A tale of two home invasions

On December 14, 2000, brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr broke into a Wichita, Kansas townhouse in which five young people - three men and two women, all in their mid to late 20s - were staying. What happened next is often referred to as the "Wichita Horror" or "Wichita Massacre."

In the townhouse, the Carr brothers did unspeakable things to the five victims, and made the five victims do unspeakable things to each other. The victims did everything they were told to by the perps, and at no time did they try to resist. The night ended with the victims being driven to a snowy soccer field, lined up on their knees, and then each being shot execution-style with a bullet to the back of the head. The brothers then drove over the prostrate bodies with their vehicle. Incredibly, one of the female victims survived and ran over a mile - bleeding and naked - through the snowy darkness to a house and help. The female victim lived to testify against the Carr brothers. In 2002, they were convicted of the quadruple murder and sentenced to death.

Fast forward to May 4, 2009 in College Park, Georgia. A birthday party with 10 participants was going on in an apartment yesterday. Two masked men broke into the apartment and began robbing everyone. The perps then separated the men from the women with the intention of raping the women, and the perps were also overhead talking about possible plans to murder everyone. Instead of complying, one partygoer pulled a gun from his backpack and used it on the perps, killing one and causing the other to flee from the apartment. None of the partygoers were killed or injured.

Such similar crimes, but such different outcomes. I'm sure my ham-handed description of the events of the two crimes easily leads you to the differentiating factor in the two outcomes: In the Kansas crime, the victims were unarmed and complied with their attackers' demands, which led to the victims being murdered. In the Georgia incident, one of the victims was armed, and used that firearm to defend his own life and the lives of others. This led to one of the perps being killed and the other running away, with his capture apparently imminent. I'm sure you can appreciate the difference in these two outcomes.

Perhaps if more law-abiding citizens carried guns and were not deterred from doing so by our control-freakish local, state, and federal governments, the Carr Brothers and the Calvin Lavants of this world would decide not to attempt crimes like this in the first place.

Good Day to You, Sir