Crime Plummets After QuikTrip Stores Add Good Guys with Guns

QuikTrip convenience stores added good guys with guns in Wichita, Kansas, and the results were so good that they are expanding the program to stores in other areas.

The NRA noted, “After implementing the new strategy at its Wichita, Kansas locations and seeing success, QuikTrip, the massive gas station and convenience store chain said it would expand the policy to other stores.”

KWCH reports that the good guys with guns will be armed security, but QuikTrip also left the door open to armed clerks in situations where the clerks “have previous experience and necessary licenses.”

QuikTrip stores in Tulsa will soon get good guys with guns, as those stores are the targets of repeated crime.

KTUL spoke with QuikTrip’s Mike Thornbrugh about adding good with guns in the Tulsa area. He said, “The police and sheriff’s department has bent over backwards to help us, and we really appreciate it. But there’s simply not enough of them to make a dent. That’s where the armed employees come in.”

Thornbrugh stressed that QuikTrip will probably vet those who will carry guns: “They’re going to have all the proper certifications, credentials; we’re going to go through all the background checks. We’re probably going to do way above probably what’s required, because we want to do it the right way.”

Firearms instructor Mike Yoder noted that the success of QuikTrip’s initial trial with armed employees is easy to understand: “If I’m going to be a bad guy and go in to rob a place, I’m going to pick a place that is going to give me the least problems or threat to me as possible. And if there’s an armed guard there, I’m going to pick another place to go.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.