Nothing Worth Fighting For?
A 7-Eleven worker punished for doing the right thing
North Texas Daily, 3/13/01

A fearless robber held a graveyard shift 7-Eleven cashier at gunpoint over the summer. She demanded all of the money held in the cash register as she nudged the barrel of the her sawed-off shotgun at the cashier’s head.

The woman made off with $150 and pointed the gun at another employee. Little was she to know that a common citizen would dare stand up to someone with a gun.

Antonio Feliciano of Martinsburg, W.V. was behind the counter as he noticed the suspect proudly brandishing her weapon.

“I just wanted to be sure that I was coming home that night,” said Feliciano.

He rushed the would-be assailant and wrestled the rifle from her nervous grasp. Turning the shotgun on her, he held her captive until local Sheriff deputies arrived.

In another time and place, Feliciano would be considered a community hero for defending his co-workers and the store’s inventory.

Instead, he was fired.

The 7-Eleven company has some well-known rules against heroism. They train their employees well on their “just-hand-over-the-cash” policy.

“No asset in a 7-Eleven store is worth defending with an employee’s life,” a company press release stated soon after the incident.

I am by no means lauding Feliciano as a hero. He is reportedly suing the 7-Eleven company for $100,000 for punitive damages and “emotional distress” resulting from loosing his glorious profession.

I would say in this case, the robber may be the more innocent of two parties!

Regardless of whether you favor the right to bear arms or not, there is an obvious trend of cowardice in our society. Feliciano bucked that trend and was punished for it.

What a far cry from the founders of our nation who fought for years to establish societal order to a chaotic frontier!

The Declaration of Independence reads, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The text doesn’t merely address a rebellion against taxation, nor a disgust for English aristocracy. Thomas Jefferson had the safety and happiness of his fellow countrymen in mind when he drafted the document.

Safety and happiness are in the minds of today’s leaders, and those in charge of the 7-Eleven company. I cannot fault them for wanting a safe workplace.

But today’s retail workers are indoctrinated with a different method of ensuring safety: Just-hand-over-the-goods-and-let-the-criminals-have-their-way-until-(hopefully)-the-almighty-police-find-them-and-slap-them-on-the-wrist-and-a-judge-sentences-them-with-a-pathetic-penalty-less-effective-than-a-veggie-libel-law-violation-fine.

Such trust is given to our law enforcement that many politicians propose legislation to further prohibit the citizen’s inalienable right to self-defense.

According to a study of national crime statistics from 1985-1997 done by Georgetown University policy analyst Jens Ludwig and Duke University professor Phillip Cook, not much has changed in the rise in gun-related crime before and after the Brady Bill was signed into law. (Fewer people 55 and older used guns to commit suicide, but that’s about it.)

The armed assault rate increases. School shooting incidents like the one in Littleton, Colo., or Paducah, KY., multiply. Nobody dares to fight back.

But the greatest danger lies not in the disarmament of the population. Nor is there much peril in the proliferation of firearms among criminals.

The greatest danger to the safety of our people is in the cowardly attitude of the current commercial-social complex.

Feliciano (without a gun) saved his former employer $150. Big deal. That pays about half of my rent. $150 is not much in comparison to cigarette sales profit.

But our society lost so much more than $150 when he was fired. Now would-be assailants fear nothing in knocking-off a store.

Bravery built this nation. A little grassroots courage against petty thugs would help preserve it.