Two recent high profile shootings show us that sometimes, in the aftermath, things go as they should, though in only one of those actual shootings did we have what anyone could call a happy ending.<\/p>\n
Both occurred over the holidays.\u00a0 In Washington state, an Iraq war vet diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome that would normally engender our sympathy, snapped and shot four people. He fled to the boondocks, where he encountered a park ranger, a 32 year old mother of two.\u00a0 He shot her to death.\u00a0 The cop-killer was later found dead; it is unclear at this time whether he swallowed poison or froze to death out in the elements, or drowned. (According to one report, he was found face down in a creek. I haven\u2019t seen the autopsy or toxicology screen yet.)<\/p>\n
My brother at Second Amendment Foundation, Dave Workman, reports that gun owners have taken the lead in establishing an account for donations to the family of the murdered mom. You\u2019ll find the details here: http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/gun-rights-in-seattle\/stepping-forward-for-a-fallen-ranger-a-gun-rights-forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Oklahoma, a man had been stalking an 18-year old mother of a baby boy. Her husband had died of cancer on Christmas day, and some of the German Shepherds she and he raised had mysteriously died \u2013 perhaps poisoned by the stalker, some theorize now. As if she had not suffered enough, the stalker and a hulking friend showed up at her door New Year\u2019s Eve and tried to kick their way in.\u00a0 The young woman armed herself, pushed a sofa against the door, put a bottle in her infant son\u2019s mouth and called 9-1-1. The calm dispatcher advised her to do what she had to do if he made it through the door before the cops arrived.<\/p>\n He did, and she did. She fired a single shotgun blast as the intruder burst through the door with a foot-long hunting knife, plopping him dead on the barricading sofa. His accomplice fled, but was soon in custody. I\u2019m told the local prosecutor has already ruled it a justifiable homicide\u2026and the first to establish a support fund for the young mother was the local PD, the Blanchard, Oklahoma Police Department. Info is here: http:\/\/blog.newsok.com\/breakingnews\/2012\/01\/04\/fund-set-up-for-blanchard-woman-who-shot-killed-intruder\/<\/a>.\u00a0 Thanks to the retired NYPD officer and gunfight survivor who frequents this blog and sends it along.<\/p>\n Learning points?<\/p>\n n\u00a0 In each case, the death weapon was a 12-gauge shotgun. Some in the anti-gun camp have already blamed the law that allows ordinary, law-abiding citizens to be armed in parks like the one where the ranger was killed, for the depredations of a madman who had already violated every law from the Sixth Commandment on down before he reached the park. I try not to use words like \u201cidiocy\u201d when speaking of the other side, but in this case it fits. The firearm is a tool, which carries out the will of the owner. Evil in the first case, good in the second. Yes, it IS that simple.<\/p>\n n\u00a0 The law-abiding armed citizen and the police are natural allies. We see that clearly here, when a gun owners\u2019 civil rights group is the first to step up with a fund for the family of the murdered park ranger\u2026and when the local police are the first to step up to help an embattled young mom who had to kill in self-defense.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be sending out two donations tomorrow.\u00a0 I hope all who can, will join me.\u00a0 A lawyer friend of mine, whose specialty is appeals for citizens wrongly convicted after self-defense shootings, suggests that flowers for the Oklahoma dispatcher and prosecutor might also be in order\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two recent high profile shootings show us that sometimes, in the aftermath, things go as they should, though in only one of those actual shootings did we have what anyone could call a happy ending. Both occurred over the holidays.\u00a0 In Washington state, an Iraq war vet diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome that would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-firearm-owners-civil-rights","8":"category-preparedness","9":"category-safety"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}