These 12 Incidents of Defensive

Gun Use Prove Armed Civilians

Make Situations Safer
Amy Swearer / @AmySwearer / December 22, 2021

As two robber-hijackers got into a St. Louis woman's car Nov. 9, she had time to grab her
own gun and shoot one of them. (Photo illustration: Sorapop Udomsri/EyeEm/Getty Images)

I testified earlier this month at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in

Chicago on underlying causes of the spikes in gun violence in that city
and around the country.

Although Sen. Dick Durbin’s interruptions of my opening statement

stole the show in many respects, it shouldn’t be overlooked that the
Illinois Democrat also solicited disparaging remarks on the right to keep
and bear arms from another witness—Chicago Police Superintendent
David Brown.

In direct response to one of Durbin’s questions, Brown remarked that

armed civilians make police officers’ jobs more difficult, and that he
never has seen a lawfully armed civilian make a situation safer.
:
 This was certainly disappointing and should not take away from
Brown’s important points with respect to underlying problems of
prosecutorial leniency and anti-police sentiment that devastates police
morale.

But Brown also is quite mistaken about the reality of defensive uses of
firearms. Americans—including those residing in Chicago—routinely
use their guns to defend themselves and others from crime, rendering
themselves and their communities safer from violence.

Almost every major study on the issue has found that Americans use
their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times
annually, according to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.

For this reason, The Daily Signal each month publishes an article
highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on
defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have
made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read other
accounts here from 2019, 2020, and so far this year.)

The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories
on defensive gun use that we found in November. You may explore
more by using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun
Use Database. (The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of
The Heritage Foundation.)

Nov. 2, Milwaukee: A woman’s ex-boyfriend tried to enter her

home without her permission to “get his things,” police said, and
he began to fight physically with her when she said she would
bring down his possessions but that he could not come inside.
:
 Witnesses heard the woman shout, “Don’t come close to me,”
before either she or her current boyfriend shot the ex-boyfriend in
the leg. At the time, the ex-boyfriend had three open felony cases
against him, including for firing a gun at the woman, and was not
supposed to be within 500 feet of her home.
Nov. 6, Chicago: An elderly man who holds a concealed carry
permit was in a parking garage when a vehicle approached and
someone with a gun got out and demanded his belongings. The
permit holder drew his own gun and fatally shot the robber, police
said.
Nov. 8, St. Louis: Two persons approached a woman as she
walked to her car and asked to use her phone, police said. When
the woman said she didn’t have a phone on her, one of them—a
13-year-old boy—pulled out a gun and demanded her car keys and
money, which she handed over. As the two robbers got into her
car, the teen with the gun became distracted, giving the woman
time to grab her own gun and fire at the teen, wounding him. The
two fled, but responding officers later found the wounded teen
and took him to a hospital before charging him as a juvenile.
Nov. 10, Chicago: A man who was sitting on his front steps
noticed two people suspiciously crawling under a car and went to
confront them, police said. As he walked up, the two pulled out
handguns and fired, prompting him to pull his own lawfully
possessed gun and fire back, fatally wounding one gunman and
causing the other to flee. The lawful gun owner—who had a valid
concealed carry permit—was not hurt, police said.
Nov. 14, Bossier City, Louisiana: A convenience store clerk fatally
shot a man who walked in and demanded money while saying he
had a shotgun in his pants. The would-be robber didn’t actually
have a gun, police said, but did have part of a tire jack in his pants.
:
 He recently had been released from prison after doing time for
robbing another convenience store in 2017.
Nov. 16, Blytheville, Arkansas: Police said a truck driver pulled
off the side of the road to adjust his trailer and someone got into
the truck. When the driver attempted to pull him out of the truck’s
cab, the stranger shot him. Two witnesses tried to intervene, police
said, but the assailant chased them back to their car. One witness
was armed, however, and shot the man after repeatedly warning
him to stop. The wounded truck driver was released from the
hospital; his assailant faces a charge of first-degree battery.
Nov. 20, New Port Richey, Florida: A man shot and wounded an
acquaintance who stabbed him multiple times during an argument,
police said. The acquaintance, armed with a machete, followed the
man into his bedroom and stood in the doorway after being told to
leave, police said. The intruder stabbed the resident in the hand,
chest, and side of the head before the man was able to retrieve his
handgun and shoot back in self-defense. Both were treated at a
hospital for injuries; the assailant was charged with aggravated
battery with a deadly weapon.
Nov. 20, Philadelphia: Surveillance video captured the moment
that an Uber driver with a concealed carry permit used his gun to
fight off three armed robbers who demanded money at gunpoint.
He fatally shot one robber and injured another while the third fled,
police said.
Nov. 21, Des Moines, Washington: A woman exchanged about 15
rounds with two armed intruders, wounding one before calling 911,
police said. Responding officers found the second armed suspect
outside the woman’s house and fatally shot him. The woman was
not injured.
Nov. 23, Coldwater, Michigan: A man arrived home to discover
:
 an intruder in his living room armed with a hatchet, police said. The
man returned to his truck, retrieved a handgun, and held the
intruder at gunpoint until police arrived.
Nov. 26, Forest, Virginia: When a woman’s estranged husband
forced his way inside her home and attacked her with a knife,
another resident retrieved a handgun and fatally shot him, police
said. At the time of the attack, investigators said, the estranged
husband was subject to a restraining order that he already had
violated several times.
Nov. 30, Thomaston, Georgia: An armed resident shot and
wounded a would-be car thief in a shootout, police said. The
resident, who was not harmed, had confronted the thief after
seeing him try to break into a vehicle.

It’s possible that Brown, Chicago’s police superintendent, is unaware

how routine these types of defensive gun uses are, both in his city and
around the nation.

And it’s certainly true that armed criminals make life more difficult for
law enforcement officers, and that sometimes officers make tragic
mistakes in the heat of the moment, mistaking lawful gun owners for
criminals.

But, respectfully, law enforcement officers already have little idea who
around them is carrying a firearm, whether lawfully or unlawfully.

The fact that it might be more difficult to tell a “good guy” with a gun
from a “bad guy” with a gun is not a valid reason for government to
further restrict the exercise of constitutional rights.

It certainly doesn’t negate the plethora of times that law-abiding

:
 citizens swiftly and safely act as their own first line of defense against
criminals when police can’t get there in time.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please

email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your
edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to
include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town
and/or state.

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