Armed man causes panic during attempted carjackings in The Villages
 

Deputies arrested an armed man accused of threatening multiple Villagers during attempted carjackings on Wednesday night. The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office received multiple 911 calls reporting an armed man attempting to enter vehicles at the Walgreens and nearby at the Colony Cottage Recreation Center on Colony Boulevard around 8:15 p.m. Wednesday night.* When deputies arrived,

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This guy looks like any father would dream to have a son-in-law look like this. ������

I am very surprised he made it out alive doing those crimes.

Those crimes will probably net him a month in jail and parole. The ole gray mare (The Villages) ain't what she used to be. :(

Conceal and Carry
 

It pays to carry a loaded gun. Criminals are everywhere and just as evident they prowl in the Villages too.

Right, and hopefully with the right training you don’t shoot your foot or another Villager instead of the perp.

Agree.

I am much more worried about a Villager with a loaded gun than a prowling criminal.

Me too.

[QUOTE=Bill14564;2455476]I am much more worried about a Villager with a loaded gun than a prowling criminal "with a loaded gun"?
I added with the loaded gun because the felon was carrying a gun. I wouldn't want either but being shot accidently by a Villager protecting himself or herself is preferable than some d*mn felon shooting me.

Agree
 

[QUOTE=Aces4;2455502]I totally agree. I would much rather be an accidental casualty than the victim of predetermined nefarious intentions. There are already a lot of Villagers carrying guns, it makes the place safer.

👍👍👍

More likely I’d shoot the perp while protecting your unarmed ass. I’ll spend the night getting lawyered up and processed and you’ll go home to your comfy couch and watch TV shows about events like the one you survived thanks to me.

Let them go, it's their last vestige of manhood they have

Your worries are misplaced. There are many of us around you exercising our rights to conceal carry all the time. Your ignorance is embarrassing you. But I forgive you, for you know not what you do.

Saucy but true, Saucy!

But there are some rather inebriated Villagers as well as hotheads full of adrenaline along with men and women with Alzheimer's or some other kind of dementia with weapons that can kill another person in seconds. It only takes there being one of these rather than a well trained and very level headed concealed gun carrier for there to be a tragedy. I also wonder about the aim of the inebriated.


I would rather the police handle these things.

When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away!

Wrong answer, and this ain't the criminal coddling environs of some states. In Florida, the minimum sentence for discharging a firearm during a carjacking is 20 years. Add to that kidnapping, and the fact the perp is a convicted felony, and the sentence could very well be life.

And so are bullets coming out of a weapon of a drunk who cannot shoot straight.

The Old West towns had rules about guns in towns for good reasons. And these were usually men in the prime of their live blowing off steam.

I have no problem with a professionally trained concealed gun carrier. But there probably fewer of these out there than a person who is itching to pull a gun.

Each year, the Sumter County Sheriff holds HR-218 qualifications for retired law enforcement officers. This is a federal statute that allows retired LE to carry concealed firearms anywhere in the US, it's territories, or possessions. Annual qualification is required to maintain certification. This year, the Sheriff's Department qualified over 600 retired LE under the statute.

In this life, there are wolves, there are sheep, and there are sheepdogs. I know which tribe I belong to.

Many Villagers are still licenced and HIGHLY competant concealed carry gun owners, believe me.

This lifelong fumbling felon is lucky to be alive.

Furthermore, the follow-up story with the other local 'news' source, (and I use that term loosely) is utterly ridiculous, with a pretty clear portrayal of events, but a series of fragmented, incomplete writing leaving the readers left dangling.

ie., he held a gun to a man's head and moved him from the back to the front of the store...he grabbed an employee by the arm as he moved past her.

Then what?
Obviously, he must've decided to release them as he got to the front door.

And it is a lottery if one of these will be around rather than a drunk with a pistol he should never have left the house with .

To dispel many of you who know not what you say..... Many of those who carry concealed routinely practice and train. Just stop by Shooters World and see how busy their ranges are. With comments like yours, don't be upset if the person who carrys only defends their life and not yours!

Due too High Price
 

Due to the high price of ammo, no warning shots fired.
Always carry, have rear doors on auto lock. Also carry to squares.

Also keep building low price apartments surrounding The Villages. Brings in a nice class of people.

The Villages has pretty much escaped the rest of “ The world’s gone crazy” syndrome . There have been incidents but it’s a big, and getting bigger, place.

The house with the burglar alarm signs and cameras cause the criminal to move on to those houses without.

The idea behind CCW is the similar to the idea of having police on every corner. A city that supports their police and their judicial system sends a message to criminals that it's better to move on to another location to create your crimes.

A state that supports CCW sends the message to criminals that it's best not to come here and commit your crimes. Sure there will always be criminals, but pure animals would come into this country and go to those locations where they had little to no fear of arrest or life stopping arrest.

I'm all for sending the message that this area and Florida is against crime. This way the animals of the world will go to other states where they can be supported.

Wow! Considering all the Vets in TV I am surprised he did not meet up with his demise!

I hope so.

True.

Back in MN when permit-to-carry went into effect, a lot of anti-gun business people (convenience stores, liquor stores, gas stations, etc.) put those "No Guns Allowed On These Premises" signs in their windows. The signs came down right quick when it became apparent that the places with the signs were being hit by the criminals far more often than places with no signs.

Criminals as a group may not be the sharpest knives on the tree, but they know enough not to unduly risk their posteriors during the commission of a crime.

With majority of residents being retired police, military and fire veterans I’m not worried.

The Villages: A Hot Bed of Crime!

Time to call in the National Guard! Let's see those armored troop carriers at every one of our roundabouts!

Who pays for them? The Villagers?

I can't believe how many posters would rather be a victim than defend themselves.

"Held without bail, how unfair, call the Civil Liberties Union."

said no one that was threatened by this criminal

You are not a victim if you do not need to carry a weapon to go to the Squares or the movies or Walmart.

I suspect there are A LOT of retired cops here in The Villages, more so than you probably think. Most will not tell you what they did for a living and have a cover-occupation they tell people.

It is like any other hot-button issue, I suppose. Emotion gets in the way of reason.

Funny how it can manifest itself. My wife threw a surprise birthday party for me about a year before retirement. People attending ran the gamut: A British couple, my son, some co-workers, a couple of tennis-playing buddies, the director of the local mental health facility, etc. One of the gifts I got was from my son: a Browning B-92 lever action carbine in .357 Magnum, still in the original box and in mint condition! They were collectors' items even then and I verified that mine was manufactured in 1982, the first year they made them in that caliber. After unwrapping it I cleared it and handed it around so people could see it close-up. When it got to the mental health facility director she handled it as if it were red hot, with an expression on her face that was frozen in a grimace! However when Will (the Brit guy) got it he threw it up to his shoulder and cycled the action several times.

Guns are a hot-button issue clouded by emotion. If we're taught to fear them, no amount of information or reason will allay that fear.

Sure. He would have shot anyone who approached him with a gun. He is an ex-felon.

He will be convicted of multiple offenses and will never get out. Florida is very harsh on repeat offenders.

maybe the perp will you shoot you first.