Tears and sympathy now, okay? - Back Blast & Other Hot Gases

Shooting Industry, Feb, 2002 by Commander Gilmore

We're socially sensitive people, right? So when some vicious, predatory scumbag gets dinged by his supposedly helpless prey, you can count on us to weep in our beer and wish the victim would have just called 911 and done as she was told. Right?

After two women, ages 54 and 74, were brutally raped in their Colorado Springs neighborhood, 72-year-old grandmother Jean Zamirripa paid attention when her old pal Carl Duncan urged her to pick up a good double-action revolver and take a crash course in close-quarters shooting. She did, And she's glad she did.

Jean was asleep when she heard her back door pried loose. Barefoot in her nightgown, she scooped up her .38 Special, took up a position with her shaking elbow propped on her kitchen counter, and declared, "All ready on the firing line!" Her uninvited guest got tired of prying, charged the door, and made a near-Hollywood entry when he took the door off the hinges, crashed into the house, and fell to the floor.

He should have stayed there, we think, because when he stood up Jean wasn't interested in appealing to his conscience or beggin' for mercy. She just started launching lead. A few seconds and four popped caps later, she ventilated Anthony Peralez's arm with two rounds and plunked a pumpkin ball into his belly. Yeah, he escaped -- sorta. Anthony dragged his ex-rapist butt out to the street, fired up his ride, and actually made it a couple of blocks, crashing into two cars and coming to a halt in a car dealer's lot. That's where the police found him. He didn't talk much. He was too busy bleeding.

All that blood came in handy, too. Anthony was linked by DNA to those two rapes and another one further away. Now he's looking at a long recovery, 51 criminal charges, and a couple hundred years in prison -- before parole. Pardon us while we weep.

His Disguise Needed Work

A mask is a good thing. And yeah, most people will kind of stare at the gun in your hand when you're pulling a robbery. But these are only two considerations in your "personal image" plan for a stickup. Here's a good illustration of what happens when you overlook other important details.

This mental monolith finished working his shift at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, waved bye-bye to his coworkers, and stepped outside. There, he pulled a mask over his face, pulled out his Roscoe, and stepped right back inside. Starting to see some flaws in his plan? The guy apparently didn't consider that his jobsite pals would not only recognize his voice, but they might also notice he was wearing the very same clothes he had just completed a shift in. To his credit, he doggedly clung to his Plan A through the entire heist, sorta taking the position that, "Hey! I ain't me! I'm some other guy!"

The Chicago police took only a few minutes more time to wrap this dummy up than he spent on the holdup.

Another Public School Failure

You'd think fifth-graders would know that banks have those push-button door locks to prevent people from running out the door when their robbery goes sour. Well, here are two students who fell through the cracks.

Cops in Baldwin Park, Pa., have probably nabbed a U.S., and maybe even a world, record for youngest bank robbers. Two little darling girls aged 10 and 13 toddled into a Baldwin bank with towels over their heads and socks on their hands and handed a teller a note announcing they had a gun and wanted $2,000. The teller gave these two hardened criminals a long look -- then another -- and punched the bank's lockdown button. The little ladies first blamed the heist on an unnamed grownup in a car outside who threatened to kill them if they didn't pull off the stickup. Then some detective apparently gave them the "Daddy eye," and they broke down and admitted they were just out to score some shopping money. We wonder if there's an armed branch of the local Junior Chamber of Commerce?

Cut Your Hair Dummy

Note: If you're going to rob the place where you once worked, wear a mask. Elizabeth McDonald got this point, but missed number two: If your ex-pals can recognize you by your waist-length flaming red hair, you might want to hide it.

To the amazement of her former coworkers, 24-year-old Elizabeth pulled an armed robbery at the VFW hall in Medina, Ohio, wearing a mask but letting her yard-long red hair flow down to her waist. Oh, she completed the robbery all right, partially because her ex-pals couldn't believe she thought they wouldn't recognize her. Apparently there weren't too many other suspects with waist-length bright red hair in Medina. And the cops didn't lose much time pickin' her up. One word, sweetie: Clairol.

No Ma'am, That's No Wakeup Call

Guests at the expensive Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul, Korea, got a little surprise with their continental breakfasts when the hotel shook with what sounded like, oh, maybe a 20mm anti-aircraft gun firing on the roof. They probably weren't very relieved to hear it sounded like that because that's what it was.

Unknown to most tourists and business guests who stay in Seoul, most of the downtown hotels have anti-aircraft guns on their roofs to guard against attacks from the North Korean Air Force streakin' down from the border just minutes away. At the Lotte Hotel, officials said their 20mm Vulcan cannon sort of got away from them during a "routine inspection," firing about 10 rounds out over the city.