A 53 year old grandmother interfered with a robbery and assault at a Wal-Mart on Monday. She used a handgun, which she kept in her purse, to force the robber to drop his knife after the robber knifed two Wal-Mart employees. Sandra Suter saw Wal-Mart employees wrestling with a knife-wielding robber while she was waiting in the checkout lane. “I don’t understand what’s so bad,” said the gun-wielding granny, “I saw some people getting hurt and I stopped it.”

Security held the robber and the grandmother until sheriff’s deputies could arrive fifteen minutes later.

“Our officers assessed the situation,” said Deanna Dammer, spokesperson for the Hernando County sheriff’s office, “and decided to use a new St. Petersburg law that allows law enforcement to retroactively restore order.”

According to Dammer, the deputies on the scene determined that, on average, one employee would have been killed in the knife scuffle. They chose one employee by lottery and slashed his throat. “They also rolled dice to see if a shopper might also have been killed,” said Dammer, “but fortunately the dice rolled high, and the robber did not kill any Wal-Mart shoppers.”

“We absolutely concur with what the deputies did to restore order,” said Wal-Mart spokesperson Tom Williams. “We do not accept such assistance from our shoppers. There are here to spend money, not interfere with robberies and murders. We want Wal-Mart to be a pleasant place to shop, rob, and shed blood.” Williams said that he was saddened by the death of his employee, and that he would ask the state to make it illegal to carry knives into places of business.

“I was happy to see the employee die after all,” said one shopper. “It scared the crap out of me that someone like that old lady could actually stop a robbery. Shoppers shouldn’t be allowed to take that kind of responsibility.” She said that she was more frightened by the gun than by the knife-wielding robber. “A robber might murder me or my children,” she said. “And that would be okay. But a shopper stopping an assault forces me to think about my own responsibility as a citizen, and that’s something I can’t handle.” Another shopper said that “that crazy granny actually left her place in line to interfere with the assault. What kind of a nut do you have to be to give up your place in line?”

After the restorative killing, the knife-wielding defendant was given a fifteen-minute head start before the deputies began chasing him, to simulate what his escape would have been like if Suter had not intervened. The alleged robber was recaptured later that evening after another robbery in which an elderly convenience store clerk was killed. “That’s more like it,” said Dammer. “We’ll have no more gun nuts changing the natural order of things here in St. Petersburg.”

The NRA was unavailable for comment. However, HCI spokesperson Kim Mariani said that they would be pushing for restorative law enforcement in other cities. “We cannot have grandmothers making firearms ownership look good,” said Mariani. “When criminals have knives, citizens should die. If some gun-wielding nut stops a crime in progress, law enforcement should restore the situation to what should have occurred.” Mariani went on to say that there have been a number of mass murders aborted by firearms owners, and that HCI could have benefited greatly if law enforcement in those localities had the power of the St. Petersburg Sheriff’s department to restore order by restoratively killing potential victims. “We know the NRA will oppose these laws,” said Mariani. “But someone has to stand up to the gun nuts.”

The alleged robber was arraigned on charges of murder of the convenience store clerk and the restoratively murdered Wal-Mart employee. Suter was arraigned on two charges of interfering with the natural order of the universe, and using a firearm in a manner that might make firearms ownership look useful.

“This is going to be a slam-dunk case,” said Dammer. “Did you know she even allows her children to touch her evil gun?”