courtesy 11alive.com

We’ve quoted it before, and we’ll quote it again. “God created men and Sam Colt made them equal.” That’s a statement that’s so self-evident that it shouldn’t need much explanation. But if you’re having trouble grasping it – and we have plenty of anti-gun readers who we’re sure will scoff — let’s look at the example of a 79-year-old woman from Jackson County, Georgia.

The woman was home last week when a 20-year-old man broke into her home. That’s not what anyone would consider a fair fight.

As wbir.com reports . . .

It was just after noon on Feb. 12 when the woman called 911, and shot at the 20-year-old suspect twice – while she was still on the phone with 911. She was able to fend him off until deputies arrived to arrest him.

She stayed on the line with the 911 operator.

For nearly 10 minutes, the woman and her pistol took control of the home invasion while she gave the 911 dispatcher a play-by-play of the 20-year-old man who she said was making a racket ransacking another part of the house.

You can hear the entire 911 call here:

The woman was shooting in the man’s direction not trying to hit him, explaining to her daughter later, she just wanted to keep him away from her.

He finally tried to hide in an upstairs closet, now afraid of her.

“He made the comment to my mother, you know, ‘B****, you’re trying to kill me,’ because, you know, she was shooting at him.”

County law enforcement officers finally arrived and rescued the cowering burglar.

The almost-octogenarian was able to protect herself and her home because of…wait for it…a gun. The same kind of tool that members of the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex love to tell us only endangers those who keep them in their homes.

“She didn’t allow herself to become a victim,” the woman’s daughter said, Tuesday. “My mother’s a very strong woman. I know where I get my strength from, now.  As a matter of fact, I think she’s a little stronger.”

Somehow we think a certain elderly Georgia woman would disagree with the pasty-faced experts at Vox, the Brady Campaign and Everytown. Her gun was the only reason she was able to even the odds and keep the man who’d broken into her home from doing God-knows-what to her. How else would a little old lady have stood a chance against a much younger, much stronger attacker?

Thanks, Sam.

 

 

 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

85 COMMENTS

    • I always thought it went:

      “Abraham Lincoln may have freed all men, but Samuel Colt made them equal.”

  4. Should be mandatory in this country, ” here’s the emergency number, dont call unless you run out of ammo”. Bet home invasions wouldn’t be nearly as popular.

  5. Wait just a minute.

    Was this woman trained in the function of her firearm? Did she have proper range time before buying her firearm? Did she practice regularly? Did she pass a test on the “four rules”? She didn’t really want to use her firearm against an attacker/intruder, should she be allowed to have that gun? Did she use the teacup hold, the Weaver stance, weak hand hold,? Fire from a proper barrier? Fire while moving? Does she have proper training in “move and shoot”?

    We need to know these things to determine if we should laud her efforts, or shame her for being untrained, and more likely to shoot herself than an attacker.

    In the end, her preparation is more important the the outcome.

    Amarite?

    • You missed the real important questions, Sam. Did she have a WML? What color was her laser? What rating did her body armor have? What about her TK?

      • “You missed the real important questions, Sam. Did she have a WML? What color was her laser? What rating did her body armor have? What about her TK?”

        Yeah, you got me. Just can’t think of everything anymore.

        Time for my warm Ovaltine and a nice nap.

    • I’ll bet that she wasn’t wearing Underarmor clothing and never attended any sort of “operator” training to teach her how to operate operationally. I’ll also bet that she didn’t have a back up gun (operators remind us that two is one and one is none). The big lesson from this is don’t mess with old people. We don’t want to fight but we can still shoot.

      • “I’ll bet that she … never attended any sort of “operator” training to teach her how to operate operationally. ”

        We gotta put a stop to all this DGUing by untrained gun owners. I attended operator training (even got the hat from TTAG swag store). The certificate is covering a hole in my kitchen window.

        • As much as UA ticked me off with their treatment of those two folks and the bear-spear hunting thing I don’t think this statement is true.

          UA makes some pretty decent stuff if you buy it for the use it’s intended for. If you don’t have that use in mind then it’s overpriced. But then so is a race-gun when all you want to do is punch paper at a square range.

    • The guy obviously was caught off guard and basically surrendered.

      Probably because she used a small charge to blow a hole in the ceiling, dropped a flashbang into the room the guy was in, then roped into the room upside down with her MP5 in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other spraying bullets everywhere while screaming racist epithets she learned from her last NRA meeting and praying to the Tactical God known as “James “HMFIC” Yeager” as well as an assortment of other, lesser, deities such as John Moses Browning, Gaston Glock and some weird Eastern God known as “Ayoob”.

      Her laser was green. Because Yeager dislikes red due to the fact you can’t see where the blood is and hates blue lasers because they cause cancer. Also because she’s a fucking Jedi and uses her light saber as part of her racist MG murder machine setup. Her body armor was level III UHMWPE, her TK was a SOF-T and her WML was an off-brand 50 billion lumen Amazon special mounted to a quad-railed comp.

      • “Probably because she used a small charge to blow a hole in the ceiling, dropped a flashbang into the room the guy was in, then roped into the room upside down with her MP5 in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other spraying bullets everywhere…”

        Got a chuckle out of that image.

    • Nobody should be forced to do anything they don’t want to do, however, training should be encouraged. Good training will make someone a capable person that much more so. VODA will get someone killed, and not the one who should be killed.

      • Yes, training is rarely wasted. However….

        We do not have the data to support the idea that all those 250,000 – 2,000,000 DGU successes would have been more successful if they were trained…to any measurable degree.

        Besides, my original comment was just nose-tweaking.

    • Biggest question of all: did she have enough grip tape on the gun, or a gun with GRIP ZONE written on it so she knew where to grab the gun in time. This is by far the most important question.

      • “Biggest question of all: did she have enough grip tape on the gun…”

        Didn’t mention that because I thought everybody knew about grip tape. Our LGS has a two-day, 10hr course on selecting, purchasing, applying and demonstrating how grip tape improves gun handling. The instructor is a veteran of Korea, Vietnam, Granada, Bosnia, Iraq and some secret places. He is a veteran of 101st Airborne, Darby’s Rangers, Edson’s Raiders, and SEAL Team Delta Beret Six.

        The course cost Leventy leven dollars worth of BiteMe Coin.

        • Thank you for the evening humor and chuckle.

          I think that guy moonlights “teaching” over here in Montucky…I heard him at the range recently with some of his latest (suckers) students…a self-professed super-high speed tactical operator operating tactically 24/7 sporting a genuine tactical operator’s full tacticool beard and steely-eyed 1,000 yd stare, er, glare…far as I can tell, he was most likely a Remington Raider with aspirations of grandeur…either that…or, he could just be full of bovine waste product.

        • “Our LGS has a two-day, 10hr course on selecting, purchasing, applying and demonstrating how grip tape improves gun handling.“

          HOW DID THEY GET THAT COURSE DOWN TO 10 HOURS??? Seriously, I had to attend a 40-hour course to get certified. I failed the first time after cutting the grip tape .00023” too short. Had to pay for the whole thing all over again. They must really be cutting corners or something…

          • “I failed the first time after cutting the grip tape .00023” too short.”

            All you had to do was cut it just a teensie bit shorter, and you wouldn’t have had to repeat the course.

    • Sam I Am wins the Intertubez for best comment of the month! And Strych9’s reply wins the Intertubez for second best comment of the month!

      Note to both of you wiseguys: my stomach hurts from laughing so hard! Thank you both — I really needed that!

      • “Sam I Am wins the Intertubez for best comment of the month!”

        Thank you, thank you. I want to take a moment to thank my co-commenter, strych9, without whom I could not win the beautiful prize. It’s a beautiful prize, a wonderful prize, a prize that will be beautiful for all to see, a prize the represents prizes won all along out border with Mexico. It’s a prize made of concrete, of steel, of wire, of all the wonderful, beautiful materials that one can use to fabricate a big, beautiful, wonderful prize.

        And now, to recognize all the little people who made this possible:
        my tailor
        my cobbler
        my lawn service
        my attorn..
        Raoul of Bayonne
        my baker
        my candlestick mak…
        my tra..
        my …
        m…
        …….

      • “Well, she has a bit hit ratio than the NYPD…and she was trying to miss her target.”

        Good point, there.

    • That damn gun should have been properly locked up. Was she fully in compliance with storage laws, locks, and keys? If not, throw her in jail.

      • “That damn gun should have been properly locked up. Was she fully in compliance with storage laws, locks, and keys?”

        Good questions. The gun should have been in one locked container, and the ammunition in another container, at least 100 feet from the gun container. If the containers are key-locked, the keys should be safely stored in yet another location, 200 feet away from both the gun and the ammo.

        Oh, yeah. And this…the gun should be stored in such a manner that some assembly would be required to put the gun in firing condition; slide and spring separate from the frame, cylinder removed from a revolver. Better yet, all guns, when not in use should be required to be stored at an FFL location (ammo could remain locked up in the home).

        We just can’t take the chance that an untrained civilian with a gun might shoot an attacker without some amount of calm, reflective, consideration of the circumstance, the intent of the attacker (mistake, mental illness, earning money to learn a viable trade, etc.), and the possibility the attacker could be rehabilitated.

  6. Someone buy that dear lady a 20 gauge Remington 870 youth shotgun put the medium choke in and get her some decent buckshot. I took notice of this gun when I got back into firearms sales some years ago and sold dozens to ladies for home defense. They absolutely love them. Still she did a good job pinning him down until the law officers got there. A lot of the ladies around here would not have been so kind, they would have sent him to the morgue. Especially being the creepy looking dirt bag he is.

    • Gideon Rockwell,

      And top-off that that 20 gauge youth shotgun with a LimbSaver recoil pad — that is an outstanding self-defense firearm platform for the fairer sex!

  7. You can laud her or shame her but-since she did not finish the job like she should have, and after they slap his wrists and then turn him loose, he’ll make sure and kill his next victim(s)…

      • ….And he knows he’ll meet armed resistance. This guy sounds like a coward. There’s no cure for that. He’s also stupid, so who knows. Maybe being a coward is what keeps him alive when he makes mortally stupid mistakes.

        • California Richard, well said! There is no cure for cowardice. I worked with a few that thought a badge and a gun was a cure. It was a mask. I have always said that the one unforgivable character flaw in a law enforcement officer’s character, or a soldier’s, is cowardice. There are citizens that think carrying a firearm is also a cure. It isn’t. I hope they never find it’s not true. Those that find that they are cowards for real, even though they knew it, find the knowledge.a hard thing to learn.

  8. The headline is poorly written. She had the gun, the burglar did not. The title should be “79-Year-Old Georgia Woman With a Gun Fends Off 20-Year-Old Home Invader”.

    As written the title not only suggests but outright says that the 20 year old had a gun.

    Normally I wouldn’t be such a sticker about this but 1) proper English and 2) when I read this headline I thought this was going to be the story-o-the-century for the antis where a 79 year old lady somehow used ninja skills to fend off an armed 20 year old.

    • Headline should have been written, “79-Year-Old Georgia Woman With a Gun Fends Off Unarmed 20-Year-Old Home Invader”.

      That would attract anti-gunners.

      • I don’t necessarily agree since, from her point of view, she had no way of knowing if the guy was armed.

        Until after the encounter was over, to her knowledge, he could have been armed with a gun, knife or just bad breath and colorful language.

        If someone kicks in my door I’m not going to assume that the person is unarmed and just wants some items or money. I’m going to assume that they are in fact armed and are here to do harm.

        • Not disagreeing with anything you wrote. Just noting that adding “unarmed” will get the attention of gun-grabbers, and maybe cause them to unintentionally read about one of those DGUs they claim never happen.

        • “…and maybe cause them to unintentionally read about one of those DGUs they claim never happen.”

          Fair point.

        • The guy was armed. He was nearly 60 years younger than her. That’s all the weapon he would have needed had she not had a gun.

        • jwm:

          I generally agree but we need to be careful not to state this as a “rule” and get undercut by the outliers.

          Seven or eight years back I watched a demonstration where the lesson was not to underestimate an adversary. An 83 year old shrimp of a guy who was a master of of Ba Gua absolutely destroyed two young, fit and much larger 20-something LCpls in a full on sparring match. He was good enough not to seriously hurt them but it was clear that if he wanted to make it so they both would have been incapacitated or dead.

          Amazing what 60+ years of hand to hand training, healthy lifestyle and good genes created. You’d have never known it to look at the guy but he was one dangerous dude.

    • I was once a professional proofreader. As a courtesy, I would sometimes alert authors to catastrophic usage errors and middle-school-level brainfarts like this, so that he or she wouldn’t sound like a numbskull to the editor after the material left my desk to be edited.

      If I didn’t like an author, I’d usually just send it straight to the editor. Apparently TTAG has no editor, or proofreader for that matter. 😉

  9. “Okay, come on! I got something for you!”, she said. Her actions are an inspiration to those that have been victims. I wonder how and if she had quick access to her gun.

    • This woman doesn’t sound like a wolf. She sounds like scared sheep who valued her own life enough to protect herself, and generally valued life more than enough to spare the attacker his.

    • SoCalJack,

      “Okay, come on! I got something for you!”

      Hah! I said basically the exact same thing when I faced off against the two psychotic German shepherds across the street from my home. And I have it on audio/video to prove it!

      I think my exact words were, “Come here, I got something for you.”

  10. Is the pictured house actually the home involved, or just file footage? Because that is one remote area, he would have to be deliberately targeting her as opposed to just passing by. In which case, I believe, without her gun she would not have survived.

    • “…he would have to be deliberately targeting her as opposed to just passing by.”

      Not necessarily true. Criminals sometimes cruise around in the country looking for places to hit because they know the response time is long, the population density low and people with large pieces of property have money. Just like they sometimes target nice suburbs.

      • When I last lived in farm country fuel theft was a major and ongoing problem. Farm machines use a lot of fuel and it is usually stored in large lots. Or it was decades ago.

        • Still is and ag gas is sought after because it usually doesn’t have any ethanol added.

          Of course there’s a lot of other stuff to steal. Where there are million dollar machines there are tools to work on them and someone who can afford a million dollar combine probably can afford a decent TV or a nice ring for his wife’s finger. Often they have nice work trucks too. On top of that farmers often deal with large amounts of cash due to the nature of their business.

          It’s crazy to see the amount of money that transits bank accounts in ag country at certain times of the year.

      • All things considered the lynch-pin issue is the fact that it took the cops 10 minutes to get to her. This simple fact is something that is a constant in the lives of rural Americans. If this woman had bought into the gun-control you-don’t-need-to-protect-yourself-with-a-gun argument that 10 minute response time could have spelled the end of her life.

  12. No one said you have get get training to have a firearm. No one said I have to have insurance on my home. Still a good idea though.

    • Washington’s I-1639 requires proof of training before an “assault weapon” can be purchased. Recall that the definition of “assault weapon” in this law is any semi-auto rifle, regardless of caliber. So you want to pick up a Ruger 10/22, show proof of training.

      And don’t fool yourself that this won’t get expanded. If the law survives court challenges, it will surely be expanded to handguns soon.

    • I believe a lot of people who resist training do so for couple of different reasons. In no particular order. Financial. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Lots of things I’d like to do but can’t afford. Hubris. I already know everything I need to know and no one can teach me anything. Training is a waste of time. Call the Pentagon. They could save billions. Fear. That they will embarrass themselves, or learn something about themselves. Namely, that they don’t know as much as they think they do. There may be others, but those are probably the big three. My opinion based on personal experience.

  14. The government, police/ military, will keep the shooting schools busy for decades to come. But the 200 million gun owners in this country are not going to attend these training schools. A 79 year old was running and gunning as a kid, back when this was a free country. She had a life time of training. I wonder if she still has that “squirrel gun” most kids had back in the day.

  15. We had an 82 year old woman who lived alone shoot an intruder about 3am in her home. They found him at the hospital about 10 hours later with gunshot wounds. Turns out he was responsible for several break-ins of single elderly women two of which were raped. She’s my hero!

  16. According to Brady Org and Everytown, she should have surrendered her valuables to those less fortunate and allowed herself to be beaten to death and her daughter raped and murdered and everything would be alright. No one deserves to be shot over “things”.

    I wonder if the wealthy plutocrats who run these organizations are also so generous with their belongings to those who are in need as they demand we should be?

  18. “He made the comment to my mother, you know, ‘B****, you’re trying to kill me,’” … She should have killed him, Now he will be out on the streets again soon and will do it again until someone does kill him.

  19. This was a black on black crime, stopped by a black woman with a personal protection gun. This was yet another example of a mentally ill “youth” who turned to predatory crime the moment he stopped taking his medication. This was a further example of a 10 minute response time, and why many if not most country people have some kind of firearm in the house. None of this fits the antis’ “narrative” and yet it is all true. Sad thing is, the criminal will most likely be back committing crimes again.

    • A 10 minute response time is actually pretty fast out in rural areas, and not unheard of in urban areas. Good for her defending herself. She may not have shot the perp because she didn’t want to kill him, but I’m guessing if he had not ran away and hid, she might have been forced to shoot and maybe kill him. She probably would have felt bad about it later, and gone to church to pray.

  20. Thing is, people almost never store their gasoline down the hall from their bedroom. Maybe he was looking for the key to the shed.

Comments are closed.