or the ones used in crimes. The reduction also represents a minuscule share of the firearms in the city, which may number over a million. Think about it: Who is most likely to turn in a firearm for a $100 reward? Someone with 1) a cheap gun and 2) no criminal propensity — say, Aunt Millie disposing of a rusty revolver her late husband left in the nightstand."

Consider this bold statement: "Allowing citizens without criminal records or histories of significant mental illness to carry concealed handguns deters violent crimes and appears to produce an extremely small and statistically insignificant change in accidental deaths. If the rest country had adopted right-to-carry concealed handgun provisions in 1992, at least 1,570 murders and over 4,177 rapes would have been avoided." Source: "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," written by John R. Lott., Jr. and David B. Mustard, published by the Law School at the University of Chicago.

In spite of the years-long propaganda by liberals, which falsely warned that concealed carry would result in a "wild west" scenario of frenzied gun slinging, the murder rate in the United States has gone down. In fact, it's the lowest it's been in a long time. Reuters recently reported that the FBI said on June 11 that "the number of murders dropped to the lowest in more than four decades." 

Most likely, none of the shootings that happened last Friday night into Saturday morning would not have been prevented even if Illinoisans had the same full Second Amendment rights as our fellow Americans have. That's not what I am suggesting. However, there are countless numbers of robberies and assaults every week in Chicago that might have been prevented had the victims been able to pull a legally possessed pistol out of their pocket to ward off - and shoot if need be - their assailants.

The old saying that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is as true as always. It is also true of knives, baseball bats, hammers and a thousand other items that can be used to kill and injure. But not all people kill other people. Unless you're killing in self defense, you're a lunatic and/or a criminally minded person.

The gangsters and thrill seekers who commit violence without regard for human life are the products of a sick culture. That, however, is grist for a separate post. I will say now, though, that no gun buy-back stunts will change the fact that savages walk among us. The fact that they do only lends legitimacy to the arguments in favor of concealed carry.

Despite Chicago's restrictive gun laws - we can own one gun but only keep inside of our homes - the bad guys still have plenty of firepower. The laws have done nothing - nothing - to keep firearms out of the hands of the criminals. It is so difficult for law abiding people in Chicago to get a license for a gun that some who feel the need to own a gun just don't. And, even if they did, they would not be legally able to carry it with them as they walk, say, through their dangerous neighborhood at night on their way to or from work.

The Daily Gossip noted on June 18 that "Chicago has become more dangerous than Afghanistan," and they cited a report from WBEZ that said that since 2001 "more than 5,000 people have been killed by gun fire in Chicago," compared to 2,000 in Afghanistan. That Daily Gossip post had the headline "8 Killed And 37 Others Wounded In Chicago Shootings," about the violent weekend of Friday, June 15 -- a week before the violence that killed 14-year old Antonio Davis last Friday night.

There was a telling passage in the Daily Gossip post. "When Michael Shields, president of the Fraternal Order of Police,"  reported DG, "was asked where was the police when the killings happened, he answered the Chicago police department was short-staffed. 'Chicago police officers can’t be everywhere', said Shields. 'Because they’re racing from one 911 call to the next, and with manpower as it is right now, it’s very difficult to deter crime'."  The CPD has been short staffed for years, but  DG noted that "Some people said the violence spree wouldn’t have left so many wounded and dead if the Chicago police department wouldn’t have paid so much attention to the wedding Obama attended. 100 police officers were assigned for safety purposes at Laura Jarrett’s wedding."

I am not blaming Obama or Jarrett for the violence. However, it highlights the fact that there is only so much that any police force - even one with no manpower shortage - can do. If you are being attacked, whether at home or on the street, you basically have three choices of action. You can (A) try to run away from your attacker, (B) call 911 for help or (C) try to defend yourself.  Good luck with choice A, especially if you're elderly, out of shape, pregnant or disabled. Enjoy your wait if you choose B. If you go with C, you'd better be damned good with your fists because Mayor Emanuel and the idiots in the City Council (who are legally allowed to carry concealed guns) don't think you have the right to defend yourself with a firearm.

How many homicides caused by stabbing and assault would be prevented in Chicago if concealed carry was allowed? How many non-fatal incidents - so many of which we never hear about in the news - could be avoided? It is not possible to give a number, of course, but common sense says that plenty of would be attackers would think twice about preying on somebody that they fear might be packing heat. It might have helped the victims in these cases, in these cases, in these cases and many other cases.

Gun buy-back programs are a cynical, ineffective joke. Illinois does not have any concealed carry like the other 49 states do, and yet things are out of control here. The folks who should by rights be allowed to legally carry firearms for protection are left defenseless against uncivilized savages who have guns illegally. Does this really make sense to anybody other than the morons in Springfield? 49 states have seen the light on concealed carry, and look at the murder rates nationwide: Down, down, and down. But in Chicago it's up, up and up.

How can the liberals continue to hawk fearmongering about legal possession of firearms? Denying the good citizens of Illinois their full Second Amendment rights has done nothing to prevent thousands upon thousands of deaths in Chicago alone. In fact, because they are left defenseless, I would say that the restrictive gun laws of Chicago and Illinois have actually caused people to die unnecessarily. And that's criminal.

How Obama (Accidentally) Reduced The Crime Rate

He didn't mean to do this, really he didn't: How Obama Reduced Crime Rates Last Year...

Mayor Daley Would Have Let Them Die (Updated)

The City of Chicago's handgun ban might have caused the deaths of an elderly couple early this morning. Had the couple obeyed the city's ban, they would have been defenseless against an armed intruder and quite possibly killed. UPDATE: WLS 890 AM reports that the 80-yr old man used a handgun. (8:00 p.m., 5/26)

"An 80-year-old man shot and killed an armed man who broke into his East Garfield Park home this morning, police said," reports Chicago Breaking News today. "The intruder, who police believe had a gun, broke into the family two-flat in the 600 block of North Sawyer Avenue about 5:20 a.m., said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli."  

UPDATE: WLS 890 AM reports that the 80-yr old man used a handgun. (8:00 p.m., 5/26)

It is curious that none of the reports about this defensive shooting tell us what type of gun the 80-year old man used to defend himself and his wife. Was it a rifle? Many types of rifles are actually legal in Chicago, which is curious considering the ban on handguns. Was it a handgun? If so, that would be embarassing to Mayor Daley and supporters of the handgun ban. Did City Hall order the Chicago Police Department to suppress this information for political purposes?  

UPDATE: WLS 890 AM reports that the 80-yr old man used a handgun. (8:00 p.m., 5/26)  

What if the elderly man had not had a gun with which to protect himself? Would a call to 911 have gotten the police to his home faster than the bullet could reach the intruder? Would he and his wife be dead today?

Chicago's Mayor Daley hates the Second Amendment so much that he maintains Chicago's unconstitutional ban on handguns despite overwhelming evidence that it does not prevent criminals from using them in their illicit endeavors. While Daley's own taxpayer-paid bodyguards carry handguns, we lowly serfs are not allowed to have our own equalizers.

"Chicago’s gun ban ordinance was enacted in 1982 to stem increasing use of firearms in crimes in the city," wrote Maureen Martin at HoumaToday. "From the beginning, the ordinance has been an utter failure in accomplishing that goal."

Martin continued with some stunning statistics. "The number of murders committed with guns has soared in Chicago since the ordinance was enacted, as has the share of all murders committed with guns. In 1983, the first year the Chicago ordinance was in effect, 290 murders (39.78 percent of the total) were committed with handguns. That rose to 513 murders (60.21 percent) committed with handguns in 1990. In 2003, 442 murders (73.54 percent) were committed with handguns, and in 2008, 402 handgun murders were committed (78.67 percent). In the 25 years since Chicago’s handgun ban was enacted, the number of murders committed with handguns dropped below 1983 levels in only four years (1984-87). All of these data are from the Chicago Police Department."

Related:

• Chicago Mayor Snaps at Reporter Who Questions Handgun Ban‎ FoxNews
• Mayor Daley Threatens to Shoot the Messenger—Namely, Me Mick Dumke, Chicago Reader
• Justices debate Chicago handgun ban CNN.com
• We Need More Guns, Not Fewer Chicago News Bench 
• The More Guns the Better, and Here's Proof Chicago News Bench

Mayor Daley Hates the Bill of Rights

Chicago's tyranical Mayor Daley is crying like a liberal over today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution's Second Amendent actually guarantees the right to bear arms. You can now say that Chicago's handgun ban is unconstitutional. Daley also shows himself (again) to be an idiot. Chicago Business reports that the mayor told a group at Navy Pier this morning that he is uncertain whether the ruling, which did away with Washington D.C.'s handgun ban, would have any affect on Chicago's handgun ban. Daley called the court's ruling "a very frightening decision." [Source] Daley said that if citizens in Chicago are allowed to own handguns taxes would have to be increased to cover the hiring of more police officers. He also fantasized that legalized handgun ownership would put more people in hospitals as victims of theoretical increased gun violence. Daley has shown his disdain for court rulings - indeed, for the law - on many occasions. Two well-known examples are his midnight destruction of Meigs Field airport (now known as "Northerly Island") several years ago, and the currently ongoing attempt to place the Children's Museum in Grant Park. The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled against such placements in Grant Park four times in the past. Daley is hypocritical about the handgun ban in Chicago. He is well protected by large men who carry handguns. You and I cannot keep a handgun in our dresser drawer, Daley preaches, but it's okay for his bodyguards to walk around packing heat. Similarly, it is legal for Chicago's City Council members (aldermen) to pack heat. The hysteria about guns is all about politics, not reality. Here's some reality: The alarming increase gun violence in Chicago this year is committed for the most part with handguns. Every one of those handguns is illegal. Ask yourself whether the ban on handgun ownership has prevented the thugs from obtaining them. Or from using them. As it has been said a million times, if you ban something only the criminals will possess it. Same with handguns. Additionally, Daley's remarks about a need for increased police presence and of higher numbers of hospital gunshot wound admissions is not based in fact. In fact, the opposite would probably be true. Of the 50 United States, only Wisconsin and Illinois do not allow their residents to carry handguns. In the 48 states that allow it, handgun violence has either remained the same or been reduced from level prior to enactment of conceal-carry. Mayor Daley and the people who fight your right to own a handgun need to back off. They won't let up, however. Even if lower courts start dismantling Chicago's unconstitutional antigun laws, Daley and his useful idiots will find every way they can to harass gun stores and gun owners, most likely in the form of prohibitively high fees and taxes. Related Items: Missouri: Governor Blunt to Sign Important Pro-Gun Bill! (NRA) Gun Rules May Be Eased in U.S. Parks (NRA) Has Minnesota's Gun-Carry Law Affected Crime Rates? The Effectiveness of Firearm Conceal Carry Laws on the Incidence and Pattern of Violent Crime (Texas State University-San Marcos, Dept. of Political Science) Guns on Campus: Irrational Fears Hold Back Concealed Carry http://www.concealcarry.org/