These 12 Defensive Gun Uses Show Absurdity of Attacking Second Amendment Rights

Amy Swearer / Gardner Coates / October 11, 2023

In a legal battle that made national headlines, the governor of New Mexico last month sought to unilaterally suspend the right of residents to bear arms in public.

This insanely unconstitutional measure—which courts fortunately brought to a quick halt—would be troubling on its own, given the Supreme Court’s clear defining of the right to keep and bear arms in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

However, the move by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, is merely the most recent in a long parade of attacks by gun control activist politicians seeking to thumb their noses at the Supreme Court and undermine the Second Amendment.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, just signed into law 23 new gun control measures, despite the fact that his state already faces myriad legal challenges to its existing restrictions.

Earlier this summer, Newsom proposed a 28th Amendment to “enshrine” gun control in the U.S. Constitution.

Since the Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling, Maryland has gone to such great lengths to impose restrictions on concealed carry permit holders that even an Obama-appointed judge was willing to find that the state crossed constitutional lines.

Massachusetts, meanwhile, is trying to ban the sale or future possession of millions of commonly owned semiautomatic firearms.

It’s important to understand what these laws all have in common. Rather than protecting Americans by addressing very real problems such as rogue prosecutors and lack of accountability for repeat violent offenders, these politicians are focused on depriving as many peaceable Americans as possible of their natural right of self-defense.

And that’s a problem.

Almost every major study has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged. In 2021, the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the issue concluded that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States every year.

For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes a monthly article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read other accounts here from past months and years. You also may follow @DailyDGU on Twitter for daily highlights of defensive gun uses.)

The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use that we found in September. You may explore more using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news organization.)

• Sept, 1, Auburn, Kentucky: A woman fatally shot her ex-husband after he forced his way into her home in the middle of the night, police said. Court records indicate the woman had filed a domestic violence petition against the man two weeks earlier.
• Sept. 4, Chicago: After an intruder entered a residence without permission, police said, the homeowner confronted him and shot him twice in the chest, wounding him. Police soon arrested a suspect nearby.
• Sept. 5, Pensacola, Florida: A woman texted relatives for help after her abusive ex-boyfriend broke down her door and began assaulting her, police said. When the woman’s brother rushed to protect her, the intruder aimed a gun at him. Fortunately, the brother also was armed and fatally shot the assailant before he could pull the trigger, police said.
• Sept. 9, Quincy, Washington: A farmer on his way to a country music concert saw a burglary in progress at a building he leased for his farm store, police said. The farmer called 911, grabbed a gun from his truck, and loaded it. Two suspected burglars approached—one wielding a club, which he dropped only after seeing the farmer’s gun. The farmer held the two at gunpoint until police arrived, and they faced criminal charges.
• Sept. 11, Memphis, Tennessee: Police said a man wearing only sneakers pushed his way into a business after it had closed, then became enraged when the self-locking doors jammed and he couldn’t exit. The intruder began damaging property and punched the female store owner in the chest, police said. She drew a gun and shot him once as he charged, then again when he picked up a chair to throw at her. He died of the wounds.
• Sept. 13, Sugar Land Lake, Alabama: Police said a man  suspected of breaking into multiple homes saw a woman picking up her mail, chased her back to her door, and tried to get inside. The woman locked her doors and called police. Before officers arrived, her husband returned home from work and, not knowing the intruder had just chased his wife, saw the man breaking into a car. The intruder pulled a gun, but the husband was able to draw his own firearm and fatally shoot the man.
• Sept. 14, Fayette County, Georgia: A man wanted for murder in Ohio broke into a Georgia residence, setting off an alarm that woke up the homeowner, police said. The homeowner armed himself and confronted the intruder—who was armed with a knife—in the basement. The homeowner shot the intruder once before retreating with his family to the second floor, police said. He shot the intruder again when he tried to come up the steps. Police arrested the wounded intruder, who faced charges related to the home invasion.
• Sept. 16, Negaunee, Michigan: A would-be burglar shot at a homeowner after she discovered him trying to break in, police said. She returned fire before retreating to her bedroom, locking the door, and calling 911. Responding officers found the intruder hiding in the basement and arrested him. No one was hurt during the exchange of gunfire.
• Sept. 21, Moss Point, Mississippi: Two armed men attempted to force their way into a home after a resident discovered them lurking in his carport, police said. The resident exchanged gunfire with the intruders, who appeared to flee. The next morning, a neighbor found one of the intruders in her backyard, dead from a gunshot wound, police said.
• Sept. 25, Richland, South Carolina: During an argument, a man punched his teenaged son, put him in a chokehold, and forced him to the ground, police said. The teen grabbed his mother’s legally owned handgun and fatally shot his father in what officials later determined was justified self-defense.
• Sept. 27, Midwest City, Oklahoma: A woman’s estranged husband kicked down the door of the residence where she was living with her new boyfriend, angrily shouted at the boyfriend, then charged him, police said. The boyfriend retrieved his handgun and shot the estranged husband, wounding him. Police said a domestic violence warrant was out on the estranged husband, who had called his wife over 170 times that day. A neighbor told reporters that she was glad that Oklahoma’s gun laws enabled the two to protect themselves.
• Sept. 28, Arlington, Texas: Police said a man who recently had been fired from a car dealership returned with a rifle and started shooting indiscriminately. An armed employee quickly engaged the gunman in a shootout, preventing him from harming anyone. Responding police officers shot and wounded the man and took him into custody. No one else was injured.

As these examples make clear, peaceable Americans routinely rely on their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves and others from criminals.

With crime rates spiraling out of control, law-abiding Americans deserve better than desperate attempts by gun control activists to blame and jeopardize their right to keep and bear arms. This constitutional right remains an important last line of defense against anyone who would threaten life, liberty, or property.

The correct response to criminal violence is to crack down on violent criminals, not to threaten potential victims who merely want to defend themselves when the government can’t or won’t protect them—a scenario that, unfortunately, is becoming increasingly common.

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