When help is only minutes away...

I have written several blogs on the importance of the 2nd Amendment as it pertains to our right to defend ourselves, a right so self-obvious that only a damned fool would try to dispute it.

The documented facts speak for themselves: Nearly 3,000 criminals are lawfully killed each year by armed civilians - more than three times the number killed by the police. An additional 9,000 to 17,000 are criminals are wounded by civilians each year. In addition, 15 academic studies have shown that citizens use guns in self-defense between 800,000 and 3.6 million times annually (in the vast majority of cases merely showing the firearm wards off the attack or prevents the crime). Award-winning criminologists Gary Kleck and Mark Gertz estimated that defensive gun uses (DGUs) totaled more than 2.5 million per year. Another study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice and carried out by the Police Foundation found an even greater number of DGUs - approximately 2.73 million a year. Either figure is far larger than the number of crimes committed with firearms each year. Thus the savings to society from the crimes prevented is much greater than the cost to society of firearm violence.

In addition, a recent study by economists John Lott and David Mustard examining the impact of concealed carry permits found that:
Concealed handgun laws reduce murder by 8.5 percent, rape by 5 percent and severe assault by 7 percent.
Had liberalized concealed-carry laws prevailed throughout the country in any given year, there would have been 1,600 fewer murders, 4,200 fewer rapes and 60,000 fewer severe assaults.

Almost weekly, another tragic case occurs where the outcome may have been substantially different if the victim had only been armed. A few weeks ago, in a gun magazine, I saw an ad for a handgun manufacturer that said something like “When help is only minutes away…but all you have is seconds.”

The following is the most recent example.


Slain student called 911, but no one came in time


NEW YORK (CNN) -- Brittany Zimmerman, a 21-year-old college student who wanted to be a doctor, called 911 as she was being attacked by a stranger, police say.

But the police did not come for 48 minutes. By that time, Zimmerman was dead. Her fiance found her body.

Although the dispatcher claimed later to have heard nothing, the 911 tape captured screams, gasps and what sounds like a struggle, according to the court documents.


It’s a lesson you would think even liberals would eventually learn.