MSD

I do not live my life in such a way that I provoke violence. I have been punched with brass knuckles and been able to fend off the attacker with an enraged look and tha ability to remain standing. I did not lift a hand to fight back, but I was able to end the situation. I have ended several fights in which participants tried to involve me without using any more force than was required to separate the particapants and test the upper limits of what my voice can do. Judging by this, I thik that we can all agree that I am not the kind of person who provokes violence or lives a violent lifestyle.

Several weeks ago, I was a few yards away from an attempted robbery. I was in the middle of a good part of the city, only two blocks toward the business district from a college campus, and a whole lot of people who do not live lives that provoke violence were subjected to a situation in which a criminal with obvious malicious intent swept teh crowd with a loaded gun (which, I might add, was imported and sold to him illegally, where gun control could not stop him from obtaining the weapon.) Fortunately, the idiot did this two blocks from a police station (and three blocks from another) and nobody was shot. If the police had not responded in less than half a minute, that criminal easily could have escalated the situation to the point where a responsible, armed citizen would have had to subdue him to save a lot of innocent people.

You may also remember an incident about three or four weeks ago that made national news. An armed robber shot and killed two jewelers in Fairfield, CT. The Donnellys were unarmed, and because of this, they were both killed in cold blood. I had met them previously, and they were two of the nicest people you could imagine. I pride myself (maybe wrongly) on being desensetized to almost everything, but when I saw security camera footage of Mrs. Donnelly on her knees pleading for the robber not to shoot her, I knew what I was seeing, and I was physically ill after seeing that. If even one of them had been armed, a man who had killed several people before in robberies that he carried out to support his drug habit would be dead instead of two innocent people who remind everyone of their favority aunt and uncle or grandparents. If one person walking by had been armed, he or she could have saved those innocent people, even if he or she didn't feel the need to own a gun because they live in this town where yearly violent crimes (aside from the occasional high school fight or drunken bar fight) can be counted on one hand.

I live, work, and go to school in safe areas where the necessity of owning and carrying a gun is comparable to the necessity of owning a luxury car. I have not been in a fight once in my life. I have had several one-hit incidents, but I have never hit back. I don't take unnecessary risks like walking aroudn bad areas after dark. I still feel that owning and carrying a gun is safer than not doing so.