“Girl with a gun” scares Off Intruder: 5 Lessons Learned

An idea for a blog post.  Teen girl in Spokane WA scares off intruder with pistol.  Much good about this.   But not sure I’d want to show off the pistol and my entire home though.

Thx for all your work over the years.  I appreciate it.

Nathan

http://www.khq.com/story/35905776/i-didnt-want-him-back-teen-talks-about-tense-moments-scaring-away-wanted-man

/

Hi Nathan,

Thanks for the link. Yes, loose lips sink ships and all. Shouldnt show around their place as much.

I love reading good news like this. I’ll be explaining a few points I believe are important and we can all learn from, but the fact is this girl was saved because she had a gun and that’s what matters the most.

The most important lesson being: When facing violent people, guns save lives. The most likely outcome is similar to this story, where both the potential victim and even the aggressor walk unharmed. When these things happen no one takes notice. There were no shots fired, there’s no corpse to be bothered with and no one will do a movie about it, but none the less it’s the most common outcome when good people use guns and it’s the best outcome in which no one gets hurt.

Now some folks will argue that the best outcome is a dead bad guy in this girl’s room. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one. Most people, especially teens, don’t want to carry that with them the rest of their lives. Even if you are somewhat less sensitive regarding these matters, trust me they simply are not worth the time and money involved with the legal matters. Most tough guys will start crying the moment their lawyer hands them their legal expenses bill. If it can be prevented, better spend that money on some nice family holydays.

Now, even though this story no doubt had a happy ending, there are things that could have gone a lot worse very easily. Let’s go through some of the things done well, and what could have been done better:

1) The girl was armed. Above all, having a gun is what makes it or breaks it in these situations. She was armed, and that makes all the difference in the world.

2)The gun was within quick and easy reach. Had the gun been next to her bed with a combination lock of some kind, she may have not had enough time to use it. This is a key part of armed self defense.

3)Poor weapon choice. A 22 LR revolver is not a good option. Now in this case it served her well. Keep in mind even a replica gun would have done the same thing. You can “scare” an intruder with a replica or blank firing replica. You can scare someone with a Derringer, or with a gun that isn’t even loaded or operational. That does not mean you should overlook the possibility of the gun actually being used. For revolvers a 38 special would be my recommended minimum. For autos 9mm, both with premium ammo.

4)Training. I just can repeat this enough. Get proper, professional firearms training. It will teach you how to use the gun, how to keep it, and what gun to use. Never in my life have I seen a defensive shooting class were a student was using a 22LR.

Training is what gets you through the fight when the bad guy ISNT scared as easily and you actually have to shoot. Training is what keeps you alive when there’s no bad guy around, by preventing you from doing things such as keeping your loaded gun under your pillow. Save money by taking a class with a qualified instructor. Trust me it’s the best money you’ll ever spend on self-defense.

5)Home security. Even better than having to chase away a home invader is not having him in your teen’s bedroom in the first place. Doors, windows, they should be kept locked. “what about hot climate?” Well, find a solution. I’ve always liked to have bars on my windows. I like them, I like knowing no one will crawl through the window. If done well and the bar has a nice design and goes along with the house style they don’t look bad either. And it allows you to leave windows opened safely. Some shutter designs also allow good ventilation while keeping the shutter closed.  If nothing else, know that leaving windows opened or cracked with no barrier of any kind means anyone can just crawl into your kid’s bedroom.

FerFAL

Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”