Posted on 12/06/2005 9:46:23 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Opinions
NRA's newest convert: Even a hippie needs a gun By Clara Cobb/Features Editor
December 05, 2005
About two weeks ago, a male approximately 5 foot 9, 150 pounds broke and entered my house. (SIDE NOTE: This is funny because it is true.)
That night, or rather, early that morning, it was really, really not funny. I had just locked up the front door and the dog in the front room. My friend Lauren was watching TV in the back room.
Suddenly Jules, my roommate's seven-month-old black lab, began barking like she has mad cow, or bird flu, or mad cow and bird flu. She's growling and snapping like I neveer have heard her bark before.
Then we heard the coughing. Then we heard stomping. Dogs don't cough or stomp.
Lauren and I were freaking out. We grabbed butcher knives and head lamps and quickly turned on all the lights in my house.
(SIDE NOTE: For this to be funny, make sure you are picturing two women in a hallway, clutching pillows across our bodies, butcher knives in hand, wearing head lamps and pajamas.)
Finally, all the lights are on except one. The light in the front room isn't on. The switch to the light doesn't actually work - my house is old. The front room is lit by lamp light and natural window light.
We were standing in the hallway and the only barrier between him and us was the hall door. I began to call the police. In the middle of the phone call, my phone dies. I had just driven back from Austin that night and I had one bar on the phone all weekend. My phone wouldn't turn back on.
All of a sudden, the horror movie "get the hell out of there, you retard" music began to crescendo in my imagination and my head was pounding. Or maybe the pounding was coming from in my chest.
(SIDE NOTE: I have been stalked by mountain lions. I have shot a black bear at point blank range with pepper spray. I have administered CPR to a 16-year-old having a heart attack. I have never been as scared as I was that night.)
There was only a door between the man inside my house and us. Really, we didn't know there was a man in my house yet. Knives in tow, I opened the door and called the dog. She didn't come. She was trying to come, we could hear her scratching, and again it is evident she is being restrained.
She's barking again, and I peek in my front room. If anyone's there, they are not in eyeshot of the doorway. Then I see the shadowed reflection of a man in the double glass doors leading to the dining room.
The dining room doors are locked, and the hallway door doesn't lock, but since my house is old, the door sticks when slammed. We slam the hall door and run in my bedroom, slamming the door behind us. We have to buy a little time.
(SIDE NOTE: I am a pretty liberal hippie when it comes to life, a make-love-not-war type of girl. But I know enough about anatomy to know a butcher knife doesn't protect from a bullet. I have been an anti-hand gun person for years, mainly because they serve one purpose: to kill people. However, this has become a matter of self-defense. Damn it, this is Texas, and I'm gettin' a gun.)
There are only two ways out of my house, and both doors are in the front room. The windows in my bedroom are screwed shut, ironically, to help prevent someone from breaking in my window. We were so lucky my inner Boy Scout has to have a Leatherman lantern in my nightstand. I unscrewed the windows.
(SIDE NOTE: Lauren recounts this moment as the fastest she has ever seen anyone unscrew anything. Yay, adrenaline.)
We jumped out my window and now were in my backyard, where all the gates were locked, but the fence is old, rotting and falling down. We tried to break through the fence at the gate, but ultimately ended up running across a downed section into my neighbor's backyard. We pounded on the door. We have to get a phone, stat.
No response. In my mind, I was thinking about how the man in my house could have pulled a gun on us at any minute, or could have been hurting the dog or worse - he could have been finding the perfect hiding place in my house to wait until we came back and went to sleep.
We jumped the fence. Three doors down, the girls have their front door unlocked. We woke up my neighbor girl, who was sleeping on the couch and used her phone to call 911.
Dispatch tells us to wait outside for the police and return to the scene. Hell no, we weren't returning. Especially after we watched the man leave my house, literally walking out the front door.
(SIDE NOTE: *sigh.*)
Anyway, I begin my gun classes in January. I hear that with a shotgun, I won't miss much, so for the record, I also am buying a raffle ticket from the Texas Tech Polo Club.
What thinking person would want someone like this on their side in a fight?
Ooh! Ooh! I've just found my new quote for my email account. Thanks.
Grabbing a kitchen knife is a stereotypical Hollywood-inspired response...
Would she have the intestinal fortitude to plunge it deep into a criminal's chest to the point where his warm blood was gushing down her arms? Judging by all the casual "laughing and joking" in her narrative, I don't believe that to be the case.
If a linebacker-sized criminal entered my mother's house he would only realize for an absolutely frightening half-second that he had indeed met his match. It is not about the size of the dog in the fight, it's about the size of fight in the dog. Unlike my mother, this young lady in the story hasn't yet developed the important warrior mindset that is critical for survival.
As an aside, I've noticed that many people I classify as true warriors are some of the nicest, gentlest, and kindest people one could ever hope to meet. I think it is because they recognize the true value of peaceful times spent with family and friends.
~ Blue Jays ~
Classes are an excellent idea, and the young woman will quickly learn that a firearm brings sanity to this situation, not insanity. Of course, one needs to be adult enough to take on the responsibility for life and death, and if there's one thing that typifies the anti-gun liberal in my view it's the refusal to do precisely that.
Great compilation. Frost's is my favorite. I had a professor who used to preface his comments with "I think I'd like to disagree with that." Such conviction.
Hmm...interesting points.
The advantage of a gun is not only that it's a much more effective self-defense weapon, but also that people who would never have the fortitude to plunge a knife into someone's chest can be perfectly capable of shooting somebody. Of course, I would only use a knife for self-defense if all five of my guns somehow managed to become inaccessible or jammed, which is very unlikely.
"As an aside, I've noticed that many people I classify as true warriors are some of the nicest, gentlest, and kindest people one could ever hope to meet. I think it is because they recognize the true value of peaceful times spent with family and friends."
This is very true. Just remember that the sweet young woman down the street can become very dangerous when provoked. We do surprise people! :-)
"No man is poor who has a full gun safe"
What's with the pillows? Were they worried that the intruder was armed with a whiffle-bat?!
Frost's is my favorite. It appears gentle at first, with a razor-like cut to finish. Was that professor a woman? Just curious.
At least on the gun issue. I eagerly await her take on "progressive" taxation, smoking bans, school privatization, seat-belt laws, etc., etc., etc.
If she had had a gun, this story would have been a one-liner. "There was a guy inside my house." "I shot him." hahaha.
Why you chauvinist pig! Oh wait....
Actually he was a California transplant. Definitely didn't fit in fly-over country. Sandals in the dead of winter, etc.
Facedown, I don't know if you're a man or a woman, but if I had asked "was it a man or a woman?" I would have been attacked and evicerated. Such is life.
Doesn't an angel get it's wings when this happens???
As Teddy Roosevelt once said, "Type softly and carry a flamethrower."
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