Occupational hazard

I really don’t have Charles Bronson/Death Wish fantasies about capping bad guys.

Bad guys shouldn’t be executed for "routine crimes" like stealing cars. They should go to prison for a bunch of years and learn a trade and straighten up.

If they kill someone, however, in your basic first-degree-premeditated manner, they should indeed take the Big Sleep — and not 15 years later.

Which brings us to the brief we had on page 7A today about a Port Arthur stickup -- make that attempted stickup. The lead graph says it all: “A robbery suspect was in critical condition … after a convenience store employee shot the man numerous times. … ”

Folks, the part about “shot the man numerous times” got my attention.

I would hate to be a convenience store clerk. I think your odds of getting robbed and/or killed during that robbery are uncomfortably high.

It ought to be the other way around. Punks who go around robbing people should fear for their health.

To be blunt about it, if more of them were “shot numerous times” while trying to pull armed robberies, we’d probably wouldn't have so many armed robberies.

Again, I’m no Charles Bronson-wannabe. I don’t want that robbery suspect to die. I want him to recover, serve a bunch of years (if convicted, of course), repent, live a long and joyous life, and tell lots of people that robbing convenience stores is not a good thing to do.

Because you might get “shot numerous times.”