When my gun saved lives
The night when I was awakened by the screams of a woman and yells of a man physically pulling her out of her car across the street from my home, I flashed back to the night intruders tried to break into our home and attack my mother.
I calmly, but deliberately loaded my gun making my way towards the attack. I realized my yelling at the unknown man to leave the woman alone did nothing to deter him. It was almost as if I was just some nuisance, a fly buzzing around on a hot summer day–until I used my weapon. And just like that he came out of the tunnel vision. It–and he–stopped. Immediately.
As immediate as the day I stopped an apparent drug addict breaking into my neighbor’s home in the middle of the day. I remember confronting him while hiding the view of my 12 gauge behind bushes at the corner of my approach. When I asked what he was doing, he calmly looked at me and responded, “Trying to get in.” When I informed him that his plan wasn’t going to be happening, he squared up on me with a sharpened screwdriver, hatred in his eyes. Until I stepped forward and racked a cartridge in the chamber of my Mossberg. He stopped.
The history of the United States is one steeped in violence, especially towards brown and black communities. These are the same communities now being catered to or pandered to (depending on one’s perspective), from a party that has been, at best, a fair weather friend. How the 2nd Amendment became a partisan issue is for political science professors to ponder. The protection of me, my family, and my community should not be used as a political football by politicians that have no problem using similar weapons against innocent populations at home and abroad. What I know, from experience and history, is that gun ownership is not only one of our civil and Constitutional rights, it is essential for self defense against a historically hostile state.