Just the other day, my husband threw one of the small local newspapers we receive onto the bed where I was reading and said, “Hey! Check it out … a good guy with a gun!”
I hadn’t heard anything on the news or seen any posts about “good guys with guns” anywhere on social media, so I wasn’t sure what he was referring to. But sure enough, an armed victim had thwarted an attempted robbery in the town where I grew up.
Close to Home
As the article reads: “The victim told officers he opened the rear passenger door of his work truck and was startled by a male sitting in the front passenger seat. […] He was armed with a knife and demanded the victim give him money and keys to the vehicle. After tossing the keys toward the suspect, the victim pulled his concealed carry firearm, and the male dropped the knife.”
Now, I had definitely heard of the two recent incidents of bad guys with guns very close to that same area in Hoover, Alabama. It was splashed all over the news outlets that on Thanksgiving night, several people were injured when a gunman fired at the Riverchase Galleria. And then in June, a 20-year-old was shot in the parking deck of that very same mall.
In fact, in most cases, there seems to be plenty of news coverage when things go wrong. But what about when things go right? Where are the details about good people defending themselves with firearms from the evil people who mean to do their worst?
Around the Nation
This got me wondering how many people with guns have defended themselves all over this nation. In a 2013 study ordered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and conducted by the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, it was found that the defensive use of a gun by a victim is actually a fairly common occurrence. In fact, “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million.”
In Your Neck of the Woods
If there are 500,000 to 3 million defensive gun uses (DGUs) every year, shouldn’t there also be 500,000 to 3 million news stories each year about these victories; about these good guys (and gals) with guns?
Maybe, like me, you are tired of hearing from the naysayers. Maybe you don’t want to just hear the bad news all the time. And maybe you wish there were more attention given to the positives of responsible firearms ownership and usage
If that’s the case, I’d love to hear from you and from your neck of the woods. Do a little digging or a little research if you have to, but I’d love to hear about the good people using firearms for self-defense in your area. Share some DGUs! Find an article and share it here. (Maybe we can cover all 50 states.) Let’s flood this post with the good news.
Learn about more gun facts and fictions at the USCCA’s latest resource page: Concealed Carry Facts and Fiction!
