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Armed man attempts to rob Home Depot in Atascadero

August 6, 2022

By KAREN VELIE

Police are asking for the public’s help finding an armed suspect who attempted to rob the Home Depot store  in Atascadero on Saturday.

Shortly before 4 p.m., a man walked into the store nursery wearing a grey neck “gator” that covered his entire face. Later, the man walked up to the nursery check-out stand and placed a power tool on the counter and demanded the clerk give him all of the money in the cash drawer.

The man lifted up his shirt exposing the handle of a black pistol in his waist band and again demanded money from the register.

The clerk, however, said she could not open it until the transaction for the tool was completed. The suspect then picked up the power tool and walked out of the store.

After leaving the store, the suspect was last seen getting into a dark green older model Honda Civic and leaving the area. He is described as an Hispanic male adult, who is approximately 5 feet 9 inches tall.

Investigators are asking anyone who witnessed the incident to contact the Atascadero Police Department at (805) 461-5051.


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Best commercial exhibit at the fair was the guy from Bakersfield selling biometric handgun cases. Trigger locks are required but biometric cases are better. Let’s get outlaw guns off the street. Probably what that guy had.


-17

Interesting post, but I’m not following how the requirement for a biometric gun case would have changed anything in this situation. Couldn’t a bad guy just make off with the case and then go at it with a grinder back in the garage? Assuming that this was in fact a functional firearm. Perhaps it was a replica and he walked out because he knew he couldn’t actually use it. What if we tried locking up people who threaten others with weapons, real or not? I’d be interested in your thoughts as to how well that would work.


12

“Couldn’t a bad guy just make off with the case”


Yes sure, but how about they just open it up, or more likely someones child who watches youtube opens it.


https://youtu.be/ogELZ78OfyM


https://youtu.be/Y-lE4Tz2I_Y


https://youtu.be/Ka0RbCx5SN0


-1

Better still, let’s get the outlaws off the street.


8

The root cause isn’t guns, and the fix isn’t more gun legislation. The problem is the loss of any care for your fellow human being, the continuing decline of any moral restraint, personal responsibility, accountability, respect for others, or yourself not to mention the value of life. There is no one being held accountable for violent crimes and threats to innocent lives.

Actions regarding good morals and values that were once considered good are now bad, and what was once bad, is now considered acceptable and justified through expanding evilness in our society. The out-of-control drug epidemic is also a major factor in play here as well. Nobody is addressing it.

Until we get back to valuing every life and return to a moral way of life across the board in all areas, the decline and destruction will continue. The problem again isn’t guns, or more guns laws, it’s the result of fallen man led by the god and evilness of their own selfish belly.

There must be consequences to every crime when caught. Period!


1

There should have been about 10 people, background investigated, with concealed carry permits nearby. But no, the only people with guns are the criminals legally prohibited from owning them.


66

Too many people can barely even drive let alone handle a gun in a tense situation like that. Ridiculous take.


-60

Sure, so they can shoot each other or some bystander. There are already over 400 million guns on our streets. Should everyone be armed? Children, too? What a world.


In civilized parts of the world such as Western Europe, Australia and Japan there is basically no gun violence. Oh yeah, they have very tight controls on who can own a gun. Simple, fewer guns means less gun violence.


-66

For one, your claim of gun violence is a play on words. London, Paris, and other European cities have very high rates of violent crime and murder. Correct, not quite as many gun crimes, but London recently enacted a knife ban. The murder rates are not any better than in leftist run cities here in the US. As far as Japan goes, the culture is quite different than in the US, monolithic and culturally similar. I don’t think it is comparable or fair to claim Tokyo and LA are different because of only the available guns.


Secondly, as has been proven time and time again, legally armed and lawful citizens are not a threat to bystanders. Their accuracy isn’t any less than trained police, and places where legally carried guns have not turned into the Wild West as the anti gun lobby has described. Over 2.5 million times per year, according to some research, legally owned guns stopped assaults and murders in the United States. It is likely to be far higher because of the lack or reporting for so many incidents.


35

“Over 2.5 million times per year,” Bullshit, that number is a nra talking point and so old it’s not funny 1995.


“Kleck and his colleague Marc Gertz surveyed 5,000 adults (1995) and asked if they or their household members had used a gun for self-defense in the past five years, even if it wasn’t fired. Just over 1 percent of respondents said they did.Kleck and Gertz extrapolated that figure to the entire adult population of 200 million, concluding that Americans use guns for self-defense as often as 2.1 to 2.5 million times a year. ”


“Telephone surveys tend to yield high estimates for other reasons, Hemenway says. When it comes to quantifying rare events, even a small amount of misrepresentation on the part of the respondents can skew the results. People sometimes exaggerate when the action they’re describing, like fending off an attacker, is commendable or paints them in a heroic light, a phenomenon known as “social desirability bias.” ”


The RAND Corporation found the 2.5 million DGUs per year was “not plausible,”


In interviews, both Kleck and Hemenway say they consider the science to be settled. Kleck hasn’t repeated his telephone survey in nearly 30 years.


“What we do know for sure,” Hemenway said, “is that having a gun in your house increases suicides, it increases gun accidents, and it increases homicides, at least of women in the house. And we can’t find any benefit from it.”


-29

Clearly, legally armed bystanders would not have shot the robbery suspect. The only way the situation would have changed is if the suspect threatened them or their family they would have been on equal footing to defend themselves from the potential assailant. There is clear evidence and logic that makes clear, the man committing the robber was not concerned about following laws, including gun laws. How would gun laws prevent this type of crime? Even if the fantasy were true and all gun collected, we would have him using a simulated gun, or a knife, and the exact same results with the lawful being the only ones to follow the law.


26

“There should have been ” No.


If more ccw holders made us safer, our safety minded sheriff would be handing out ccw’s like business cards. It only makes the holder marginally safer, and the ccw household less safe.


More guns = more shooting and bullets have to land someplace, it’s just that simple.


-27

And yet, it’s not. 25 states have codified what is known as “Constitutional Carry”. This means no permit required to carry a firearm concealed or in the open. Not surprisingly, this has disproven everything you just said. No “wild west”, no bullets raining down from the sky, no blasting anything that moves, no good guy getting robbed of his gun first. Also not surprising, overall crime has decreased in each of those states…


26

“this has disproven everything you just said” No


I never said ““wild west”, no bullets raining down from the sky, no blasting anything that moves, no good guy getting robbed of his gun first. ”


You are manipulating my comments just like kleck manipulated the survey.


-21

Did Kleck manipulate the CDC study of 2013, that found the very same thing?


6

“the CDC study” No study.


“Kleck looked at some previously unpublished results and concluded” The CDC didn’t publish the data, Kleck cherry picked the data to get it done.


-6

If guns make the person carrying them only marginally safer, or even more likely to be the recipient of harm, do you advocate the secret service and police to give up their guns?


2

What a ridiculous thing to say.


-6

Idiots with guns. Why do we allow it? Gun manufacturer profits should come second to public safety.


-80

Because those individuals, the ones you call idiots, protecting Hollywood elites, athletes, politicians, and LEOs, demand they have guns.


23

You don’t have a chance of reducing gun ownership while at the same time you are reducing sentences and restricting bail amounts…. people will not voluntarily give up their only means of defending themselves in a dangerous world….


28

Dude, no one‘s gonna collect the guns. Any attempt to do so would literally lead to a Civil War. If you want to live in a gun free society Canada awaits you.


5