Two DGUs: One, a “Nancy” metrosexual male; another with a happier ending

Two “Armed American” defensive gun use (DGU) stories this morning for you.

One, a big-city metrosexual man.  A second one from an ordinary male in flyover country.

First, our big-city hero and the epiphany he had following his encounter:

Patrick Blanchfield has a burglar.   He keeps his shotgun and shells in a broom closet off kitchen (of all places!).  Runs to closet, fumbles with the gun and shells and ineptly and clumsily loads a single shell then ejects it.   He then wrote in the New York Daily News:

Why I gave up my guns

A former firearm enthusiast explains his personal epiphany

…Owning guns had given me a sense of security, but all that was a fantasy that imploded in a few terrifying seconds.

Well, Nancy, if you would man-up and learn how to use your tools, maybe you wouldn’t have come so close to getting victimized.

He then wrote:

But I could have just as easily been killed by him or accidentally shot myself or my partner. Hundreds of hours of range time didn’t mean anything in the confusion of the moment.

No, pal.  Range time isn’t the same thing as taking formal training and learning how to *fight* with your gun.  And if you’re so irresponsible about gun safety that you would accidentally shoot yourself or your “partner”, perhaps you shouldn’t have a gun around.  Guns aren’t for everyone, of course.

He goes on to say how the incident was a epiphany for him.  In short, he realized how inept he was and instead of learning how to use tools available to him, he discarded them.

What he doesn’t say is that next time the bad guys break in, he’ll be pissing his his shorts just before the bad guys beat him silly and rape his girlfriend until she’s walking funny the next day.

What a hero.  A true metrosexual, big-city modern man.  He’s a lover, not a fighter.

I’m sure his momma is so proud of him.

And if I was his girlfriend’s dad, I’d tell her to get away from him.  Run.  And find herself a real man.

We’ve even got one of our highway signs just for this fellow and those who think like him:

DIALED 9-1-1
AND I’M ON HOLD
SURE WISH I HAD
THAT GUN I SOLD
GUNS SAVE LIFE.com

An alternative story with a happier ending

John here. Central Illinois.

Let me tell you about the time I came closest to shooting a human being about five years ago this coming summer.

I was at my then girlfriend’s house in north Champaign.  It was neighboring the “hood”.  There were plenty of good, older folks there and it was generally peaceful except for a couple of renters with younger families.  They weren’t so much the problem as the single guys chasing residents’ skirts.  A couple of blocks away it was a little more exciting, but in this neighborhood, you could walk the sidewalks at night unmolested.

On this particular night, the girlfriend’s dog Lily awakens us at two-something in the morning, with a couple of barks as she hops off the foot of the bed and is running to the living room.  Then came the insane “I’m gonna rip your throat out” snarl.  Obviously something was very wrong.

An adrenaline dump clears your mind pretty quickly.  I pulled my Keltec P11 from my fanny pack and loaded it quickly and smoothly.  “12 rounds ought to do it,” I thought wryly.  And then the doorbell rings.  “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?”

My girlfriend is sitting up in bed with a puzzled look on her face as well.  I snatched my flashlight from my pants and went out to the living room.  I looked out the bay window where Lily was going insane through the sheers.  The window was open to allow the cool night air to flow in.  And there he is.

Lily was about three-quarters black lab and a quarter pit bull and on this night, the pit bull was in charge.  Her hair was bristling on her back, her ears were pulled back, and her teeth were bared.  I had no idea a little 45-pound dog could growl and snarl so deeply and viciously.

In short, this big, muscular 6′ 4″, 250-pound gent said he was my girlfriend’s uncle and wanted me to open the door so he could see her.  I told him uncle or not, he wasn’t coming in.  “C’mon, man.  I need to see her.  Open the door, will you?”

Meanwhile, he’s looking over the window screen, which is the only thing between a bare naked me and him, aside from a sheer, gently blowing in the breeze.  The dog is sticking her head under the sheer barking and growling at this guy like she’s gonna tear his face or balls off, whichever is available first.  He moves closer and closer to the screen, his face less than a few inches away.  He’s touching the screen, almost caressing it (or perhaps assessing it), completely ignoring the snarling black dog.  (I recognized that was a clue, by the way.)

I was at a compressed, low-ready with my gun and light, finger along the frame of the gun, telling this guy to go away and he kept up the “C’mon man” routine.

I looked over my shoulder and my girlfriend was standing around the corner, holding her .357 revolver and a flashlight in a perfect Harries grip, at low ready, just like she had been trained in the NRA Personal Protection classes we teach.  Her certificate of completion was proudly hung on her wall.  She was also wearing a serious expression.  She meant business.

I tell you, I felt an immediate sense of relief knowing she was right there using concealment, but more importantly, knowing she was ready to help if this guy came in.

The guy finally left after I told him we were going to call the police.  I didn’t mention “gun”.  I didn’t even point mine at him or let him see it.  But I was ready and had already drawn the line in the sand mentally.  The moment his hand came through that window screen, he was gonna get one warning with a light in his face then he was gonna get lit up in more ways than one.

The girlfriend told me after he left that it was the same guy she had made the mistake of giving a cigarette to earlier in the week.  She said she felt sorry for him.  He was obviously mentally “off” she said of her earlier encounter.  He’d come back earlier this day before I’d arrived and she gave him another cigarette to go away.  Oh, and he was now convinced that she was romantically attracted to him.

Well, he was persistent.  He came back a couple of times in the next few days and was arrested a week or so later trying to force entry on her front door when I wasn’t there.  Thank goodness a) I’d reinforced her deadbolt lock and b) Champaign Police arrived within a minute or two of the 9-1-1 call.  She told them her address and said it was an attempted home invasion in progress with an armed homeowner.

“I couldn’t believe how quickly they got here,” she told me later, still seriously shaken up by the ordeal.  “Thank God.”

It took a half-dozen cops dog-piled on this guy to restrain him.  When I showed up ten minutes later, he was still in a squad car which was rocking on its springs as the suspect was still violently thrashing around in the back seat. Still.  Ten-plus minutes later.

He was big.  He was strong.  And he was nuts.

How many departments do you know would have a one- to two-minute response time to a home invasion call from you?  Frankly, it was good fortune Champaign PD was that close on that day.

But both she and I slept better knowing if they were delayed, her revolver would have saved her from a fate worse than death.

The bad guy posted bail, somehow. He later went away to prison for a probation or parole violation, coupled with this arrest and another.

In the meantime, before he went away, I brought in my Mossberg 590 loaded with a slug followed by 00-buck.

There was no way I thought a standard pressure 9mm from a little Kel-Tec pistol was going to stop this guy.

Not like a 12-gauge slug would.

Nobody, not even mentally-deranged people high on drugs take a 12-gauge slug to the chest and remain combat effective.

No, I didn’t have the epiphany that I was so inept at using self-defense tools that I should disarm myself and hope for the best the next time danger calls.

Instead, I manned up and brought enough gun to my side of the equation so if he returned, I had everything I needed to escape serious injury or death and protect my girlfriend from sexual assault or murder.

And to this day, I continue to teach people from all walks of life how to use their guns safely and effectively to protect themselves, their families and their homes from criminal violence.

Like my own experience, a number of former students have approached me with their own stories of using the skills we, as GSL Defense Training, have taught them to repel violent attack and protect themselves.  Everything from a knife to a throat to a home invasion, former students have used their skill sets to come out on top every time.  When they thank you for that, it’s the most gratifying thing in the world.

Something Patrick Blanchfield will never know.