Reality’s Ugly Head

Member Group : From the Kitchen Table

Police officers receive reports of activity by criminals all the time.
They receive these reports in two basic forms.

The first type of report begins with the words, "I would like to report a crime…" In this case, a crime has occurred and someone has been victimized. The police are coming to interview the victim, if possible, any witnesses, and examine the scene of the crime. Sometimes they are investigating a property crime, but too often they are investigating a crime where an innocent person has been injured or killed.

The second type of report is different. It begins with the words, "I am calling to report that I have stopped a crime…" In this situation, there has been no crime because the person who had been targeted by the criminal decided NOT to be a victim. So the police are coming to either pick up a person who attempted to commit a crime or to gather clues to find an unsuccessful, and fleeing, law-breaker.

In both cases, the phone call follows the incident because the police are not present when a crime actually happens. They are almost always contacted after the fact. So they are limited to dealing with the aftereffects of the criminal behavior. They either see the first type of situation, with a victim, or they see the second type, without a victim.

The police much prefer the second type.

What makes the difference?

The ability of the intended victim to defend himself.

And that ability often involves the use of a firearm.

It’s sadly amusing that many of those who loudly advocate stripping law-abiding citizens of their Constitutional right to own a gun turn out to be gun owners themselves. The ownership often surfaces when they use the very gun they complain about to defend their own lives or property from assault.

In the latest example, North Carolina state senator R. C. Soles shot one of two intruders at his home last Sunday afternoon when they attempted to kick in his front door. The Senator injured one of the intruders, who was hospitalized as a result. The other ran off.

The Senator made the second type of police report.

But this same Senator has been an active and vocal advocate of removing guns from the hands of other law-abiding citizens in his state. If he truly believed in his own rhetoric, he should not have owned a gun himself.
But of course, if he had followed his stated gun control position, someone else would have been making the first type of police report on the Senator’s behalf. Because the Senator would have been a crime victim.

Thankfully, enough of the Senator’s fellow legislators in the state of North Carolina understood that truth. So Senator Soles had the ability to defend himself and his home and his family when real criminals tried to do them real harm. He had a real gun in his hands to stop them.

Let’s hope that he has learned from his experience, and stops trying to take away from his constituents the same rights that protected him. Let’s hope that he has learned that in the hands of law-abiding citizens, gun ownership is a real deterrent to crime.