SAVING CHILDREN’S LIVES – WITH GUNS

A 14-year-old Marysville, Washington girl awakens in the middle of the night
to discover that a strange man has crept into her bedroom. He approaches her
bed and begins to choke her.
As she plays outside her Washougal, Washington home while her mother is
tending the garden, a 5-year-old girl comes under threat of attack from a
250-lb. bear.

A 4-year-old girl and her grandmother are savagely attacked by a pair of pit
bulls while taking a walk in their West Side Chicago neighborhood.

Before dawn on a February morning, a man breaks into a McMinnville,
Tennessee home and slowly makes his way toward a bedroom where children are
sleeping.

Children in peril.

Children in need of protection.

As a parent, a friend, a neighbor, what do you do?

In their drive to obtain more restrictive gun laws, the anti-self-defense
groups often cite statistics, usually flawed or misleading, concerning the
number of children who are injured or killed by firearms. The logic seems to
be that no one could oppose measures designed to insure the safety of our
children. What, I wonder, would they advise in the four circumstances cited
above?

Dial 9-1-1, perhaps? Police might arrive before a home intruder has made his
way to your children?s bedroom but is that a chance you would be willing to
take? And if a low-life thug already has your daughter in a chokehold, isn?t
it just a bit late to wait on assistance from the police? Dialing 9-1-1
certainly doesn?t seem to be a viable option.

As for the bear and the dogs, maybe they would advise the use of pepper
spray or bear repellant. Can you get close enough to the bear for the spray
to be effective, or will he charge you and then your daughter, when he sees
you approach? Can you aim your spray at two dogs in the midst of an attack
without hitting the victims and further inhibiting their chance of escape?
Again, not really an appropriate response.

Perhaps gun control advocates would advise some other means of self-defense,
such as martial arts. While that might be effective against the home
invaders IF they are not armed, how effective would it be against a 250-lb.
bear or two pit bulls in the midst of a violent attack?

Is the advice we get from those who seek to restrict or prohibit our access
to guns realistic? Many parents don?t think so. They own a firearm precisely
because they want to protect their families from the kind of dangers that
befell the four families above. Yet, these same parents are depicted by gun
control proponents as uncaring, foolhardy and reckless. They are painted as
dregs of society (or worse) because they dare keep a firearm in a home with
a child. Is this an accurate representation of these parents?

The fact is that there are children leading healthy, happy lives today
because their parents, or neighbors, took every measure available to them to
provide protection from predators – just as the parents or neighbors of the
endangered children above did. Although gun control proponents would like us
to believe that a gun in the home can lead to nothing but tragedy for
children, that is not always the case. Children can, and do, benefit when
their parents choose to own firearms for protection from predators.

The 14-year-old girl in Marysville, Washington stated, “I looked up at this
man, and he came over to my bed and started choking me. I was kicking the
walls and trying to get away. We wrestled on the floor. I felt myself going
unconscious.” The girl’s brother came to her rescue. When the pair’s scuffle
sent them tumbling down the stairs, the children’s father rushed out from
his downstairs bedroom with a gun. After he fired one round, the intruder
fled.[i]

The 4-year-old girl and her grandmother were saved by an armed neighbor who
fatally shot one of the dogs (the other dog was destroyed by authorities.)
The girl suffered severe lacerations on her face, legs, and an ear, but she
survived.[ii]

The mother of the 5-year-old in Washougal, Washington grabbed her .357
Magnum handgun and fatally shot the threatening bear in the neck. ?I looked
at that bear as it was looking at my baby, and something happened,? she
said. ?I turned into the mamma bear.?[iii]

The father of the children in McMinnville, Tennessee grabbed his handgun,
ordered the thug to stop and held the intruder at bay until authorities
arrived. “I told him to stop right there, but he took another step,? the
father said. ?Then I cocked the gun and told him to stop again. That’s when
he stopped. He was about three steps away from where my children were
sleeping, so I knew I had a decision to make. All I could think of was the
safety of my family.”[iv]

Accounts such as these, like many episodes of armed-self-defense, are rarely
reported by major news outlets and certainly aren?t addressed by proponents
of gun control. (Similarly, the media and gun control advocates don?t
advertise the fact that more children die as a result of bicycle accidents,
playing with lighters or drowning than as a result of firearms
accidents[v].) Anti-self-defense advocates much prefer to ignore the benefit
armed protection provides to children and focus instead on the notion that
people who want to own firearms have no concern for the safety of our
children. You see, the idea that children?s lives can be saved as a result
of a firearm in the home doesn?t fit their agenda ? that is, to restrict or
ban your right to protect yourself, your family and/or your friends and
neighbors.

Researchers have found, however, that law-abiding citizens use guns in
self-defense as many as 2.5 million times a year.[vi] Logic says that at
least a portion of those self-defense uses save the lives of children, just
like those cited above. If we severely restrict or ban guns, how many
children will die as a result? If we restrict or ban guns, would we only be
trading one set of child victims for another – that is the children who are
injured or die from accidents for the children who are injured or die as a
result of crime. Could the safety of our children be improved if more
parents took it upon themselves to become knowledgeable about and proficient
with a firearm? Is it possible that guns, in the hands of trained, competent
parents who are willing to accept the responsibilities of teaching gun
safety to their kids, may be more beneficial than harmful?

The anti-self-defense organizations will say, ?No.? The parents of the
children above may have a very different answer.

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[i] The Herald, Everett, Washington, April 16, 2000

[ii] Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago, IL, October 5, 2000

[iii] The Seattle Times, Seattle, Washington, May 4, 2000

[iv] Southern Standard, McMinnville, Tennessee, February 9, 2000

[v] Don B. Kates, Henry E. Schaffer, P.D., John K. Lattimer, M.D., George B.
Murray, M.D., Edwin H. Cassem, M.D., ?Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of
Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda,? Tennessee Law Review,( Spring
1995):569-570

[vi] Gary Kleck and Mark Gertz, ?Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevention
and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun,? The Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology, Northwester University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995):164