This feature appears in the March ‘17 issue of NRA America’s 1st Freedom, one of the official journals of the National Rifle Association.
Gun-ban advocates like to talk about how armed citizens aren’t a deterrent to crime. They boast that “a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun” is just some kind of figment of gun owners’ imaginations.
In fact, Demanding Moms head Shannon Watts has gone so far as to say, “This has never happened. Data shows it doesn’t happen.” More recently, on Jan. 12, The New York Times editorial board, pontificating against laws that would better enable law-abiding Americans to defend themselves with firearms, wrote: “The grim truth is that concealed-carry permit holders are rarely involved in stopping crime.”
Ironically, on the very same day an Arizona armed citizen used his gun to save a state trooper’s life—once again proving that Watts, the Times and other gun-banners who say good guys with guns don’t stop bad guys with guns are intentionally lying for political reasons.
Here’s the story.
According to a report from KTAR News, the trooper was investigating an early morning rollover accident when someone shot him in the shoulder. The attacker then jumped on the trooper and began ruthlessly beating him.
An armed citizen was passing by with his family when he noticed the attack underway. Stopping his car, he ran toward the scene and asked the officer if he needed assistance. The officer answered, “Yes.”
The armed citizen ran back to his car, grabbed his gun, approached the scene and ordered the attacker to stop. When the bad guy continued to beat the trooper, the armed citizen shot the assailant several times, killing him.
Watts and other gun haters will likely just ignore this incident. They’ll claim that it never happened, or that the officer wasn’t in danger. Or they’ll say the armed citizen didn’t play an important role in the episode.
If they won’t take my word for it, though, perhaps they’ll listen to the director of Arizona’s Department of Public Safety. Col. Frank Milstead pulled no punches in stating, “I don’t know that my trooper would be alive without [the armed citizen’s] assistance.” He added, “I would just say thank you.”
It’s a good thing that this armed citizen, who chose to remain anonymous, didn’t listen to the lies from anti-gunners. If he had—and if he had believed what they continually repeat—he might have decided to leave his gun at home that day.
The result would have been yet another law enforcement officer never getting to return home to his waiting family.
Mark Chesnut has been the editor of America’s 1st Freedom magazine for nearly 17 years and is an avid hunter, shooter and political observer.
