The Patriot Post® · A (Gun) Tale of Two Cities

If you, as an armed citizen, had the chance to save a police officer’s life — or any life, for that matter — would you? Most people outside of the racial grievance industry and Black Lives Matter movement would answer in the affirmative without any hesitation, and that’s exactly what one Pennsylvania resident did recently when he noticed an officer was seconds away from possibly losing his life to a mob of teens near Upper Darby High School. According to philly.com:

> “An officer who broke up a fight between two teen boys … was holding one of the combatants at bay when the teen’s opponent attacked the officer, [Police Superintendent Michael] Chitwood said. ‘As he breaks up the fight, he takes one kid and then the other jumps [on] him. Now he’s fighting two of them and he’s calling for an assist officer at the same time,’ Chitwood said. ‘There’s a crowd of 40 or 50 kids watching the fight, and they all move in towards the officer.’ That’s when the good Samaritan, who lives on the block, came out of his house with a gun in his hand and told the teens to get away from the cop.”

Backup eventually arrived, but had it not been for the heroic deeds of a gun-toting resident, it may have come too late for one officer. Now compare this account to another story from Toms River, a city just 80 miles to the east. News 12 reports, “A New Jersey actor and comedian is facing charges after getting in trouble for having a fake gun while filming a movie. Carlo Bellario says he was filming a low-budget, independent movie in a residential area of Woodbridge last November. … The scene the group was filming depicted a car chase with the actor pretending to shoot a gun out of the window of the car. Bellario had a realistic-looking, unloaded airsoft gun as his prop. … Bellario was arrested and charged with weapons possession. He spent four days in the Middlesex County Jail trying to raise the $10,000 bail because he says that the producers refused to help.” Unless sanity prevails, Bellario may soon be a convicted felon.

This isn’t the first time the state has come under fire for its inane gun laws. Two years ago, a Philadelphia resident by the name of Shaneen Allen was nearly imprisoned for entering New Jersey while armed. “Allen,” wrote columnist Jacob Sullum, “did not realize that her carry permit, unlike her driver’s license, was no good in New Jersey.” In both of these cases, New Jersey tried or is trying to prosecute an innocent person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time — and one of them didn’t even have a real gun. Instead of demonizing firearms, Jersey should take a cue from the city of brotherly love. Because you never know — a good guy with a gun may just save a police officer’s life.