The president of the Bodega Association of the United States, Ramon Murphy is urging store owners in New York to apply for gun permits after a clerk was killed in a robbery attempt on Saturday. Sounds like a bad idea.

Joining Murphy in his call to arm store clerks was Fernando Mateo, President of Hispanics Across America, who held a joint news conference yesterday in New York: "The issue is with the thugs who have illegal guns. If every illegal gun were taken off the street, we wouldn't have to arm the businesses," Mateo said. Yeah, no shit we need to get illegal guns off the street. But pumping more guns into the city is somehow going to push the number of violent crimes in New York down?

The executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, Colin Weaver is afraid of "creating an arms race" and instead thinks the city should focus on getting guns off the city streets. Which, to be fair, hasn't exactly worked. But the saddest part of this is the family of the Queens man whose weekend shooting sparked this latest debate, Juan Arcadio Torres. From the Times:

For Mr. Torres's family, his death was a terribly familiar blow. In 1999, another brother, Ramon Torres, was killed in front of his daughter while working at a deli, a niece, Albania Torres, said. Three years later, a close family friend, Ramon Adames, was killed at the same Laurelton store where Mr. Torres died.

It's understandable why victims and their families want protection, but arming people in the city who have limited gun experience just seems like a really, really terrible idea. Arming anyone in the city is a bad idea, really.