Deterrent Effect of Defensive Handguns

A year and a half ago, I applied for my lifetime Indiana License to Carry Handgun (LTCH) in preparation for becoming one of the citizens who goes about his daily business prepared for the type of occasion I hope never happens. A person who is close to me had been such a citizen for several years already; since this person may wish I do not reveal publicly that he carries, I shall refer to him as Noah. Based on Noah's experience in the field of carrying a handgun daily for self-defense, and on his familiarity with my character, attitude, and general youthful foolishness, he strongly advised me to read a book by Massad Ayoob before I get a gun and start carrying it daily. In fact, his recommendation was so strenuous that he told my parents not to let me purchase or carry a gun until I had read this book.

Without question, I read the book and almost immediately agreed with Noah's opinion that I *needed* to read it before carrying. In fact, I agree with his opinion so much that, even now, I advise new shooters to also read the book first. It is paramount to the safety of all citizens that those who carry have the correct mindset, and Ayoob's book is an excellent tool for building that mindset (among the myriad other lessons he teaches in it).

Six months after I applied for my LTCH, and 4 months after it arrived in the mail, I got my first handgun. In the year since then, my collection of firearms has grown, as has my proficiency and familiarity therewith. I've applied myself to learn as much as I can about the safe, legal, and ethical use, handling, and storage of guns, ammo, and accessories for various purposes. As I come upon the 1 year mark, I thought it would be appropriate that I re-read Ayoob's book. I knew there would be more things I'd be able to pull from it as a result of my continued learning. (Shoot, when I read it the first time, I already knew I was going to have to read it again because there's just so much to soak up.)

Today I read a chapter that so perfectly demonstrates why I chose to carry a gun that I want to share it with you. It is perhaps the shortest chapter in the book, only a couple pages, so I'm going to share its entirety with you. I encourage you to read this chapter to help gain understanding in the matter if you've ever questioned, "Why would you want to carry a gun?" Moreover, read the whole book.

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"In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection". Ayoob, Massad. 1980. Massad F. and Dorothy A. Ayoob, Publisher.
(Amazon link)

Chapter 10: Deterrent Effect of Defense Handguns

I have often said that in a situation where the law-abiding citizen is criminally threatened with physical harm, the great saving force of the self-defense handgun will be demonstrated more in its psychological deterrent power than in its ballistic stopping power.

I don't deny the fact that there will be terrible moments when the intended victim will have no choice but to pull the trigger. But if the timing is right, and if the assailants are of the typical mettle of a mugger who wants an easy score and doesn't want to shed any of his own red blood to line his pockets with someone else's green money, the sight of your blue steel may be enough to turn some faces white and some spines yellow, and let you go on living your life uninterrupted in its own placid colors.

For instance, it is a cold February night. I am leaving a Holiday Inn located on the outskirts of what is listed in the FBI reports as one of the most crime-free cities in America. It is cold, bitter cold, with a savage Nor-Easter blowing. I button my topcoat over my suitjacket as I walk through the darkened parking lot to the very edge, where I had to leave my car. Alone in the car-filled lot is a young man in a thin pea-jacket, smoking a cigarette, lounging against the hood of a sedan.

On this night, in this weather, it is not a place to relax for a smoke. I look around the lot, wondering whom he is waiting for. There is no one to be seen.

I glance back at the young man, and he is already looking at me, and our eyes meet. I nod to him, the instinctive gesture of one human being meeting another in a lonely place. He turns sharply away, looking fixedly at nothing, and draws on his cigarette.

Alarm bells ring in my subconscious. Something is wrong here. The same instinct makes my right hand unbutton my topcoat and my suitcoat, to give that hand access to the Smith & Wesson Chief's Special in its speed rig on my right hip. I feel the frigid wind knife through my chest. You shmuck. I think to myself, if you get pneumonia and die, they'll list your cause of death as paranoia. I keep walking. The young man, directly in my path, keeps looking away.

I pass within a few yards. And, suddenly, he moves.

The half-smoked cigarette (I remember it had a brown filter) is thrown to the ground, and with a violent sweep of his arm ("Marines, let's go!") he gestures towards a car in the parking lane behind him. And now a lupine face comes from behind a fender, its eyes on mine as the young man's are now, narrowed and hungry.

And they lunge. For me.

I am two people. One of me watches in fascination, never before having seen a human face in a frenzy that would draw the lips so far back from the teeth that the gums are showing. The other of me, without really thinking about it, draws the .38.

And, voila, another revelation. Never before, except in cartoons, have I seen people come skidding to a halt on the heels of their shoes, with their toes pointed skyward and their hands flailing for balance.

We stand looking at each other for a long moment. They can't see the wicked tips of the hollowpoint handloads in the chambers, and wouldn't recognize them if they did, because this is before the day when ACLU bleated to the world about Super Vel and police brutality. The gun isn't even pointed at them, just held casually at a 45° angle. But they know what it is, and they look at me with surprise. "No fair," they seem to be thinking. "You're not supposed to pull steel!"

I give them a big grin, partly because I often respond to stress situations with a touch of hysterical laughter, and partly because I can't think of anything relevant to say.

Then, I walk to my car, backwards, watching them with an occasional glance over each shoulder for a third mugger, who either isn't there or knows enough not to jump on somebody with a piece.

And then I get in my car and drive away.

It has been a long time since that happened to me. I often wondered if I was wrong in not trying the citizen's arrest number (I didn't become a cop until later). I wondered if I left them out there to pounce somebody else.

But I knew then that it was their two words against my one, and I knew they hadn't come up to me to bum a cigarette, it might have been hard to convince a judge of that in a town where there supposedly isn't any street crime. I'd rather think that I scared enough out of them and they gave up trying to mug a straight stranger who just might be "walking heavy."

Not long after that, I was in a major metropolis that doesn't try to hide its street crime problem because it can't. In broad daylight, I was accosted by a man-woman mugger team. The woman's deliberate staggering into me was supposed to throw me off balance and into the arms of her male friend. But I had worked with enough good judo teachers to stay on my feet, turn, and wind up facing her boyfriend with her on the other side.

He didn't brandish his knife like in "Blackboard Jungle" or "West Side Story." He just drew it. It was a fixed blade, a kitchen knife I think.

Matter-of-factly, with a big grin, he showed it to me.

Matter-of-factly, with a big grin, I showed him a four-inch .38 revolver.

Rather urgently, he shoved the bare knife back into his belt, and I hope he slashed himself. He raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture ("Don't shoot, we're all friends here, heh heh . . .") and waved at the woman behind him to cross the street as he back pedalled himself. He stopped grinning, turned to her with his eyes widening now, and made a desperate "get the hell out of here" gesture. Then he looked back at me and grinned even wider as he continued his backward movement.

I grinned back and put the gun inside my sportshirt again. He turned and fled.

I did not try to apprehend him. I wasn't a cop then, either. And that city didn't give gun permits to out-of-state travellers, or, for that matter, to its own crime-plagued citizens. He would have gotten a free lawyer. I would have spent some time in their local clink and would still have a felony bust on my record. If I hadn't had the gun, he probably would still have gotten off with his free lawyer, and I would have wound up in the hospital and would still have the scars. Or maybe the worms would have eaten the scar tissue by now. Either way, it was easier to walk away whole with no blood on my hands. And none of mine on anyone else's.

It was some years later, and this time I was wearing a police uniform. The call came over the radio, and I hit the lights and siren. A drug-crazed suspect had forced his way into a suburban home on the edge of the community I patrolled.

He was gone when we got there, but he had already left a residue of fear that would never go away. He'd had the wife down on her living room couch when the husband, hearing her screams, grabbed his Walther .32 auto from his night-table drawer and ran to her aid.

The guy heard him coming, and threw himself to his feet to take the husband. The guy was big. Then he saw the pistol . . . and got small.

He backed out the door screaming threats, covering his face like a vampire in a late-show movie cringing from a crucifix. By the time the husband had chased him out, his wife had run to the bedroom closet and fetched the loaded 12-gauge. As the druggie stood on the lawn screaming obscene threats at the homeowner, the latter fired a round of birdshot into the air, and the attacker fled into the woods.

During the hours that followed, as I and a contingent of brother officers stalked the suspect through the woods, I reflected on the value of that little .32 automatic in that man's night-table drawer. We'd had a decent response time—we were on the scene less than a minute after getting the hysterical phone call—but as I crept through the pitch-black woods that night, listening to the sound of the bloodhounds, I couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if he hadn't had that little gun. I admit, I didn't reflect on it too much at the time, because I was more preoccupied with the sounds and movements around me as I still-hunted the brush with a Kel-Lite flashlight going on-and-off in one hand, and a Colt .45 automatic in the other. But I knew damn well that without that little .32, we might not have gotten the call until it was too late.

Later that night, when the thing was (bloodlessly) ended, that man came up to me and said, "Officer, my wife is afraid they're going to arrest me for threatening him with a gun. They aren't, are they?"

That gave me something to reflect on, too. I remembered those incidents back before I started wearing a badge, and how my first thought was that "they" could arrest me for defending myself against violent assault. At that moment, I was glad I'd taken the call as R/O (responding officer or reporting officer).

I put my hand on the guy's shoulder. I told him he wouldn't be arrested. I told him to come in to the police station Monday morning and see about getting a "carry" pistol permit. And then I gave him the address of a friend of mine who runs a police equipment shop, and promised him a discount on something bigger than a .32 automatic. Somewhere in between came a lecture on trusting the frail hook-and-eye lock on his screen door.

Wanna few more? I've got files full, and thank God, only a few of 'em happened to me. But the documentation is there, with me and a lot of other people, most of 'em cops: when an innocent person is menaced by a violent criminal who doesn't give a damn for any life but his own, the very presence of a firearm is often enough to turn the situation around, to make the attacker say, "Whoa! I didn't bargain for jeopardizing my life instead of yours!"

I reiterate: the very presence of a citizen's gun, as they rightfully say in the Armed Citizen column in AMERICAN-RIFLEMAN, often prevents bloodshed on either side. You'd think the ACLU and similar groups would appreciate that more than they do.

Despite all the junk "rape defense manuals" and similar pop lit, there's only one way you can talk a violent criminal out of harming you once he's picked you for a victim. What you have to do, is hit him with a deep, existential question, something that will make him re-examine and re-evaluate his own personal values and life style, his own hopes and dreams, as related to the moment at hand. It can even be phrased without words.

A question like, "You don't want me to have to shoot you in the face with this .38 Special, do you, scumbag?"