Sooner or later, it’s going to happen. You know it, and I know it.

One of these days a group of these wannabe teenage gangsters is going to randomly assault the wrong person. You can just about feel it coming.

They’re going to try to snatch a potential victim out of a cab, or roll up on someone walking down the street, or forcibly take someone’s car, bicycle, cell phone or purse who isn’t going to run, or fall to the ground crying. The potential victim is going to pull out a pistol, and somebody’s child, maybe more than one, is going to the morgue.

Then and only then will the parent or parents show up, teary-eyed and full of weak excuses why their precious little angel was killed in the commission of a violent felony.

Then there will be all manner of convoluted rationalizations why their child, who they swear would never harm a flea, was shot to death by a stranger fearing for their life.

Then the political pundits, community activists, and megaphone shouters will come out of the woodwork — eagerly cashing in on the publicity and exposure that goes along with such cases by stepping in front of every available news camera to blame the mayor, the police, rap music, the video game programmer who invented Grand Theft Auto and of course, society at large.

Not much blame will be left for the parents, who will fault their own lack of control to the stress of working long hours, or if they’re unemployed, to the stress of looking for work. Never mind that their own parents — and Black parents for a dozen generations — managed to both work hard and teach their children right from wrong at the same time.

And if that potential victim-turned-shooter happens to be white — you just know what comes next will be a full-blown circus — complete with cries of racism, insensitivity and police favoritism on both sides. Folks will be forced to choose a camp, and both will be unpleasant. Either you favor ignoring random street violence, or you favor the blood of teenagers staining our sidewalks.

In debates like that, there’s rarely room for common sense or middle ground, there’s only knee-jerk emotional reaction, which is probably the worst environment in which to solve a real problem.

But that’s exactly what’s going to happen — and probably sooner rather than later.

According to a Philadelphia Police department spokesperson, there are 24,000 Philadelphians who have applied for, and received, legal permission to carry a concealed firearm. That’s 24,000 people who may look like easy marks for a random attack, but could turn out to be our very own Bernhard Goetz.

You remember Goetz, the “Subway Vigilante” who, in December 1984, was riding the number 2 express train in Manhattan when he was approached by four teenage thugs who demanded money. Goetz responded by pulling out a revolver, and sprayed all four with hot lead. The teenagers survived, although one was left permanently paralyzed.

In the aftermath, Goetz was both hailed and vilified by the public and the press, and ended up spending only a few months in jail — not for the shooting, but for the possession of an unregistered firearm. He was acquitted of the most serious charges, and to this day is considered a hero by many who were fed up with New York’s violent crime rate, and their police force’s apparent inability to stop it.

Sure, advocates for the teens tried to float the defense that the youths were just panhandling — they didn’t demand money, they asked politely. No one bought it. They were violent predators who messed with the wrong guy, plain and simple. The thin, nerdy, bespectacled Goetz must have looked like a classic pigeon — until he went Dirty Harry on them.

Today, in Philadelphia, Goetz would have had legal permission to carry that firearm, and wouldn’t have been detained any longer than it took to fill out the paperwork. And don’t forget our recently expanded Castle Doctrine — which allows people to shoot anywhere they feel threatened — on the subway, on the street, or in a taxicab.

So when it happens here, don’t start crying about the district attorney’s lack of prosecution, or some nonexistent statute which forces people to wait and carefully assess the threat before defending themselves. By then, someone’s child is going to be dead, and public sympathy will not be on their side.

This cannot end well, unless it ends now.

Daryl Gale is the Philadelphia Tribune's city editor.