An elderly man in North Philadelphia was attacked by two armed thugs late Thursday, but fought back in order to save himself.
According to local outlet WPVI-TV, the 71-year-old man was walking home after picking up Chinese takeout around 11:15 pm when two armed men emerged from the breezeway and said that they were robbing him.
The elderly man pulled out a gun and exchanged gunfire with the suspects. The exchange left the victim with a wound in the ankle, and he was rushed by police to a local hospital. The suspects fled on foot.
Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said in a statement that the victim fired multiple shots during his altercation with the two suspects.
“We do know that the 71-year-old victim fired multiple shots,” he said. “Unknown at this time if he struck any of these two perpetrators, but we’re checking area hospitals at this time.”
Breaking: Another Philadelphian Fights Back by Shooting Back. 71yr old gets shot in leg by two armed robbers while held up on way home from Chinese take-out. But 71yr old pulls out old fashioned six-shooter revolver & tells @PhillyPolice he “emptied his gun firing back.” pic.twitter.com/qMcXkqhlfU
— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) March 3, 2023
Renee Dixon, who lives in the neighborhood where this occurred, told WPVI-TV that she knows the man who was shot and says she is angry about it.
“I’m upset about it,” she told the news outlet. “He’s a good guy. He didn’t deserve it.”
Dixon said she had a similar encounter in the same neighborhood 10 years ago, when she was pregnant.
“I got shot in 2013, right at the corner. This is the age we’re living in,” she said, adding that she is fed up with gun violence in the city.
Dixon speaks for all of us with regard to this unfortunate event. We are all tired of our cities being riddled with crime and lawlessness and the authorities doing next to nothing to stop it.
Philadelphia, unsurprisingly, is a city that is run by the Democrats. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that, like other major cities in the country, it has dealt with a crime wave in recent years.
The Democrats have shown a complete unwillingness to enforce the laws, instead choosing to implement soft-on-crime policies that are allowing dangerous criminals to run free.
Many of these leftist cities followed through on demands by Black Lives Matter activists to “defund the police” which has left cities more vulnerable to crime.
Thus, is it any surprise that these cities have seen massive spikes in crime over the last few years?
This story also reminds us, however, that having a gun can be the difference between life and death in these situations. This elderly man was able to escape with his life because he had a gun to defend himself with.
That is what the Second Amendment is there to do. It allows us to defend ourselves against dangerous people who would try to hurt us or the ones we care about.
The Democrats have been trying to pass gun control measures in the name of trying to reduce violent crime, but we have seen again and again that those measures simply do not work.
Until the Democrats start to address the real issues that led to a rise in violent crime, our cities are going to continue to be dangerous places for people.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
