We have previously noted that the law-abiding people in Philadelphia have been seeking concealed carry permits at a record pace. And we have seen stories about some of the bad guys in Philly being sent untimely to their eternal rewards.

Why are people in the City of Brotherly Love arming themselves? When there are innocent victims being gunned down for no apparent reason, when it’s not just the gang-bangers shooting other gang-bangers, and the city has a George Soros stooge ‘progressive’ District Attorney who likes to set the captives free, a whole lot of Philadelphians have gotten the message: you are on your own!

But today’s surprise is that The Philadelphia Inquirer has actually reported on it!

As more people get guns and carry permits, Philly sees a sharp rise in homicides ruled justified

More people in Philadelphia are legally arming themselves and shooting their armed attackers amid a violent crime spike.

by Mensah M Dean | Monday, June 20, 2022

In May, a South Philadelphia man stepped out of his house for a smoke when police said a gun-wielding man rode up on a bicycle and demanded money. The homeowner dropped his cigarette, pulled out his licensed gun, and fatally shot the would-be robber in the head.

In March, an assistant manager at a Dollar General store in North Philadelphia used his legal gun to shoot a man who police said burst into the store in a ski mask, demanded money, and threatened to kill the cashier. “I’m opening up the register for you, sir,” said the manager, who instead pulled his own handgun and shot the robber in the head, killing him.

The same month, a customer with a carry permit inside Max Food Market in the Yorktown section fatally shot a gunman who tried to rob him while he was playing a video poker machine. “You have to defend yourself,” said Maximo Torres Rodriquez, the store’s owner. “You have to do it.”

The three would-be assailants died from their injuries and in all three cases authorities brought no charges against the shooters. These sorts of deadly clashes in which the intended victims survive and assailants die are rare in Philadelphia, but are becoming more common as a growing number of people have legally armed themselves amid rising numbers of carjackings, shootings, and homicides.

Mr Rodriquez put it exactly right: sometimes “You have to defend yourself. You have to do it.”

We’re not supposed to say it, but sometimes a homicide is a public service. When the Dollar General assistant manager shot and killed the would-be robber, perhaps the robber would have been satisfied with the cash and left without hurting anyone, but as crooks get successful, they are also emboldened, and the odds are extremely high that he’d have attempted to knock over another store and another store, and eventually someone would get shot, and possibly killed.

Justified homicides jumped 67% from 2020 to 2021 ― from 12 to 20 according to the Philadelphia Police Department. An additional six have been ruled justified by the department but are awaiting the District Attorney’s Office to sign off. In 2019, there were 10 justified killings, six in 2018 and eight in 2017, the department said.

So far in 2022, victims have shot at least eight armed assailants to death, with more than seven months remaining in the year.

“The total number of shootings and the climate of gun violence has gotten more severe,” said District Attorney Larry Krasner. “So I would expect that there would be more situations involving self-defense.”

As Krasner said, the surge in justified shootings reflects the general rise in gun violence in the city. With unjustified homicides hitting a record total last year, with 562 victims, self-defense killings climbed too, though only slightly as a percentage of all homicides.

Let’s do the math:

• 2017: 315 murders + 8 justified homicides = 323 total, 2.48% justified.
• 2018: 353 murders + 6 justified homicides = 361 total, 1.66% justified.
• 2019: 356 murders + 10 justified homicides = 366 total, 2.73% justified.
• 2020: 499 murders + 12 justified homicides = 511 total, 2.35% justified.
• 2021: 562 murders + 26 justified homicides = 588 total, 4.42% justified.
• 2022: 230 murders + 8 justified homicides = 238 total, 3.48% justified.

The trend worries some analysts and gun-control advocates, who say civilians who buy guns for protection may be putting themselves and others at more risk, not less. They cite studies showing that legally purchased guns are more likely to be fired in accidental shootings, during domestic disputes, and in suicides than in self-defense.

Of course, the Inquirer article let us know that more law-abiding people obtaining weapons is a bad thing, stating that they are more likely to be discharged in accidents, domestic disputes and suicides, offering several paragraphs of statistics.

There is one thing that the article did not include, perhaps because it simply isn’t quantifiable. We have previously published several street scene photographs of Philadelphia, showing how many residents have put themselves in jail, barring up their porches and windows, to try to defend themselves from the thugs. There is an attitude of fear, fear! permeating the city, a fear that at any time your number could come up, and that is due to the city not protecting innocent people. When you have a district attorney like Larry Krasner who largely refuses to prosecute illegal firearm possession cases, who doesn’t like to enforce the laws already on the books, who metes out slaps on the wrists for even violent crimes, coupled with a homicide rate higher than Chicago’s, of course people are going to be worried. People are buying firearms for the protection of their families and themselves because it has become blatantly obvious: the city isn’t protecting them.