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Editor’s note: This is part four of a six-part series.
Since the Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the left has once again taken up its two-pronged attack on the Second Amendment: pushing additional gun control legislation in Congress and flooding the news and internet with anti-gun articles – many of which are merely clever works of fiction.
To combat the falsity – such as the myriad articles “debunking” the “good guy with a gun myth” – Liberty Nation will highlight six real stories this week focusing on incidents that would have gone horrifyingly differently had some good guy with a gun not intervened. The claim that private gun ownership doesn’t help stop crime is demonstrably false – and here’s the proof.
Senior Citizen Stops Robbery
In the summer of 2012, a 71-year-old man stopped a robbery at a crowded internet café in Florida. Fox reported that two 19-year-olds, Duwayne Henderson and Davis Dawkins, attempted to rob the Palms Internet Café. One pointed a gun at customers, and the other had a baseball bat.
Samuel Williams – legally licensed to carry concealed – drew his handgun and fired at the would-be-robbers, scaring them off. Mr. Williams said that he and his wife were there to play “Sweepstakes,” and that he fired his weapon to protect his wife and the other patrons. Both suspects were apprehended shortly afterwards and faced charges of attempted armed robbery with a firearm and criminal mischief.
Mr. Williams, of course, was not charged. Bill Gladson of the Marion County state attorney’s office said that the shooting appeared justified. Had he not acted as he did, someone could have been killed. At the very least, the business and quite likely the customers would have been robbed.
Guns as Equalizers
The Second Amendment exists primarily to protect us from a tyrannical government. However, it also applies to the right to defend oneself against criminals. We often think of the right to keep and bear arms as a necessity because criminals ignore gun bans and restrictions anyways. While that’s certainly true, it isn’t the whole story.
Imagine a world in which guns don’t exist. How do the elderly defend themselves? What about children, disabled people, the small and physically weak? What about the perfectly healthy young adults of average size and strength who haven’t dedicated their lives to learning to use some melee weapon – such as a sword or spear – as the career soldier or bandit would? When a man bursts into your house with a machete to kill you and your family, are you prepared to meet and exceed his level of skill and the brutality of his attack? To bring it back to the actual events in this story, what chance would the 71-year-old have had unarmed against two young men – even had they both also been unarmed?
There were actually two stories that demonstrate this point perfectly, and it was difficult to choose between them. Ultimately, the tale of Mr. Williams won simply because it took place in public, and this entire series was inspired by stories published by leftist outlets that “debunk” the good guy with a gun “myth” after just about every public shooting.
In the other example, a 14-year-old boy defended himself and his three younger siblings against a 37-year-old home invader. Shooting someone in self-defense isn’t a good thing; it’s merely the lesser of two evils. That it had to be a teen in this story is terrible. But, it’s better than the alternative. As James Holmes, one of the officers to arrive at the scene, later said:
"The police and indeed our community does not ever want to see a situation where a teenager of that age has to take a weapon to protect his family ... but this young man did exactly what he should have done," he said. "I'm not sure he gave full thought about what he had to do. He just acted."
As mentioned in part one of this series, guns aren’t magical talismans; simply owning one doesn’t make you invincible. Skill and yes, even natural ability, absolutely can affect the outcome. However, hand a gun to that young, old, weak, handicapped, or simply untrained victim, and suddenly they’re on much more level ground with their attackers.
