Torres: More guns, not fewer, for our safety

More than a decade before 9/11 changed our way of life forever, William Cruse grabbed three guns from his Palm Bay home -- including a semi-automatic assault rifle -- and decided he'd had enough.

The time had come to kill everyone in sight. He shot a neighbor, wounding him in the leg.

He then drove to a nearby Publix where he killed three more people in the parking lot, and wounded several others. When he could not get into the store, he got back in his car and drove across the street to a Winn Dixie to continue his reign of terror. He shot and killed two Palm Bay police officers before taking aim from the parking lot at Ruben Torres, who was inside shopping, and shooting a package of fresh shrimp right out of Torres' hands.

Torres (no relation to me) fled the store, ran to his car and pulled a nickel-plated, silver-handled .45-caliber pistol from his glove box and started firing at the madman. Originally thought by police to be involved with Cruse, Torres, a postal letter carrier, was temporarily detained, but later hailed as a hero. Though he did not wound Cruse, his actions slowed the killer long enough for many in the shopping center to flee.

Who knows how many more would have been killed had Torres not reached for his gun. I asked myself that same question this week as a pair of Muslim extremists walked into an office holiday party in San Bernadino, California and opened fire, killing 14 and wounding 17 before it was done.

The unfortunate truth is that government can not protect everyone.

And the police can not be everywhere.

It's time for more Americans to legally obtain firearms and training and be ready to protect our loved ones, our communities and our way of life. We cannot continue to allow mass murder -- be it from Islamic terrorism, the mentally deranged or misguided anti-abortion zealots -- to dominate our headlines and our lives.

I am not alone.

Even before San Bernardino, the FBI reported that more people applied for gun permit background checks on Black Friday -- 185,345 -- than any single day prior. That is up from 175,754 on 2014's Black Friday. Looks like Santa might be dropping off a few more Glocks this Christmas season.

Sheriff Wayne Ivey said while the nation struggles to find a solution that may prevent the next mass shooting he knows killers are typically stopped by only one method.

"Shootings and mass killings at churches, movie theaters, schools, malls, military bases, and even colleges have forever changed the game and have left law enforcement and law abiding citizens scrambling for an answer to prevent the next critical incident," he said. "While there are many opposing opinions, personal views and empirical data reflecting respective positions, there are only two undisputed facts: the best law enforcement agencies in the country have response times in minutes, however bad people with evil intentions act in seconds and the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

By the way, that incident in 1987 in Palm Bay wasn't the last time Ruben Torres used his gun to help stop a crime. In 2010, Torres was leaving a branch of the Space Coast Credit Union when he noticed it was being robbed. Again, he ran to his car for his gun -- this time a 9mm pistol. He ordered the bank robber to the ground and held him at bay until police arrived.

The current administration thinks fewer guns are the answer. Right. Because religious zealots, the mentally ill or the evil and deranged follow the letter of the law? No. What will stop them are "good guys" who put them down.

Satellite Police Chief Jeff Pearson agreed that police can not be everywhere at all times and says that's why they continuously train for dealing with active shooters.

Sheriff Ivey stressed his support of open and concealed carry goes even deeper than the Constitution's "right to bear arms."

"Our job as law enforcement officers is to prevent, investigate, and solve crimes while doing everything we can to legally protect our citizens.," he said. "We stress to our citizens every day the importance of making themselves, their homes, and their businesses 'hard' targets so that criminals will not target them or their families. Violent criminals are opportunists, who look for an easy or 'soft' target to victimize."

There are no soft targets in Kennesaw, Georgia -- 30-minutes outside Atlanta -- where every home in the town of 35,000 people is obligated by law to have at least one firearm with ammunition. According to the city's web site, the 1982 law has resulted in the lowest crime rate in Cobb County.

Police still rely on information obtained during a 1985 study conducted by the University of Massachusetts and funded by the Department of Justice of more than 1,800 violent incarcerated felons in 10 states including Florida, that shows violent offenders will avoid targets if they believe their victims to be armed.

Time to stop playing the part of the victim and fight back.

Among the highlights of the study, which is one of the only studies available that features input from violent incarcerated felons.:

-- 81% of interviewees agreed that a "smart criminal" will try to determine if a potential victim is armed.

-- 74% indicated that burglars avoided occupied dwellings because of fear of being shot.

-- 57% said that most criminals feared armed citizens more than the police.

-- 40% of the felons said that they have been deterred from committing a particular crime, because they believed that the potential victim was armed.

There has been recent debate about whether to allow firearms on college campuses in Florida and just last month the Brevard County Commission voted to allow those with concealed weapons permits to bring their guns into Brevard County Government Center buildings in Viera.

The commission made the change after a request from a group opposed to radical Islam that holds its meetings in the government center.

Imagine if some of the Paris concertgoers had guns or someone in the Colorado movie theater?

The people who say it's only a matter of time before it happens here don't remember that it already has. William Cruse killed six and wounded 14 before he surrendered. It could have been a lot worse if a would-be victim had not started firing back. Cruse died of natural causes a few years ago, cheating the executioner, on Florida's death row.

Stricter gun laws will only deter the "good guys," not the murderers.

Of course, not everyone has the guts to shoot a weapon under duress and according to the Philadelphia-based Center for Injury Research and Prevention, the people 'that die from accidental shooting were more than three times as likely to have had a firearm in their home.'

That's where the training has to come in. I'm not advocating that everyone be armed. I know it's not for everyone. But it will have to be for some. This is the world we live in now.

Contact Torres at 321-242-3684 or at jtorres@floridatoday.com. Don't forget to follow him on Twitter @johnalbertorres or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/FTjohntorres.

Self-defense course:

The Brevard County Sheriff's Office offers a "Self Defense Through Tactical Shooting & Decision Making" training and awareness course every last Saturday of every month at the Sheriff's Office Range, Cocoa. The 8-hour course is designed to give citizens the opportunity to learn safe gun handling skills as well as the legal aspects of gun ownership. The course is designed for gun owners 21 years of age or older, regardless of their experience level. There are limited seats available. To register call the BCSO Career Development Unit at 321-264-5281 for more information. The cost is $50