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A positive article.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 92bdf.html

Jacquielynn Floyd:
Under the gun, she was in control

08:07 PM CST on Thursday, November 10, 2005

A lot of armed people are running around who are too stupid, too dangerous or too hotheaded to own a firearm.

If you favor more stringent gun laws, they're the people who come to mind: drug-addled stickup artists, dimwits who keep loaded weapons with kids in the house, bad-tempered drunks and psycho stalkers and cop-killers with nothing to lose.

But there are less-celebrated people who could make a pretty good case in favor of responsible gun ownership. Susan Gaylord Buxton, the Arlington woman who shot and wounded a housebreaker early Wednesday, might give even the most ardent gun-control activist a moment's pause.

Talk-show hosts and radio jocks have had a lot of fun with the story of the 66-year-old grandma who was packin' a .38 pistol when she found a bald-headed, muscle-bound burglar crouching in her front-hall coat closet.

She warned him to get down and lie still – you can hear it on the 911 tape – but when he ignored her and tried to grab the gun, she shot him in the thigh.

Ms. Buxton, in her ladylike and good-natured way, has played along, dutifully recounting the scary moments when she confronted the intruder, a car theft suspect who was trying to run from the cops.

There's high entertainment value in the taped conversation between her 28-year-old granddaughter and police dispatchers, as Ms. Buxton screams angrily (and uncharacteristically, since she rarely curses) in the background, "How dare you come in my house, you lousy son of a bitch!"

She was so awash in adrenaline, in fact, that the police had already caught the guy and were taking her statement when she realized she was still wearing the same outfit in which she had awakened: a T-shirt that said, "WORK FOR GOD – THE RETIREMENT BENEFITS ARE GREAT." And underpants.

"I said, 'Excuse me, I need to get some pants,' " she recalled primly.

It's an entertaining novelty story, the kind of thing that will blow over in a day or so. If you heard about it, you probably thought, Score one for Granny! and went about your business.

But you might also have wondered what could have happened had the two women, alone in their house at 1 a.m., not heard a slight noise that alerted them something was wrong.

You might have wondered what the intruder, who outweighed the two women put together, would have done had Ms. Buxton not been armed. A person crazy or desperate enough to grab for a loaded gun might be crazy or desperate enough to do serious harm to somebody without one.

"I've had this gun for 12 years, and this is the first time I've ever had to use it," said Ms. Buxton, a commercial artist who lives on a quiet cul-de-sac in north Arlington, surrounded by her pets and a huge, shady yard out back that slopes down to the creek.

In her own quiet way, Susan Buxton is a capable and self-reliant woman. She loves her low-key life, her family, her pets and her house. Anyone who has suffered the sudden, ice-water shock of a break-in or a confrontation with a criminal knows the dreadful feelings of panic and rage that follow: How dare you come in my house?

Ms. Buxton says it was the mandatory conceal-and-carry firearm training that helped her keep the panic at bay. She was mad, but she was in control.

"My sister" – a naval reserve training officer – "taught me how to shoot," she said.

Ms. Buxton sees owning a gun – one that she knows how to use, maintain and handle – as part of her obligation to be self-sufficient.

"I'm tired of it seeming that the word 'woman' equals 'victim,' " she said. She believes women, especially those who live alone, should own a firearm and know how to use it.

"You just don't have to let anybody take advantage of you," she said. "If you can't protect your own home, where you can relax and be who you are, then life's not worth living."

I don't know whether I'm ready to endorse Susan Buxton's firm belief that women should arm themselves, that they should be prepared to defend themselves, their families and their homes with deadly force. It's a personal decision that cannot be made lightly.

But she makes a compelling argument. Her experience is hard to contradict.

E-mail jfloyd@dallasnews.com

I have emailed Ms. Floyd asking her to please give me the numbers of the types of response she gets, ie positive/negative.