Around 7:00 a.m. on September 7, a 16-year-old girl and her mom from Spanaway, Washington, stopped by a neighbor’s house following a domestic abuse incident that they’d overheard that morning. The neighbor’s 34-year-old ex-boyfriend had reportedly gotten into an argument with her, threatened her with a knife and slashing her tires before leaving the home.
In exchange for that act of neighborly goodwill, the daughter got the scare of her life. The girl returned home (the mother may have gone on to work) to find that the power had been shut off. She immediately grabbed a .22 pistol.
She heard a noise in the back yard and, moments later, saw the ex-boyfriend standing in the doorway, telling her that she was going to die, the man attacked the girl with his knife, cutting her shirt and breaking the skin on her arm. That’s when she managed to give him a hard kick and fire one shot, after which the attacker ran off.
Shortly afterward, deputies saw a man who the description the woman had given earlier walking around the area. He was carrying a knife, a black airsoft gun, black gloves, and, somewhat strangely, 35 rounds of hollow point 9mm ammunition. He has been arrested on charges of burglary and first degree assault, as well as several other lesser charges.
Many gun owners believe .22 is an inadequate self-defense caliber, and in some states (i.e. Texas) it’s too small to use for a CCW licensing proficiency test. However, in this case as well as many others, a .22 repeatedly proves to be better than nothing at all.
The “good guy with a gun” narrative is a myth meant to scare people into buying guns for self-defense.
The truth? People rarely use guns for self-defense. Read more: https://t.co/JiRK3zkvkl
— Giffords (@GiffordsCourage) July 6, 2018