At 1:15 a.m. on a cold December night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, most people aren’t prowling other people’s back yards looking for trouble. But 32-year-old Perry Wallace seemed to have been doing exactly that. He jumped a fence to get into the yard of a homeowner who was staying warm inside with his girlfriend and four children. Perry tried to break into the home through a bedroom door. The homeowner opened fire with his girlfriend’s pistol, wounding Perry several times.
Just another night in Tulsa, you might think. There’s nothing too remarkable about the events described, except the part about the borrowed gun. The interesting part is the police response. It was provided by Sgt. Shane Tuell, Tulsa Police Department Public Information Officer. From newson6.com:
The homeowner’s four children, ages four through 12 and his girlfriend were in the home at the time.
Police say they believe it was a matter of self-defense and that Wallace made a bad decision.
“If you’re going to try to get into someone’s house that’s not your own, you’re rolling the dice, especially here in Oklahoma. A lot of people exercise their Second Amendment, which is fantastic,” said Sgt. Shane Tuell.
For five decades, the cops’ most common, predictable response to a self-defense shooting: advising citizens “not to take the law into their own hands.” That response is changing. Beat cops know they’re the clean-up crew, arriving after a violent assault. With the surge in gun rights around the country, more police officers are finally telling it like it is: until we get there, it’s up to you.
The logical extension of that: you’re better off armed than not. For making that case and warning off the bad guys, Sgt. Tuell gets TTAG’s Gun Hero of the Day award for his direct support for the exercise of the Second Amendment.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.