A 72-year-old New York City shopkeeper has gunned down four men trying to rob his restaurant supply store but says he "didn't want to do it."

Charles "Gus" Augusto Jr. was back at work Friday, a day after the bloody confrontation. He says in an interview he had no choice but to turn his shotgun on the robbers.

Augusto described how on Thursday the four men burst into his commercial kitchen equipment store in Harlem with guns drawn. He says they demanded money and began beating a worker.

The shopkeeper says he pulled out his shotgun and fired three times. Two of the men died on the street. Two are hospitalized.

Police say Augusto didn't have a permit for the gun. But no charges have been filed.

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from ajc

He was not supposed to have a gun.  What do you think of this? Should he be charged?

from a purely bureaucratic standpoint he should be fined whatever is the proper amount for keeping an unpermitted gun, but otherwise, no.

Pluto in Capricorn!! You can justifiably kill someone....but fill in the damned paperwork!! Jeez!

I can't blame him when they came into his store and pulled a gun on him and his workers. It's self-defense.

Guns should be registered though. So yeah, what everybody else said.

Neva - for educational sake can you tell me why they 'should be' registered?  I'm up in the air on this issue.  In my family there are guns that have been inherited down thru the eons.  I'm not so sure that the person who has them has gone anywhere to register them.  I haven't really given it much thought, but to me I guess I kind of just considered them 'grandfathered' in.  They don't belong to me, so I have no real say so on what goes on with them, I'd just like to pursue the line of thought a little further.  Whatcha got?

Elsa, what's The Soldier's take on registering guns?

Dreams as far as I know you are not allowed to have a gun in NY.

I don't know specifically what the soldier thinks about registering guns but he thought this was funny.

"Job not as easy as you expected..." He points out quite correctly you can't have a gun in NY so when 4 men bust into a business they think they can do as they please.

He also said too bad the guy didn't get all 4 of them and had it been him, he'd have killed them all and left business cards on then. "BUG KILLER - got a bug - call me!"

he would not live in a state that did not allow him to protect himself and either would I for that matter. We have the Make My Day law here and it is about to be expanded to include businesses.

I hate to tell ya but it's turning into the wild west out there... as I have written about before. truck robbing rather than train robbing but it is going on.  CA is releasing 25% of their people in prison. I could go on and on but I'll spare ya. 

But I will point out the sentiment here which is growing. If you come to rob, rape, steal, whatever and you get shot - too bad!

Some of us think going back to the days of Wyatt Earp would be an improvement. This is how little faith we have in the system.

Depends on your state and municipality laws. Where I live, I would have to register a shotgun. If I lived in a more rural area, I wouldn't, but I would have to register a handgun.

Here in West-by-God-Virginia, you only have to register handguns.  You can openly carry as long as you don't brandish, and if you can pass the test and aren't a felon you are guaranteed a concealed permit.  We loves our guns!  I couldn't imagine living somewhere that told me I couldn't own one.  WTF?

The thing that gets me about this story is that they call the shopkeep a vigilante.  Vigilantes go out and hunt for bad guys, this guy just defended himself!  Give him a pat on the back, fine him for the unregistered weapon, and call it a day.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly SaDiablo.  Heck, give the man the key to the city, he just did a large service to the community.