Posted on 03/05/2018 6:01:04 AM PST by NRx
A few months after my father left our family home for good, my mother heard me screaming in the middle of the night. It was the kind of scream that made her grab her rifle in one hand and some ammo in another.
It was a spring night and I was sleeping with my window open, which was right above my bed; I loved breathing in the fresh air. That night, in that open window, I heard the banging of a ladder, and by the time my mother made it into the room and began loading her gun, a man was about to climb in.
She said something along the lines of: “Bethany, come over here. I don’t want you to get his brain matter on your face.” I backed up behind her and my mother raised her gun. The would-be intruder slowly backed down the ladder. As he climbed down, my mother approached. The barrel of her rifle was inches away from his face and she told him, “Next time you come here, I won’t hesitate.” She had her gun pointed at him through the window on his way down, and as he went down the ladder she grabbed the top and shook it, just to put the fear of God into him one last time before he fled.
My mother admired Ralph Nader and voted for the Green Party candidate during every presidential election I walked into a booth with her. There was not an issue on which she was not the most progressive person in the room. And yet, she owned guns.
They weren’t “weapons of war” to us, nor were my parents “gun nuts”; they just had a camper trailer in upstate New York, where bears were common campfire intruders...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Hmmmmm. Sounds a little like a Stephen King novel, doesn’t it. Nice story - would make a great movie...
Have said this before - if you love kids you love guns - if you hate kids you hate guns. Anyone thinking or believing otherwise is bit unbalanced.
My sentiments exactly.
It’s not my place to run the train
The whistle I can't blow.It's not my place to say how far
The train's allowed to go.It's not my place to shoot off steam
Nor even clang the bell.But let the damn thing jump the track
And see who catches hell.
Here's my story:
I was about 12 years old - very similar situation, except there was a porch on the back of our split level house, so the fellow just walked right up and started jimmying my bedroom window at about 2 a.m.
I managed to slip out of bed and ease towards the door in my best Marine belly crawl - until I got to the top of the stairs and my nerve broke - I ran the rest of the way yelling "Daddy! Daddy! there's a man on the back porch!"
Daddy snatched up his old Parker double barrel and ran out the side door in time to see Mr. Burglar take a flying leap from the high end of the porch. He got him with the choke barrel in mid-air and the scatter barrel when he hit the ground. He screamed so loud you could have heard him in DeKalb County and went running off into the dark and rainy night.
Dad got to thinking he might bleed out or break his neck falling off one of the old farm terraces in the side yard . . . so he went out looking for him. Never found him, but did find a horse running loose . . . but that's another story.
Atlanta's finest did show up after about 45 minutes (after my mom's panicked call of "shots fired - man down" . . . hey, he was down very temporarily . . . ) All he could offer was to take a report and volunteer that Mr. Burglar would tell all his friends and we probably wouldn't need to worry about any future visits from anybody . . . we never did . . .
Remember, compromising with bad policy is like adding sewage to your drinking water. And the only things in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and road kill.
When the left and media pull the “gun control for the chilluns” script out of the top drawer, the script must be followed, facts be damned.
My first memory is my (unsuccessful) attempt to run away from home at around age 2. My second is missing my 3rd birthday party because I had the chicken pox . . . :-(
I also live about 45 minutes away from police help, so I understand the dilemma. WE are 911 at our farm and are always armed. I pity the person who wants to try us out. However, the story was so well written that I chuckled..not at the content, but at the style-very literary. Trust me, I know what a person has to do to defend themselves and their loved ones. It wasn’t a criticism, but an acknowledgement of a well written story. I am sorry if it offended or took away the validity of it.
Great point.
I gotta give the NYT rare credit.
This is the second pro-gun article I’ve read coming out of their paper.
We have many prohibited possessors already.
The cure is not to attempt to stop them at the aquisition side, which clearly does not work; rather to enforce the prohibition of possession.
Actually dangerous, violent individuals are a very small percentage of the population.
The police need to actively monitor them and make sure they are unarmed, as is currently required by law.
We should also have a well defined method for people to have their rights restored. The prohibited possessor categories are generally too large. Most infractions are ignored.
David Kennedy has done great work on this.
Absolutely agree.
As gun owners, I feel like we’re locked in the death grip of a boa constrictor. Every slight lessening of our resistance leads to a further constriction by the snake. There is no give to the snake’s ever-tightening grip. Its desire is to eventually choke the life out of us.
In Arizona, and in a significant number of Second Amendment friendly states, we have poked the snake with bayonets, and it has loosened its grip.
It has been weakened. Another textualist, originalist justice on the supreme court could forge the tool to kill the snake.
When I was a kid, all the weapons were loaded with one in the chamber. And we had lots of them. No one shot themselves or anyone else.
Maybe living in the country is different than city folks are used to...
That captures the essence of the situation, Matt!
Great meme!
PRECISELY SO!
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