About 30 years ago, as editor at a magazine group in Minnesota, I featured a story about an Illinois woman who defended herself with a bow and arrow. An intruder barged into her family archery store while she was on duty. He demanded money and all she could do was pick up a nearby bow and arrow. As I recall, she got off a shot and hit the man, who departed with 25-or-so inches of arrow sticking out of his chest.
I don’t remember the details and my memory is occasionally faulty, but what about using your bow and arrow for home- and self-defense? Get completely away from the firearms debate…
Three Stories of Self Defense with a Bow and Arrow
There are precedents. Here are three:
1. One evening in November last year, 14-year-old Mariah Reed defended herself with a bow and arrow when a stranger entered her Ocala, Florida home. Reed heard the doorbell and unlocked the door without looking, thinking it was her mom; then she ran back to bed. It wasn’t mom.
A woman, strange, but not violent, entered the home and then refused to leave. Reed grabbed her bow and arrow for protection. She pointed it at the intruder’s head, whereupon the woman seemed to panic and asked if Reed was going to shoot her. Reed told her to get out of the house, but the woman still wouldn’t budge; Reed called 911.
The intruder, one Marcia Watson, lived down the street. According to the police report, Watson was rambling and disoriented so they arrested for trespassing and carted her away.
2. In Somerset County, Pennsylvania, 43-year-old Tony Bittinger drove to 7931 Old Lincoln Highway one afternoon in October, 2011. Pennsylvania State Trooper Joseph Drzal said Bittinger, who had been romantically involved with the 38-year-old homeowner’s wife — or something to that effect — had made threatening phone calls to the man before driving to his home to confront him. Once there, he threatened the man, this time making the fatal mistake of holding a heavy wooden club.
The resident repeatedly told him to leave, but Bittinger, being a man and the subject being his woman, instead attempted to mount the stairs. The resident male had time to go inside and return with a compound bow and shot Bittinger in the chest with an arrow. Bittinger died near the front steps before first responders could arrive. There were no other witnesses than the unidentified archer.
The archer claimed that he shot in self-defense. District Attorney Jerry Spangler determined that no charges would be filed because of changes in Pennsylvania’s Castle Doctrine. That Doctrine had recently expanded a homeowner’s “castle” to include porches and eliminated the resident’s duty to retreat before attacking an intruder. DA Spangler said the man might not have been charged under the old statute, but the new law “makes it much clearer” that the shooting was justified.
3. A number of years ago I was photographing a guy dressed in the latest camo holding a current model bow with arrows and accessories for the cover of a magazine. I was perched on top of a ladder in a public park; the model was standing quite still, even sweating in the afternoon sunshine, as we adjusted the lighting with reflectors. Suddenly, two West Palm Beach police cars screeched over the Drehr Park curb and raced to either side of us. A cop ventured out and explained that they had received a call from a woman about a camouflaged Rambo-like character with a bow and arrow running around the park and here we were.
I should have notified the police in advance, he said, let them know what I was up to, because an arrow tipped with a broadhead would slice quite neatly through a ballistic vest that might otherwise stop a bullet from a 9mm or .38. Of course, today’s vests are sturdier, and an included ceramic plate though it makes the vest heavier and stiffer, will surely stop a broadhead-tipped arrow.
The Bow and Arrow for Self Defense
The bow and arrow will definitely stop an intruder, even an arrow tipped with a field point. The bow is a relatively silent instrument and a modern vertical compound or crossbow can shoot a carbon arrow at almost 400 fps — which may seem like peanuts to riflemen, but given the size and weight of an arrow will almost certainly be deadly if a hit is center mass or to the head or an artery.
But the bow and arrow have serious drawbacks for self-defense. They are awkward. Plus, the average archer has to be quite still to make an accurate shot and unless one has practiced, it takes “a while” to get off an accurate second shot. It will be hard to handle a bow effectively in the darkness as the vertical bow is a yard long in one direction and the arrow extends several feet in a 90-degree fashion and most archers today are accustomed to holding the string with a release rather than with their fingers. In the heat of the moment, drawing and holding a bow steady for a shot… Well, let’s just say it’s hard for a bowhunter shooting unobserved at a non-threatening deer from a treestand.
So a bow and arrow can be an effective defensive (or an offensive) weapon, but when push comes to shove, so can a butter knife. Better the bow and arrow than a butter knife (maybe), but if there is a choice, any time to think, to respond like you have practiced, grab the S&W or the Glock or Walther and leave the bow and arrow to the movies.
