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Gun Rights 101: Seattle Times columnist takes refreshing look at guns, personal protection
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Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur has never been a fan of guns, so when she recently wrote about trying her hand at shooting, and finding herself to be a pretty good pistol shot, that raised eyebrows, lots of them.
Brodeur had earlier written about a convicted sex offender who had moved into her neighborhood, apparently about the same time that a woman named Teresa Butz had been brutally murdered in her South Park neighborhood home, and her partner had been nearly killed.
At the range, my hands shook as I loaded the magazine, but then settled as I got more adept.
One can ripen an imagination by thinking about what those women endured. It is the kind of incident that sends women to gun shops and self-defense martial arts classes, and sometimes packing for home. Every now and then, an incident like this happens to remind people, including newspaper columnists, that we do not live in Utopia and that bad things can happen even to the best of us, and that it is ultimately up to us to see to our own safety.
Recall the Lynnwood serial rapist, Allan Ray Chesnutt, who was captured by his last victim in May 1993 when, after being raped and held hostage, she asked to go to the bathroom, retrieved a pistol and capped off four rounds that sent her assailant into a closet, where he hid until the cops arrived to rescue him.
After an hour, and some time peering through the glass gun cases, I was in. I wanted a .22, maybe a revolver.
In my book, America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age with Alan Gottlieb, we discussed several incidents in which armed private citizens took action and stopped brutal crimes.
In a remarkably candid moment for anyone, Brodeur admitted in print that the presence of a known sex predator in her neighborhood, especially on the heels of a high-profile homicidal attack, gave her cause for “second thoughts” about owning a gun for personal protection.
She notes, “For now, it’s enough to know that I can handle a gun. And maybe that confidence will be enough to save me, if that awful day comes. Maybe.”
That’s a big “maybe.” Confidence by itself will not save her, if it comes to that, but the gun certainly might.
I learned that between 2003 and 2007, 38 people in Washington state died in accidental shootings. I thought there might be more.
She also noted statistics on accidental gunshot deaths in Washington from 2003 through 2007. There were 38 fatalities. She writes, "I thought there might be more." Most assuredly, anyone absorbing the drivel from gun prohibitionists about the dangers of having firearms in the home - how they lead to accidental death - might believe there is a domestic bloodbath in progress. Actually, accidental gun fatalities have declined in recent decades, even as gun ownership has climbed. Credit must go to firearm safety courses taught by NRA volunteer instructors, available through gun clubs and gun shops all over the country.
Brodeur is hardly unique. Back in the days of my active firearms instruction, I taught many women to shoot; women who had never previously owned a gun, were afraid to have one in the house, but were more afraid of people like Chesnutt, and Ted Bundy, and Green River killer Gary Ridgway. You know, people the neighbors would never suspect of committing a heinous crime, until they are caught committing a string of them, with a trail of victims in their path.
After the rape, the victim persuaded her assailant to let her use the bathroom…The woman snuck her purse into the bathroom and retrieved her .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun.
Good for Brodeur, and I mean that sincerely, one journalist to another. Equally, if not more interesting than her column, was the reaction from readers. If one ever cares to sample the extreme polar opposites on the subject of gun rights, read one of these columns and then watch the reader feedback.
Brodeur has written in the past about guns, and it has riled the gun rights community. This time around, she comes at the subject with a different perspective.
Will Nicole buy a gun? Has she already? If so, she may write about it, but on the other hand, maybe she shouldn’t. You see, it’s nobody’s business if she has a gun, not yours, not mine and certainly not the government’s.
MSNBC is conducting a poll
MSNBC is conducting a poll as part of its continuing coverage on the issue of armed citizens showing up at anti-tax or anti-health care protest rallies.
Read the story, as it quotes gun rights leaders including John Pierce, a co-founder of the Open Carry internet forum, and one might argue, a co-founder of the Open Carry movement. MSNBC also interviewed Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation and my co-author on several books.
Visit with other Gun Rights Examiners:
Don Gwinn
And Don’t forget to visit:
For more info: Second Amendment Foundation. National Rifle Association
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Self-Defense ·
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Hoplophobia ·
SAF ·
Lethal Force ·
MSNBC ·
Gun Rights 101 ·
Nicole Brodeur ·
Seattle Times
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