Guns Save Lives: True Stories of Americans Defending Their Lives with Firearms

As someone from the US I have to laugh when someone from the UK (where people have been blowing each other up en mass instead of shooting them for years) has the audacity to be condescending about the gun violence in this country. At least with a gun you have a fighting chance to defend yourself. Thankfully, we are very unlike the UK where crowded buses or department stores are routinely blown up, just to make a point, something that rarely happens in the US. Thank the founding fathers, we still have the right to defend ourselves with honest weapons. The world is full of crazies, whether guns are outlawed in that particular spot on the globe or not. All those cameras on every street corner in Great Britain haven't kept their populace safe, any more than our police force can keep all of us safe. Guns Save Lives demonstrates exactly how informed and even slightly trained citizens can make a difference in the random violence that can intrude on their otherwise peaceful lives. If someone is in doubt that it could happen to them, let them take a walk through these pages. It does happen. Check out the site of this book's publisher Loompanics for a real eye opener. Or call 8003802230

Everyone should read this book. I read this and the other Robert Waters book in 2 or 3 days. They are spellbinding and frightening and hard to put down. Even anti-gun people should read this book, even if they don't change their minds. They will get a feel for the suddenness, viciousness, and speed with which normal people can find themselves in a true life and death crime situation. Maybe they will get a dog or check their door locks! There are many messages in these books that have nothing to do with guns, including a deeply flawed criminal justice system that puts violent offenders repeatedly back on the streets, endangering innocent people; the fallout from a severe drug problem, whatever your proposed solutions; the unbelievable irrationality of people on drugs, seemingly oblivious to people complying with their demands; the inability of police to respond fast enough to "protect" people under atack or threat of attack. One reviewer comments on the apparent rascist slant, i.e. whites defending against black criminals. Read both books -- nothing could be further from the truth. The reviewer is reading things into the text that are not there; he is the rascist. He also feels the stories are repetitive. Only in the sense that crime seems out of control; the situations are all strikingly different, and anyone can see themselves clearly in at least some of the victims' situations.For people who keep firearms for home protection, there are many, many lessons to be learned in these books, including caliber selection, capabilities of senior citizens to defend themselves, the relative ineffectiveness of handguns to quickly stop violent behavior, the problems with trigger locks, and the many benefits that accrued to people who at least mentally, and often physically, prepared for a day they hoped would never come.

Sue Gay lives in South Bend, Indiana, and she is alive today-thanks to her 11-year-old grandson. When Tony "Casper" Murry held a box cutter to Sue's neck one night this February, the fifth grade boy had to think quickly. He ran to an upstairs bedroom to grab a gun and then flew back down the stairs with a .45 in hand. The boy shot one round and hit Murry, 27, in the chest, even though the man was shielding himself with the grandmother.I remember watching this story unfold in my home town. Every day, good hard-working Americans are saved by guns. Ordinary people who intervene to save themselves from those who place a very low value on human life.Lets face it: If gun locks where such a great idea, we'd see officers using them on their beats. "If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins," Sammy "the Bull" Gravano (an infamous gangster-turned-informant) says.In Guns Save Lives, we see several true stories (without the drama, without the glorification) about people who are alive today because of guns. What the gun control advocates aren't telling you about are the countless lives that are saved every day by citizens who put guns to use for good.Whether your a card-carrying member of The NRA or a hardened anti-gun advocate, you should read this book and hear the stories told by those who lived them.

This is a detailed examination of case after case after case, where armed citizens refused to be victims, thereby saving not only their own lives, but the lives of others as well.The National Rifle Association has been running a dozen such stories every month in their publications for years, under the headline The Armed Citizen, but their cases are taken from daily newspapers with little other information. Robert Waters has done more; he has personally interviewed many people involved in such incidents, and this book is the result.As Waters points out, a problem exists which results in many people rejecting the concept of self-defense with a firearm, and that is the fact that the elite media in this country (and elsewhere) typically are anti-firearm. That is, being preponderantly politically liberal, they do not believe or accept that the public should be armed for its own defense, as the Bill of Rights states. In fact, because the Second Amendment states that "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," they assert that it is the government's right to bear arms that is protected, rather than the right of the people--thinking that the militia is an arm of the government. They ignore the plain fact that all citizens are part of the militia, and that the National Guard is NOT a militia, but an arm of the government.The elite media do slant the news to fit their own view, with the result that these incidents are not national news and are only found in local dailiesand on the local TV news. Only the criminal shootings make it to the national news, with the result that the public gets a distorted view. There are far more unreported cases of firearms being used for defense than reported cases of guns being used for criminal purposes.In fact, Waters says, the Bill of Rights is all about protecting the people from the government, and not the other way around.Like many others, I personally believe that the requirement that a citizen of the United States have a permit to carry concealed is unconstitutional on its face, since such a license costs money--sometimes a significant amount of money--and that is clearly an infringement on an inalienable right. But, because it is an uphill battle against "city hall," I, like many others, paid my money and got the permit.Oddly, in the state of Oregon, where I reside, no permit is required to carry a pistol openly in a holster, but a permit is required to carry concealed! I submit that carrying openly is an implied threat which makes others uneasy--especially in cities where the inhabitants are typically ignorant where firearms are concerned; whereas no one feels threatened by the carry of a concealed weapon since they do not know of its existence.The whole thing is exactly backwards, and yet even the NRA and other constitutionalists are going along with it.Some of Waters interviewees make the same point.The best poin

"Fate reversal.ItÕs what could have happened that didnÕt happen."Robert A. WatersÕ new book, Guns Save Lives is about reversal of fate. Not everyone believes in fate, but that doesnÕt make WatersÕ book (subtitled True Stories of Americans Defending Their Lives With Firearms) any less compelling. The intended victims in this book took charge of their own fate. They made their own luck. They turned the tables on their attackers. However you say it, it comes down to the same basic concept: The strong survive.In Guns Save Lives, Robert Waters tells you about the criminals who take what they want from the weak and unarmed. He gives you detailed accounts of their sociopathic rampages, and how they inevitably come to an end when confronted with a greater force in the form of an armed citizen. It is difficult to stop reading this book. I read it from cover to cover, only putting it down once. Waters puts you in the time and place of the attack, and puts you in the mindset of the intended victims. You feel the hatred and rage of the attackers, and marvel at the bravery of the people who take responsibility for their own safety, even when theyÕre nearly scared stiff.YouÕve never read self defense stories this detailed, this personal. Waters makes you feel like you are there. If your heart rate doesnÕt spike while reading Guns Save Lives, youÕre not paying attention.The American mainstream media completely ignores cases of armed self defense. They are controlled by corporate and special interest groups that donÕt want stories like the ones in Guns Save Lives to gain publicity. Thankfully, Robert Waters shines the light of truth on these "guns are evil" groups and establishes once again that "guns are tools;" and that evil resides only in the hearts of men, not in inanimate objects.When the idea of tying armed self defense stories to the Right to Keep and Bear Arms was first tested, anti-freedom fanatics immediately dismissed them as "anecdotal." Once again, Robert Waters silences their shrill cries by citing the details of dozens of examples of armed self defense. In addition, in the Afterword, Waters introduces the reader to "Operation Self Defense," an online compilation of thousands of self defense stories archived and available for research. The antis can no longer call such incidents merely anecdotal.In a chapter entitled "Concealed Carry," Waters relates six separate incidents in which a legally armed citizen defended their life, and the lives of others, from violent criminals. After reading this chapter, you will be amazed that there are still six states that forbid their citizens the right to carry firearms for self defense.Guns Save Lives is the book that will make your "fence sitting" friends jump to the Liberty side of the fence.