A Detroit man who was trained to use a gun by his mother put those skills to good use on Wednesday when he shot an armed 17-year-old who tried to rob him.
Joe Lanier, 24, was in his vehicle while out on a call for his job as an exterminator when the teen approached his vehicle, pulled out a gun, and demanded his sunglasses.
But the suspect got something else instead.
“The boy tried to rob me, and I shot him. That’s what happened,” Lanier told WXYZ.
“If I wasn’t on my ‘p’s’ and ‘q’s’ I would have been gone,” he continued, adding: “That’s why he’s in the hospital and not me.”
Lanier, who is a father, shot the suspect several times. He attempted to flee but fell to the ground. He is in the hospital in critical condition, according to WXYZ.
Lanier’s mother showed up to the scene and encouraged others to begin legally carrying a firearm.
“So if your children do not have any felonies, I advise everyone to pack. I pack, my sons pack, and we are legal with it,” Angela Lanier said.
She also had strong words for the 17-year-old assailant and his family.
“Maybe if you’d have taught him a little bit better to respect other people and get out here and get a job, then it might not have turned out that way for him,” she said.
Angela Lanier’s advice is similar to that of Detroit police chief James Craig, who has publicly stated that more legal gun owners would help cut crime in the notoriously violent city.
“I think it acts as a deterrent,” Craig said of concealed carrying last year. “Good Americans with [concealed pistol licenses] translates into crime reduction.” (RELATED: Detroit Police Chief: More Legally Armed Citizens Deter Crime)
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