There are 11 stories in July 2019
describing guns used as self-defense. See below. Guns Saved These Americans from
Assault and Robbery, by Amy Swearer & Lucas Drill 8/07/19,
Heritage.
It’s easy to blame the tools used in the
killings and call for measures that would broadly restrict public access to
them, instead of focusing on the more complex reality of
why these individuals committed such horrible crimes in the first place.
Communities are grieving, and everyone
with a beating heart and an ounce of humanity grieves with them. We cannot,
however, allow our grief to blind us to the important role firearms play in
defending the rights and liberties of law-abiding Americans.
Yes, firearms can be used to carry out
horrific acts of violence, and we should absolutely pursue ways of ensuring that individuals who pose serious risks of danger to
themselves or others are disarmed long before they can commit these types of
atrocities.
The liberal Left continue to push their
radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. But the vast majority of lawful
gun owners will never use their firearms for unlawful purposes. In fact, they
are much more likely to use their firearms for self-defense than criminals are
to use firearms to harm innocent people.
As the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention noted in a 2013 report, almost all national studies of defensive gun
uses have found that firearms are used in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times
every year in the United States.
Even the center’s own internal data
indicates that firearms are used defensively about 1 million times a
year. And, of course, this doesn’t include the countless number of times that
tens of millions of Americans use their firearms for other lawful purposes,
such as hunting or recreational target shooting.
In an effort to keep the national
conversation grounded in this important context, every month this year we’ve
highlighted just a handful of the many times law-abiding citizens have used
their firearms in defense of their rights or the rights of those around them.
Here are the January, February, March, April, May, and June examples.
July was no different. In recent weeks, while firearms were used to commit
several high-profile, heinous acts against innocent people, they were also used
by many innocent people to fight back against those seeking to do them harm.
July 3, Summerville, South Carolina. Concerned neighbors went to check
out loud noises that they thought might be someone breaking into the local
church, only to discover a very drunk trespasser roaming
through a nearby backyard. The drunk trespasser began attacking one of the
neighbors, who then shot the drunk man in self-defense after his warning shot
went unheeded. Law enforcement officers determined the neighbor acted
justifiably, and the drunk man is facing charges related to the incident.
July 5, Danville, Kentucky. A homeowner held a would-be thief at
gunpoint until law enforcement arrived, after investigating why his gate
intercom rang at 4 a.m.
The homeowner looked outside and saw
that his vehicles had been moved, then found the cars parked away from the
house, with the thief still inside one of them.
July 10, Summerfield, Florida. A disabled 61-year-old homeowner
kept his AR-15 loaded by his bedside after a suspicious interaction earlier in
the day with a man who was looking through the sliding glass door on his
back porch.
When the homeowner awoke to loud noises
that night, he grabbed his rifle just in time to defend himself from four armed
men who had broken into his home.
He killed two of the armed intruders and
sent the other two fleeing, until they were tracked down by a police K9 unit.
Despite being outnumbered and wounded himself, the homeowner survived.
July 11, Tampa, Florida. A pastor, joined by a deacon, held an intruder at gunpoint for nearly 10 minutes after
responding to the church’s alarm system and discovering a man who had used a
brick to break in. The intruder was in the process of stealing electronics from
the place of worship.
July 15, Phoenix. A retired military law enforcement
officer acted quickly to defend himself and his family against a home
invasion, drawing his handgun from his bedside table and chasing the intruder
out of the house. After running, the suspect broke into another home and
attempted to sexually assault a woman before being arrested by police, who the
first homeowner had called.
July 16, San Diego. A man armed with a knife broke
into a home and began stabbing the 54-year-old homeowner until the homeowner’s son was able to intervene, shooting
and killing the attacker with his father’s gun.
The home invasion caused some residents
to question the logic of a proposed local ordinance that would require gun
owners to keep their firearms locked in a safe or left inoperable when not on
their person.
July 17, Oneida, Tennessee. A man rushed to his mother’s home after receiving a phone call from
the mother’s caretaker about hearing suspicious talking from other parts of the
house. He discovered a woman in the process of burglarizing the home who was
armed with a pocket knife, and held her at gunpoint until police arrived.
July 24, Rochester, New Hampshire. A father, whose two young children were
in the car with him, spotted a would-be burglar while pulling up in the driveway
of his home.
The father confronted the man and held
him at gunpoint while waiting for law enforcement. He told reporters that while
he wished he had not needed to draw his gun in the presence of his children, he
hopes it taught them a valuable lesson. “I don’t carry a gun to kill people. I
carry a gun to neutralize threatening situations,” he said.
July 27, High Point, North Carolina. A woman fatally shot an ax-wielding man who broke into her property and
charged at her. The man had assaulted the same woman earlier that night but was
able to elude police.
July 29, Prospect, Kentucky. A homeowner brandished his handgun to chase away a man attempting to
break into his home. The incident was captured by a security camera, and the
homeowner believes that the presence of the firearm allowed him to scare off
the suspect without putting himself in danger.
July 31, Nashville. An Uber driver defended himself and his passenger
by shooting a man who opened fire on the driver’s vehicle. The man—who had a
long history of violent crimes, including armed robbery—said he had felt
“disrespected” by the Uber driver’s passenger and followed the car to exact
revenge. Neither the passenger nor the Uber driver was harmed, but the
perpetrator was later treated at a local hospital for wounds to his chest
and arm.
These types of everyday, lawful gun uses
are not something we can afford to forget in our desire to just “do something”
about mass public shootings, which, while statistically incredibly rare, still
strike terror into our souls and break our hearts.
Every day in this country, law-abiding
gun owners rely on their Second Amendment rights to stand up against the very
types of evil that have so deeply horrified us in recent national headlines.
Neither these Americans, nor their
firearms, are the enemy of a free nation. They are, rather, an important and
regular deterrent to those who would infringe on the inalienable rights of
others.
Conservative lawmakers MUST be able to point to
tremendous policy victories they have been able to achieve by the end of 2019.
To do that, they will
need to be focused on a few specific priorities
before the end of the year arrives.
Norb Leahy,
Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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