Chakvetadze robbed in Moscow home

MOSCOW (AP) – Russian tennis star Anna Chakvetadze was tied up by masked robbers who broke into her home Tuesday and stole money and goods worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, her father said.

Chakvetadze, ranked No. 6 and a 2007 U.S. Open semifinalist, was bound for 30 minutes in her home outside Moscow but not seriously hurt, NTV television reported.

It’s very good to hear that nobody was seriously hurt during this, but I can’t help but think of a couple common themes you’ll always hear from anti-gunners.

First, that you don’t need a gun because you live in a “good neighborhood”. Good neighborhoods have good houses. Good houses have nice stuff in them. Criminals like nice stuff.

Second, that it’s somehow safer to not have a weapon. Consider this:

Police and Tarpishchev said the assailants tied up Chakvetadze and her parents, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Tarpishchev said the 20-year-old player “tried to resist but it was useless.”

If they wanted to, those thugs could’ve done all manner of things to both Anna and her parents. She could’ve been raped, beaten, sliced up, and her parents could’ve easily been killed. They weren’t - thankfully - but who would’ve stopped them? Clearly they only wanted loot, but throw a stalker in the mix and this entire scenario changes drastically for the worse.

From Anna’s World:

“They started to beat me up, I resisted, then they hit me either with their hands or a pistol. It was dark, told me I had a child there, reminded me about it, so that I gave them everything. So I did,” Jamal Chakvetadze told Russian television.

All criminals want are easy targets.