The radio in my car was tuned to WHO-Radio in Des Moines at the 4pm “Top of the Hour” newscast today. Newsman Gary Barrett explained that the grandson of Democratic Congressman Leonard Boswell* had warded off an armed intruder to the rural Boswell household with a shotgun. The man was already attacking one of the women in the household and fled the scene after being confronted by the younger Boswell.
In an amazing display of hutzpah, the story ended with a quote from (I believe) a law-enforcement officer suggesting that residents should not take out their firearms when faced with an intruder because
- They might wrestle the gun from you and do you harm
- If you let them take whatever they want from you, they will USUALLY just leave you unharmed.
How fool-hardy because
- One of the purposes of owning a gun is to see to it that they don’t take all your stuff.
- In the case at hand, it appears the masked gunman was after more than stuff, if you catch my drift.
- There is no indication the man would have left the Boswell family unharmed, in fact, there were minor injuries.
- Were the Boswells supposed to wait for the arrival of the police to come to their rural home by “chance”?
- The man was already armed.
This reminds me of the policy of some convenient stores, requiring employees to give the robbers whatever they want. Now it certainly may be wise to cooperate if you are unarmed. But there is no moral requirement that you allow the bad guys to rule the day.
*Boswell has a consistent record or protecting the Second Amendment.
