Woman Who Shot at Thieves Loses Concealed Weapon

'I will never help anybody again'
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 11, 2015 11:18 AM CST
Woman Who Shot at Thieves Loses Concealed Weapon
Tatiana Duva-Rodriguez   (AP Photo/Auburn Hills Police Department)

A woman who shot at two shoplifters outside a Detroit Home Depot back in October was sentenced to 18 months of probation and had her concealed gun permit taken away on Wednesday, the Chicago Tribune reports. "I don't believe any malice was involved in what you were doing, but I believe you have to think about what could have happened," a judge told 46-year-old Tatiana Duva-Rodriguez. But that wasn't quite Duva-Rodriguez's takeaway. "I tried to help, and I learned my lesson that I will never help anybody again," she tells Fox 2 Detroit. She pleaded no contest to a charge of reckless use of a handgun and won't be eligible for another concealed gun permit until at least 2023, the Tribune reports.

Duva-Rodriguez faced criticism from all sides after firing multiple rounds outside the store, the Tribune reports. Gun experts told her she was lucky she didn't kill anyone in a busy parking lot, and prosecutors called her actions "disturbing." But her lawyer—who described her as a "sharpshooter"—points out she was only shooting at the tires on the suspects' getaway car and even managed to flatten one, according to the AP. "We need more people like Tatiana Duva-Rodriguez in our society," he says. It seems a growing number of Americans agree. The Tribune reports 56% of US residents believe the country would be safer if more people carried a gun. And the number of people with concealed carry permits has nearly tripled in the past eight years. (More concealed weapon stories.)

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