By MamaLiberty

Last Mother’s Day, one of my sons gave me a HiPoint 9mm carbine. We had talked about the fact that I was having a harder time shooting the larger caliber rifles, and even had problems with the much loved Mossberg 20 gauge shotgun. I just wasn’t shooting as much as I used to, even though I own a lot of different guns. I’m nearly 70 years old, with some serious problems due to an old back injury, and it is only going to get worse as time goes on.

Why would I concern myself with it? Why do I want to continue to be able to shoot well?

I had to shoot a man to save my life thirty some years ago. If I had not been holding a gun when the attack began, I would have been killed, most likely, as that was his stated intention. He was a stranger, discovered trying to break into my car in the middle of the night.

I live in rural NE Wyoming, far from any city or major population center, and yet I have had to confront a potential attack more than once even here. There is no place on earth where the risk of attack is actually zero. Criminals can and do live among us, or can travel easily from other places. I never let the “low crime” reputation of my environment here tempt me to reduce my preparedness.

The mainstream media sometimes mentions successful armed self defense, especially if someone is shot, but they often give more attention to the anti-gun claims about it. Unfortunately, there is simply no way to count a great many incidents of armed self defense, since most often no shots are fired, and likely only a fraction of them are ever reported to police. There are blogs and other websites tracking and reporting on these cases honestly, but few outside the gun owner community will ever see them.

So, it is not a big surprise when people honestly think that such bad things can’t happen to them; that they don’t need to make any particular effort to prepare for self defense. And, all too often they truly believe that the police are both able and willing to protect them anyway, ignorant of the fact that the police have zero obligation to protect any individual, and cannot be sued for failure to do so. Whether or not the police have the time, inclination or resources to protect anyone is another good question. An attack takes just seconds… so how fast can the police get to your house?

In spite of the fact that, overall, violent crime seems to be less likely now than several years ago, the thousands who are current victims can take little comfort from that statistic. Each person who is attacked, injured or killed, represents 100% “chance” of being a victim of violent crime, regardless of how many are spared.

Between lifelong conditioning to expect and even allow themselves to be victimized and attacked, one way or another, women are at the center of this carefully crafted denial of reality. The few mothers and grandmothers who successfully defend themselves with a gun make the news because it is so rare. Those women who die or are injured, unable to defend themselves in any way, are more commonly seen in the news, and it is terribly frustrating to see these victims used by the “gun control” people as a reason to demonize the tool they most needed to survive – and thus produce even more helpless victims.

The fact that the elderly, especially women, are much more vulnerable to attack should be a major topic for discussion for any family, and certainly something for any lone senior to contemplate. Remaining unarmed is a very poor way to reduce the violence, but an excellent way to encourage the scum who prey on those same helpless people.

There are a number of things all of us should plan to do and practice to reduce our chance of becoming victims. Anyone who is not physically and mentally able to take at least most of these precautions should probably not be living alone in any case. Not that living with other people can provide a lot more security if they are not ready and willing to use appropriate force to defend themselves and others.

Have you talked to your family, neighbors and friends about self defense? Do you have the necessary tools, and the will to use them? Have you invested in the time and effort to train yourself in their safe and effective use?

Have you given YOUR mother or grandmother the gun she needs to defend her life? Why the heck not?

If you’d like to talk with me about how to choose a gun for that special someone, please feel free to comment here or write to me: mamaliberty at rtconnect dot net  – just replace the words at and dot with appropriate symbols and delete the spaces. Type “choose a gun” in the subject line to direct it to the right filter for fast response.