By Don N.
A Mormon bishop used a samurai sword to come to the aid of a woman who was being attacked outside his home yesterday. Can you imagine the national media covering an incident in this same manner if a gun had been involved? A guy’s teenage son alerts him to a woman screaming for help. He quickly grabs the sword he keeps by his bed for home defense, goes outside and confronts the thug. The attacker backs off, runs away and the man with the sword pursues him. Now he’s a hero . . .
But imagine the story with one slight difference. A guy’s teenage son (OMG a white teenage male…that’s the spree killer demographic!) alerts him to a woman screaming for help. He quickly grabs the gun he keeps by his bed for home defense (You have a gun in your home with a child? Why do you need a gun? Don’t you keep it locked up? Are you paranoid or just irrationally afraid?)
The gun owner goes outside (What were you doing? Are you the town watch captain? Why didn’t you call the police and wait? Were you looking for a fight? You’ve just been waiting for a chance to shoot someone, haven’t you?). He confronts the thug (How did you know he was a mugger? Were you just presuming his guilt? Were you profiling? Do you think you’re some kind of a hero? You obviously watch too many cowboy movies! All you did was make the situation more dangerous. What if innocent people had been caught in the crossfire?).
The attacker backs off, runs away and the man with the gun pursues him (Hold on there Dirty Harry, that’s illegal…you aren’t the police! You had no business running after him! You have a duty to retreat!). Now the man who was a hero while holding a sword is instead held up as a another nut with a deadly weapon. There will probably be a rally against vigilantism in his town and a lawsuit against him for profiling the alleged mugger and recklessly endangering the community.