Call The Police? Call For A Pizza

Call The Police? Call For A Pizza

One of the wittier libertarian complaints about relying on government in urban areas is the disparity of response times. "Call 911. Order a pizza. See which gets there first." It's not really a fair comparison. Yes, the pizza will usually get there faster, because it is a capitalist, competitive situation, but there are so many other differences that I can only regard it as humor, not a serious criticism. (Where I live now, the police would arrive first. There's no pizza delivery here.)

But I thought of that when I read this news account of what happened when a pizza delivery guy discovered that the only tip he was going to get was whether he lived or not. From the March 8, 2009 South Carolina State:

Irmo - A suspected robber is dead after officials say a pizza man shot him in during the robbery.
Lexington County Sheriff James Metts says Saturday night, four men ordered pizza to a house on Avery Place Lane with the intent of robbing whomever delivered it. None of the four lived there and officials say the homeowner did not realize his home was being used for a robbery.
Pizza Hut delivery man, 43-year-old Christopher Miller, says he showed up at the home at 10:30 p.m. and 17-year-old Paul Sturgill was standing on the sidewalk waiting for him. Officials say soon after Miller got out of the car, two other men ran at him from the woods.
When Miller started running away, that’s when authorities say Sturgill continually tried beating him in the face. Miller, who has a concealed weapons permit, says he pulled out .45 caliber handgun that he had in his fanny pack and shot Sturgill in his chest.
Sturgill was taken to the hospital where he later died.
The three other suspects ran and officials are still looking for one of the men.
He’s 18-year-old Justin Roundtree. Metts says he’s wanted for robbery and criminal conspiracy. Roundtree is a member of a criminal gang and is 5-foot-5 and weighs 160 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes.

Outnumbered 4:1. Ambush. In the dark. But he was armed, and he came out scared but alive.

It turns out that pizza delivery drivers shoot robbers so often that we have added a label for it on the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog so that you can see just such incidents.