If you think about this, when confronted by an armed criminal, it likely takes the police a half and hour to an hour or more to respond, if someone calls it in.
However, this can work both ways. That is, if you are confronted by an armed criminal, and proceed to ventilate said criminal, it will likely *still* be a half an hour to an hour before the police show up.
It seems to me that some entrepreneur could make a tidy sum by arriving at a crime scene faster than police, for the purpose of spiriting away the honest citizen’s handgun for thorough disposal.
“Well, you see, officer, this deceased armed individual had interfered with me, brandishing what appeared to be a gun, when some person or person unknown shot him several times. He then asked me to hold his gun to cover him as he checked to see if the deceased man was wounded or dead. I then gave him his gun back and he said I should wait here while he notified the police. But he never came back.”
“His description? Maybe sort of middle aged; of average height and weight; middling skin color possibly white, Hispanic or a lighter shade of black; kind of mumbled when speaking so I heard no accent; wearing nondescript, sort of baggy clothing.”
Not sure if you live in Chicago -- the fact is last year Gary mcCarthy and the Chicago Police issued a policy along with a PUBLIC STATEMENT that they were no longer responding "in real time" to a crime in progress unless that crime in progress "put a citizens life in jeopardy."
Don't think I have to extrapolate what the criminals in Chicago understood that to mean:
Chicago Police no longer respond "in real time" to car theft, burglary, muggings, vandalism, etc..
I think you can guess what happened to those crime rates ...