srothstein wrote:I just wanted to point out one very important factor in this story that seems to have been missed. I noticed it being missed when I read the article in the magazine and no one here has commented on it yet (probably some one else thought of it but just did not comment).
The story happened to involve a police officer, and she got honored by her department. I really have no problem with any of that, but this shooting had nothing to do with law enforcement. The officer did a great job in defending herself, as an armed CITIZEN. She was a citizen who was in the wrong place (or mental state) at the wrong time. She survived because she was an armed citizen who could recognize the problem. She was lucky that she could fight back because she happened to be an officer.
This exact same scenario could happen to any other citizen in the country at any time. It is one of the best reasons I know of to allow citizens to carry. Look at the story and think of what YOU could have done in that case. This could very well have been you, or might be you with the next two car jackers.
It certainly does happen to many non-LEO folks. As I've told on this forum before, my mother was abducted in a similar fashion in the early 80s when I was a young child. Instead of a parking lot, she was on her way home from work, and was abducted under ruse of a rear-end accident by a single assailant. She was not armed, and was kidnapped (in her own car) at gunpoint, taken to a remote desert area, bound,raped, beaten, bludgeoned (with some sort of blunt object, I don't think they ever concluded what it was), and then finally shot in the head 6 times with a small .25 caliber pistol her assailant had stolen from the BG's mother (he was 17 at the time, IIRC). A kidnapping situation (especially for women) almost always ends up in a horrible death for the victim. This is one of the reasons I carry, and try to encourage those I love to do the same.
Many anti-gun people will try to use the tired old argument that having a gun makes it likely that your weapon will be used against you. I say that's hogwash. If someone is trying to abduct you, he has already made up his mind what he's going to do to you, and your own weapon may be the best fighting chance you have in escaping with your life. Had my mother been carrying a gun with her at the time of her abduction, it may or may not have made a difference. I don't see how it could have made the situation any worse, and it could have made the world of a difference. A gun in the hands of a citizen could have enabled myself and my siblings to grow up with a mother.