Opinion
U.S.A. -(Ammoland.com)- This was a tragedy. Last year, a young woman was shot and killed in a road rage incident. That breaks my heart.
Now, a Pennsylvania legislator proposes to outlaw all loaded firearms in cars. That sounds good. Gun control offers us the myth of perfection. In contrast, reality is messy, but reality includes a lot of lives that are saved when honest people protect themselves with a gun. Fantasy gun prohibition laws may feel good, but they cost lives.
We’ve seen this pattern before. Someone is murdered and then we want to outlaw that particular situation. We can’t drive red cars, or imported pickup trucks, or carry a certain type of gun in a certain place. That is a false solution and the real cure is to dig deeper. If we fail to understand the full context of what happens then we will cost lives rather than save them. Here is the rest of the story.
I look for and analyse examples of armed self-defense. These news stories seldom make the national media so you probably didn’t know they happen thousands of times a day. I see the examples where an armed citizen saved their life and the lives of other innocent victims. I see it a lot, so let me share a few of them with you.
In one recent case, a man came out of his home to save his neighbor and her nine-year-old daughter as they were being beaten on the sidewalk in front of his home. The defender stopped the attack because he had a firearm. The woman and her child were both hospitalized because of the injuries they received in the beating.
Gun control says these victims would be safer if their neighbor was disarmed.
In another recent case, a woman stopped her ex-boyfriend who tried to force his way into her apartment. She had been beaten before so she had a restraining order that forbade contact. That piece of legal paper may have kept her out of jail, but her gun may have kept her out of the hospital or the morgue.
I also reported on an odd case of a serial stalker. This sick man had over 20 victims in the northern Ohio area. A judge sentenced the stalker to jail. This creative judge also provided free concealed carry classes for all of the victims. Stalking and domestic abuse is a disease of creeping doubt where each victim thinks they are alone and powerless. These classes in armed defense let the victims see that they are not alone and they are not powerless. Women are a fast growing segment of those applying for their concealed carry permits.
The fantasy of gun-prohibition says these women would be safer if they were disarmed.
In theory, we’d be safer if “all guns were outlawed”. In practice, we would disarm the honest citizens who save lives every day.
I started this story with the tragic murder of a young woman in a road rage incident. That incident shocks us, but it isn’t the whole story. Data from the US government says we defend ourselves with a firearm over 8 thousand times on an average day. Hundreds of sexual assaults are stopped because the intended victim is armed.
Unfortunately, these honest gun owners are disarmed as we pass more knee-jerk legislation. We want simple solutions, but not so simple that they make things worse rather than better.
Ignorance of the facts about self-defense is dangerous. Gun-control will get more of us killed.
About Rob Morse
Rob Morse writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily, and on his SlowFacts blog. He hosts the Self Defense Gun Stories Podcast and co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast. Rob is an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.