That criminal is lucky he didn’t try that stuff in my neck of the woods. He’d have been shot soon enough and the clerk would have gotten a medal. Tucker Carlson explains.

Carlson: Last Friday, a 35-year-old convicted felon called Austin Simon walked into a neighborhood convenience store in Harlem in New York City and pushed his way behind the counter. Austin’s girlfriend had just had a dispute with the clerk in the store. The clerk was a 61-year-old Dominican immigrant called Jose Alba.

The woman wanted a bag of potato chips, but there was no money left on her government issued food stamp card, so the clerk tried to take back the chips. The woman became enraged and went and got her boyfriend. Now, the boyfriend, Austin Simon, had a long history of violent crime. Simon has spent at least three years in prison for assault. His most recent parole expired last May.

Though Simon had no apparent job, he was wearing a $300 designer T-shirt and a gold earring, and he was extremely angry. He was furious. Austin Simon threw Alba into a wall, then leaned down and screamed in his face. When the older man stood up, Simon grabbed him by the neck. Here’s a local news account describing what happened next.

REPORTER VOICEOVER: Surveillance video shows 37-year-old Austin Simon push the clerk behind the bodega counter and then stand over him. Moments later, a struggle ensues. The two wrestle and the clerk stabs Simon multiple times. This happened late Friday night in the Bluemoon convenience store off West 140 Street. Police were called for an assault in progress and found Simon bleeding from two stab wounds in his chest and one in his neck. He later died at the hospital and police arrested the deli clerk, 51-year-old Jose Alba, for second degree murder.

Alba was 61, by the way, he’s every bit as old as he looks. Now Simon died. Every death is sad, but at the same time, decent people can acknowledge that some deaths are much sadder than others and Austin Simon’s death is not one of those. Simon was a thug. He was a taker. He was a cruel and vicious bully. Austin Simon was the sort of person who beats up old men simply because he can. Functional societies have zero tolerance for people like Austin Simon because people like Austin Simon hurt the weak and prevent the productive from producing.

They themselves contribute nothing. They are, in fact, the mirror image of men like Jose Alba. Jose Alba came to the United States 30 years ago to work, and working is exactly what he was doing at the bodega in Harlem and almost midnight on Friday, selling chips to people who don’t bother to work, holding up the retail economy for minimum wage. A healthy society celebrates, venerates men like Jose Alba, men with jobs and families, men with independence and dignity and above all, a healthy society affirms the right of men like this to self-defense.