And she scolds the interviewer right back

NPR Scolds Mother Who Bought Gun for Protection in High-Crime City: ‘Why Not Just Call the Police?’

NPR reporter Scott Simon spoke with a mother who said she bought a gun for protection in Aurora, Colorado, and he asked her, “Why not just call the police?”

The mother, Misheika Gaddis, told Simon she bought a 9mm pistol because she is a single mom home alone at night with her eight-year-old son, and she is pregnant with another child as well.

Gaddis explained that she decided to buy the pistol–her first gun–because of the crime near her apartment and her experience of coming home from work to find people congregating near her door whom she did not know.

She said:

So there was a couple of nights where I’d come home, and there would be people in the hallway, like, really close to my door. And the way my apartment building is set up is if you don’t know anybody up there, you shouldn’t be upstairs. There were a couple of nights I felt like I probably needed some protection or probably should have let somebody know I was going in late. But I didn’t think about it until there were people standing way too close to my door.

Later in the interview, Gaddis noted: “I stay pretty close to a high school that actually had a shooting sometime this year. Then there’s someone that, like, rides through the neighborhood, and they just let off shots. You can hear gunshots every night.”

Simon asked her what would have to happen in order to spur her to grab the gun and use it in defense of herself and her son.

Gaddis responded by suggesting she would grab the gun if someone was kicking in her door or if she heard the little bell on the back of her apartment door ring.

Simon responded by asking, “Why not just call the police?”

Gaddis noted that she has had to call the police in the past and the dispatcher asked her so many questions that the time it took to answer the questions, in addition to the time it took police to arrive, was just too great. She stressed that the moments she spent waiting were time in which she was vulnerable.

BLUF
the gun debate in America is simple to resolve: keep your guns.  It’s the smartest and freest choice — smartest because the I.Q.-heavies of 1776 deemed it necessary to maintain a free nation, and freest because freedom was their aim.  If you fear guns, the choice is equally simple: don’t own one.  You have that choice.  However, if you support gun confiscation, you remove that choice from your fellow citizen, leaving him more vulnerable.  If your fellow citizen is victimized by a criminal, morally speaking, the policy you supported spilled his blood.

By the way, did you catch the irony?  By making hundreds of millions of law-abiding citizens more vulnerable, anti-gun activists embolden criminals to commit more, not less, crime.  Talk about a miss.

What’s a Gun Got to Do with It?

A May 2022 The Hill article entitled Here Is A List of 27 School Shootings That Have Taken Place This Year underscores the fear many have regarding gun ownership.  But why is protecting one’s person, family, property, etc. in the face of evil threatening and not prudent?  After all, isn’t peace most ensured when strength is most projected — or, as Reagan put it, “peace [comes] through strength”?  In other words, doesn’t common sense inform us that criminals exploit vulnerability?

The arguments for gun control are familiar to most.  The anti-gun stance is that no guns means no mass shootings at schools less violent crime generally.  In support of this position, the figure of fewer deaths by guns in nations where guns have been banned is often cited, while violent deaths by other means are typically ignored.  Alternatively, the pro-gun position draws attention to 1) declining violent crimes in America for nearly three decades (Antifa/BLM riots, state D.A. criminal leniency, federal prison purges, etc. are altering this trend); 2) armed citizens for criminal deterrence; and 3) on-the-scene armed citizens preventing crime and apprehending criminals before police arrive.  Think of the recent Indiana mall “good Samaritan.”  In this article, we’ll explore the anti-gun side.

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After The Shooting Stops: How does an armed citizen avoid being confused for a threat? There’s no simple solution, but there are ways to minimize that concern.

Our readers have no idea how much I appreciate them. Picture my editor breathing down my neck and wanting to know when my monthly column would arrive on his desk. Also, picture me without a single idea for that column. And then, just like the cavalry to the rescue, here comes a reader with some good questions.

Our reader, talking about a shooting incident in a public place, asks, “How do I identify myself as a ‘Good Guy with a Gun?’” And, “How do I prevent myself from being shot by other good guys with guns?” I would suggest to our reader that you also have to reverse the thought process: How do I identify other good guys and not cause them harm? Excellent questions, but there are no easy answers.

Any time guns start going off, there are a lot of things that can happen, and many of those things are bad. Deadly scenarios place most people under the most stress they have ever experienced. Deadly encounters in a public place just mean more people, more stress, more chaos and more confusion.

Consider, too, that in any such public incident, some of those present may be lawfully armed citizens. Others may be plainclothes or off-duty police officers, while still others may be uniformed police arriving at the scene, but currently unaware of what is actually going on. And the thing to realize is that, due to the confusion and chaos, everyone there is subject to making mistakes—deadly mistakes. The fact is that we cannot simply look at a person and determine whether or not they are a lawfully armed citizen. You already know that good citizens come in all races, genders and clothing styles.

Because of all these factors, I would suggest that the first consideration, even if you are armed, is to gather you and yours and make a quick exit. Just because guns are going off nearby doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to have your gun out. Time might be much better spent finding an exit or, failing that, getting behind good cover. Once good cover is located and utilized, you can more easily identify a person who is, for whatever reason, coming toward you with deadly intent. This gives you nearly the best advantage you can hope for under the circumstances.

Still, there are times when we can’t readily exit a bad situation. We may have family members still unaccounted for and not yet located. We may have been asked by law enforcement to provide assistance. We may have been asked by those in a leadership role to provide assistance until law enforcement can arrive. Regardless, we can’t leave, and we may have to take an active part in resolving the situation.

Our primary concern should be to make as much use of cover as possible. Second, it’s always a good idea to have our back against something solid so bad guys can’t sneak up behind us (or we fail to hear a lawful command from a police officer who has approached from behind). Last, we need to do something with our defensive handgun besides holding it openly, where it might cause us to take on friendly fire.

Gunwriter and former lawman Rich Grassi recently commented on a technique that he calls the hand-on-holstered-gun ready position. Far from being a brand-new defensive technique, it is one we were practicing back in the Dark Ages when I first put on a badge. Oftentimes, when approaching a questionable situation, we had our hand on the sidearm with any holster-security devices already disengaged and a shooting grip on the pistol. It was a simple matter to draw and address the threat should that have ended up being necessary.

This same technique can work very well for the armed citizen. For those rightfully concerned about running afoul of local laws against brandishing, we are talking about a scenario where there is already a clear threat, we are just not clear exactly who the threat is and also want to ensure we ourselves are not misidentified as a threat. By getting a shooting grip on the handgun and being ready to draw and engage if the situation isn’t otherwise resolved, we are prepared to defend ourselves while being less likely to be confused for the bad guy.

Furthermore, in the aftermath of an armed encounter, whether shots have been fired or not, the aforementioned hand-on-holstered-gun ready position makes good sense. We may no longer have a specific threat to address, but we know that could change quite quickly. And it is a really, really bad idea to actually have a gun in your hand when the police show up. The hand-on-holstered-gun ready position should be made a regular part of your defensive-practice sessions.

There are no easy answers to dealing with shootings in public. Get away, if possible, and avoid having to shoot. But, when it isn’t, the goal is be to be a survivor—not a hero.

Gun Sales in Deep Blue Massachusetts Hit Record Levels Beginning in 2020, Sparked by Fear: Report

Gun sales in Massachusetts — a state with historically low firearm ownership — have skyrocketed since 2020, due in-part to people wanting to arm themselves out of fear, according to a new report.

Many customers “haven’t fully grasped the idea of wanting to own a firearm for defensive purposes, but something brought them here,” Cape Gun Works co-owner Toby Leary told local outlet WBUR. “They feel like they’ve been spurred to do it based on what they see, or their own personal feelings about the world.”

Leary said many of his customers during the pandemic and following months told him that they did not like guns, but that fear pushed them to make the purchase, WBUR reported. Continue reading “”