The world has become a crazy place that is for sure and when I hear stories of desperation and things like robbery that are happening in North Carolina, where i live, I can't help but make a bet on where such a crime would happen depending on what was stolen and how.
In this case, before I even opened the article, I made a guess that this took place in Asheville, and sure enough, that is exactly where it took place.
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In order to understand why I think this is worth talking about you first need to understand the perspective of someone like me that has lived in North Carolina their entire lives. North Carolina is a relatively safe place that is kept that way because of things that people who don't live in places like North Carolina find a bit nutty: We have extremely relaxed laws on gun ownership and therefore, the population kind of polices itself. While there still is violent crime here, this statistic can't really be relied upon because most of the crime of that sort is actually gang-related in Charlotte. The rest of the state? You almost never hear about carjackings or home invasions or armed robbery and what not because a great percentage of the population is legally armed and are allowed to use lethal force when threatened in this manner.
But when you do hear about someone robbing a store in North Carolina, especially with something like a machete, you can pretty safely guess that it took place in Asheville or more specifically, downtown Asheville.
Like any county or city in North Carolina as well as most other US States, they are entitled to ratify state and national laws to their population's own specific desires, and Asheville decided to go the route of banning weapons, including legal licensed firearms, from being carried in public. They don't outright ban them, but it is a grey area about how you can be arrested and charged for carrying in public and it is going to be left up to the specific officer or judge whether or not this is illegal or not. In Asheville, you are more likely than not to be accused of a crime even though you are simply carrying a firearm, even if you don't use it and have no intention of doing so.
Therefore, people in Asheville tend to not carry (open or concealed) just to avoid being targeted by police and harassed / arrested. The offshoot of this is that people end up going into supermarkets and robbing them with machetes, even if it is for something as trivial as a single cinnamon bun and some incense.
The way that the people in Asheville believe that they can get away with such a brash crime is likely rooted in year of not being prosecuted or even pursued for doing such a crime. This particular individual was pretty gutsy, because even though the police response was not super-fast like you see in the movies, Jeffrey Bradburn was found, simply by asking around, some time after the incident.
I find it humorous that when they did find him, he made no attempt to flee and was in the process of eating the cinnamon bun. Talk about getting caught red-handed! His appearance certainly would make him easy to find and on another note, remember when getting a tattoo on your face was something that was really rare? What the hell happened in the past 20 years?
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People that have lived in North Carolina as long as I have remember a time when Asheville was an upscale place that we all liked to visit. It's position in the mountains and the natural beauty made it very attractive for a small vacation to stay somewhere nice, get some nice food, and enjoy the view or perhaps a visit to the nearby Biltmore estate which is the largest privately owned residence to ever exist in the United States. These days, Asheville is well-known for crime and drug use, with many people abandoning the city because they are tired of it being dangerous as hell to be outdoors past 6pm.
Had this same crime been attempted at a supermarket here in New Berne where I live, Jeffrey would have been immediately forced to lie down by multiple armed customers and the clerks themselves would perhaps be legally armed as well. You never hear about stuff like this happening where I live for a reason. But Asheville, some time ago, decided that they were anti-gun and now it is one of the only places in North Carolina where things like armed robbery with a machete ever happens. Nobody is going to risk their life over a cinnamon bun, no matter how tasty the frosting is.
I suppose it is worth mentioning that Jeffrey also had a meth pipe with resin on his person and that surprises exactly no one.
Had he tried this stunt in almost any other part of North Carolina, he either would have been held on the ground for until police arrived, or sadly, he would have been "ventilated" on the spot.
I'm not trying to start an argument here and I think it should be very obvious that I am very pro-gun, if you want to call it that. If you are going to take the ability to protect yourself out of the hands of the people and put it exclusively in the hands of the police, they need to be faster and actually have real consequences for those that do the crimes. Not only is Asheville tough on gun ownership, but they are also very soft on criminals. The end result is the criminals become more bold and start to believe that there wont be any consequences for robbing a place with a giant knife. I fear that Jeffrey will be given a very light sentence if he receives one at all, and he probably committed this act in such a nonchalant way because he feels confident he wont be punished.