ARMED SELF-DEFENSE WORKS:

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) — \When two men walked into a popular country store outside Atlanta, announced a holdup and fired a shot, owners Bobby and Gloria Doster never hesitated. The pair pulled out their own pistols and opened fire.

The armed suspect and his partner were killed. The Dosters won’t be charged, according to local officials, because they were acting in self-defense.

“I just started shooting,” said Gloria Doster, 56. “I was trying to blow his brains out is what I was trying to do.” . . .

Police arrived about five minutes after receiving Gloria Doster’s call; the suspects died a short time later at a hospital.

The bloodshed, nevertheless, startled Gloria Doster, who has been around guns all her life, and has used them for target shooting. “But I never figured I’d have to use them on anybody,” she said.

The practice worked. And note that the police also would have been too late to save the victims, if they had needed help.

UPDATE: Read this story, sent by reader George Johns, too.