There are numerous examples of women using guns to defend their lives when a violent ex-boyfriend or ex-husband returns to a residence to do harm. In many cases the violent man is the subject of a protective order that he violates while in a rage of passion, and a gun is the only thing that enables the woman to defend her life and, in some cases, the lives of her children.
In fact, although the details surrounding such defensive gun usages vary from violent encounter to violent encounter, an unbiased consideration of the details usually leads to one conclusion—without a gun, the women targeted by violent men could be seriously harmed, if not killed.
Such is the case with three examples that follow.
On March 4, 2015, Fox 59 reported that a Speedway, Ind., woman awoke to the sound of banging on her apartment door around 4:18 a.m. She had “two young children” in the residence with her so she retrieved a gun for protection and called police.
Police Department Lt. Trent Theobald said, “[The woman] called 911 to let us know she heard the door being kicked in, so obviously she was in fear of her life, especially knowing we'd had previous domestic runs at this apartment before, and she did have a gun in the apartment and fatally wounded her ex-boyfriend.”
The woman and the two children—both under the age of 10—were unharmed.On March 4, 2015, Fox 59 reported that a Speedway, Ind., woman awoke to the sound of banging on her apartment door around 4:18 a.m.
A month later—on April 19, 2015—an Alabama man named Bradley Skinner violated a restraining order by breaking into his mother-in-law’s home, where his estranged wife, Lisa, was staying. WHNT 19 reported that the man had “a pistol and large knife in his possession” and he chased the wife into the garage. As he chased her, Lisa’s mother fled the residence and called 911.
Police arrived on scene and heard a gunshot. When they entered the garage, they found Lisa holding a shotgun and Bradley with a gunshot wound to the chest. Police were unaware at that point who was the aggressor, and an officer shot Lisa in the hip when she turned toward police with the shotgun in her hand.
She was treated for a non-life threatening injury and released from the hospital. On the other hand, Bradley was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and remained there for nearly a month.
AL.com reports that Bradley was booked upon release from the hospital. He was indicted on charges of “first-degree burglary, third-degree domestic violence and violation of a protection order.”
In the wee hours of June 1, 2016, a wife in Aiken, S.C., shot her husband after he allegedly abused her in front of their 12-year-old daughter. The abuse allegedly occurred around 5:30 a.m.
According to the Aiken Standard, the woman told police her husband allegedly “hit her in the face before putting both hands around her neck and choking her in their bedroom.” The mother pulled a .22 pistol and shot the father in the leg, ending the alleged attack.
The 12-year-old daughter told police “she had witnessed her father choke her mother and saw her mother shoot her father.”
Police said the woman acted in self-defense.The 12-year-old daughter told police “she had witnessed her father choke her mother and saw her mother shoot her father.”
These examples show that vulnerable women can not only level the playing field by being armed, they can actually turn the tables on violent attackers. Yet a key component of the Left’s gun control propaganda includes a campaign to remove guns from homes where someone subject to a restraining order resides. By doing this, the left makes the vulnerable more vulnerable.
And as shocking as it may sound, there are even cases where the Left fights to prevent women from quickly acquiring a concealed-carry license while under threat of domestic abuse.
For example, on March 24, Democrat Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed legislation that would have allowed women under the threat of domestic abuse to circumvent the concealed-carry license application process and receive immediate approval to carry a gun for self-defense. The legislation would have allowed women to carry a gun during the 45 days after securing a protective order against someone.
In vetoing the legislation, McAuliffe said allowing potential targets of domestic abuse to circumvent the licensing process weakens the “commonwealth’s gun safety laws” and “perpetuates the dangerous fiction that the victims of domestic violence will be safer by arming themselves.”
Try telling that to the three women mentioned above—and many, many others—who have used a firearm to save their own lives and the lives of others.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter @AWRHawkins, or reach him directly at [email protected].
