Guns and guts in B-Town

A Bloomington story illustrating the bastion of home security that gun ownership provides managed to surface in the state and local media last week.

Confronted by the front end of a shotgun barrel, a woman in the house ran back to her bedroom where she and fiance where held at gun point. The gunman’s tunnel vision centered on the male resident at the safe, causing him to lose sight of the woman.

She then picked up a walking stick and swung it across his head. Fortunately, this was enough of a distraction to allow her fiancé to grab his handgun and open fire on the gunman who rushed from the scene and is believed to have suffered injuries.

Thanks to the cunning bravery of the couple and the right to bear arms, they were capable of defending and possibly saving their own lives as well as their children’s. Before gun grabbers accuse me of exploiting this individual case to propel my pro-Second Amendment agenda, please consider the following.

Similar defense cases statistically dominate the latter occurrences of violent unjustified firearm use which the media usually magnifies and salivates over. Guns are used about 1.5 million times annually for self-defense in the United States, according to Gun Owners of America, a Second Amendment lobbying group. This means that guns are used at least 48 times more often to protect peaceable citizens than to take lives every year.

I am simply reporting on the generally positive picture of civilian gun ownership through the facts and of course my admitted pro-liberty bias.

It’s disconcerting to think about what could become of the many disarmed citizens caught in one of these annual 1.5 million emergency situations if gun control laws are passed in more U.S. cities. American civilians stop about 83 percent of violent offenders in their tracks, according to a University of Arizona study. Police were able to shoot or drive off criminals only 68 percent of the time in comparison. 

Gun control advocates have it all backward. The “wild West” situation is more likely to erupt after disarming or restricting the gun rights of the law-abiding public who play an unheard but critical role in upholding the peace.

The overall lesson to be learned from this local story is that even as the government becomes omnipresent, it isn’t and will never be capable of keeping us all safe. Time is often too short in such predicaments for police intervention, and legislation doesn’t hold up against determined criminals.

When exercised responsibly, our right to self-defense guaranteed by the Second Amendment is our best bet for individual and family security.

edharo@indiana.edu
@EdHarodude