All too often, major media outlets spend hours of airtime and tens of thousands of words covering the instances where firearms are used by criminals to hurt people. For some reason, those same outlets rarely address how often peaceful individuals use firearms in order to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their communities.
Last week, The Daily Wire covered the story of Elisjsha Dicken, who stopped a would-be mass shooter in his tracks, and last month, we covered several other armed individuals who stopped mass shootings. However, there are hundreds of thousands — possibly millions — of defensive gun uses in the United States that don’t receive even that level of coverage.
In a 2013 study, the National Academies Press reported that defensive gun uses number between 500,000 and 3 million per year. With all of those times a firearm was used to preserve and protect life kept in mind, here are four key stories from just last month:
80-Year-Old Store Owner Shoots Armed Robber
On July 31, 80-year-old Craig Cope, who owns a convenience store in Norco, California, saw an armed assailant exit a vehicle on the store’s surveillance cameras just before 3:00 AM. Cope immediately retrieved the shotgun he kept behind the counter and shot the would-be robber in the arm as he entered the store, before the robber was able to cause any harm or steal any property.
Cope specifically installed his new surveillance system less than a year ago because of the uptick in store robberies in the area, and it clearly paid off. One of the store employees told the local CBS station: “I’m proud to call him my boss. He makes us feel better about being here, you know.”
Pregnant Woman Saves Herself And Unborn Child By Shooting Attacker
A 34-year-old pregnant woman in Ohio likely saved her life, and the life of her unborn child, on July 29 during a domestic violence incident. According to 911 calls, shortly before 11:00 AM, the expectant mother was being choked by a male attacker when she grabbed a nearby gun and shot her attacker.
The man had, just the month prior, pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge for violating an order from police to cease all communication with the same woman. He received a 30-day sentence, but he only spent one day in jail, with the other 29 days suspended. Police have a warrant for the man’s arrest as soon as he is discharged from the hospital.
Armed Bystander Saves Store Clerk Being Held At Knife-Point
A female store clerk in St. Charles, Missouri may be alive today because a 26-year-old man from St. Louis happened to stop into a QuikTrip to use the bathroom shortly after 3:00 AM. On July 16, as the man was leaving the store, he saw another man abruptly pull up in an SUV, run into the store with a backpack, and drag the female clerk to the front of the store screaming. The attacker held a knife to the woman’s throat.
The young man, who had just left the store, grabbed a handgun from his vehicle and ran back into the store to confront the assailant. When the assailant approached the armed civilian with his backpack saying, “I have something for you,” the civilian opened fire, killing the assailant. It turns out the assailant was on a violent crime spree, having robbed two other stores that night and severely injuring a clerk at one of those stores.
Concealed Carry License Holder In Chicago Defends Himself And His 11-Year-Old Daughter
The last thing most people expect when sitting in a McDonald’s parking lot while having dinner on a Tuesday night is needing to defend yourself and your daughter from an armed attacker. But that’s exactly what happened at a McDonald’s in Chicago on July 14. Around 5:00 PM, a masked 19-year-old approached a man’s car, began yelling, and then drew a gun and fired several shots into the car.
However, the would-be victim was armed, and he immediately drew his own handgun and returned fire, probably saving not only his life, but the life of his 11-year-old daughter who was sitting in the back seat. While police found bullet holes in the car’s passenger door, hood, and tire, miraculously, neither the man nor his daughter were harmed. The attacker, who had pending charges for carjacking, burglary, and aggravated battery, was found in a nearby parking garage with gunshot wounds to his hand, arm, and foot and was taken into custody.
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These are just a few of the many defensive gun uses that occurred in July alone. This doesn’t include the Clearwater, Florida woman who fatally shot a man attacking her in her bedroom in June; the Webster, Texas woman who shot her stalker after he kicked in her front door in May; or the Norristown, Pennsylvania man who shot two teens that tried to rob him at gun point in April.
What is clear is that despite the vast majority of time most legacy media outlets dedicate to covering the instances when firearms are used by criminals to hurt people, those instances pale in comparison to the hundreds of thousands — maybe millions — of times that peaceful individuals use firearms to protect themselves, their loved ones, or even strangers every day in this country. Any attempt to disarm these peaceful people, or any peaceful person in this country, is not only unconstitutional, but deeply immoral and dangerous.
Cody J. Wisniewski (@TheWizardofLawz) is a Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation with Firearms Policy Coalition. His work has appeared in the Washington Times, the Washington Examiner, National Review, Daily Wire, and more. He primarily focuses on Second Amendment issues but is happy so long as he is reminding the government of its enumerated powers and constitutional limitations.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.