Be Smart, Be Armed

Michael Sandy was lured via the Internet to a secluded site in New York. Once there, four punks beat and robbed him. As he tried to escape, he was hit by a car and critical injured.

He never regained consciousness, spending his 29th birthday in a coma. Today we learn, he has been removed from life support.

John Fox, 19; Ilya Shurov, 20, and Gary Timmins, 16 were initially charged with assault and robbery as a hate crime, but those charges have since been upgraded to include murder, according to news reports. The fourth suspect has yet to be charged.

According to New York City police, Fox and Shurov posed as gay on an internet chat room for gay men looking for a mark to rob. They lured Sandy to a parking lot near Sheepshead Bay, sandwiched between Plumb Beach and the Belt Parkway in New York.

Chat messages between Sandy and the men were reportedly found on his home computer and a printout from his computer showing directions to Plum Beach, a popular cruising area, were found in his car.

The alleged attackers say that they are heterosexual, and have made incriminating statements to police, even suggesting they had tried to lure and attack gay men online in the past, Newsday reports.

Michael Sandy was 5-foot-7, and he weighed 145 pounds. Alone, he was no match for four people, regardless of their size. Now, the first words of advice should be "do not meet strangers in anywhere but a public place -- and even then do so with caution."

Subsequent words of advice: One person is no match for four. How might the situation have been different if, upon being threatened, Michael Sandy had pulled out a licensed weapon -- forget for a moment that the only people in New York who can legally carry guns are bodyguards for the rich and famous -- and set a bead in between the eyes of one of these little thugs?

Would they have backed off or would they have continued their attacks? I'm telling you, my fellow queers, arm yourselves and protect you and yours. The police are no longer in the crime prevention business; they are in the crime cleanup business.

I'm sick of this sh*t, and I'm not going to take it. Lock and load.