Two recent high profile shootings show us that sometimes, in the aftermath, things go as they should, though in only one of those actual shootings did we have what anyone could call a happy ending.

Both occurred over the holidays.  In Washington state, an Iraq war vet diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome that would normally engender our sympathy, snapped and shot four people. He fled to the boondocks, where he encountered a park ranger, a 32 year old mother of two.  He shot her to death.  The cop-killer was later found dead; it is unclear at this time whether he swallowed poison or froze to death out in the elements, or drowned. (According to one report, he was found face down in a creek. I haven’t seen the autopsy or toxicology screen yet.)

My brother at Second Amendment Foundation, Dave Workman, reports that gun owners have taken the lead in establishing an account for donations to the family of the murdered mom. You’ll find the details here: http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-seattle/stepping-forward-for-a-fallen-ranger-a-gun-rights-forum.

In Oklahoma, a man had been stalking an 18-year old mother of a baby boy. Her husband had died of cancer on Christmas day, and some of the German Shepherds she and he raised had mysteriously died – perhaps poisoned by the stalker, some theorize now. As if she had not suffered enough, the stalker and a hulking friend showed up at her door New Year’s Eve and tried to kick their way in.  The young woman armed herself, pushed a sofa against the door, put a bottle in her infant son’s mouth and called 9-1-1. The calm dispatcher advised her to do what she had to do if he made it through the door before the cops arrived.

He did, and she did. She fired a single shotgun blast as the intruder burst through the door with a foot-long hunting knife, plopping him dead on the barricading sofa. His accomplice fled, but was soon in custody. I’m told the local prosecutor has already ruled it a justifiable homicide…and the first to establish a support fund for the young mother was the local PD, the Blanchard, Oklahoma Police Department. Info is here: http://blog.newsok.com/breakingnews/2012/01/04/fund-set-up-for-blanchard-woman-who-shot-killed-intruder/.  Thanks to the retired NYPD officer and gunfight survivor who frequents this blog and sends it along.

Learning points?

n  In each case, the death weapon was a 12-gauge shotgun. Some in the anti-gun camp have already blamed the law that allows ordinary, law-abiding citizens to be armed in parks like the one where the ranger was killed, for the depredations of a madman who had already violated every law from the Sixth Commandment on down before he reached the park. I try not to use words like “idiocy” when speaking of the other side, but in this case it fits. The firearm is a tool, which carries out the will of the owner. Evil in the first case, good in the second. Yes, it IS that simple.

n  The law-abiding armed citizen and the police are natural allies. We see that clearly here, when a gun owners’ civil rights group is the first to step up with a fund for the family of the murdered park ranger…and when the local police are the first to step up to help an embattled young mom who had to kill in self-defense.

I’ll be sending out two donations tomorrow.  I hope all who can, will join me.  A lawyer friend of mine, whose specialty is appeals for citizens wrongly convicted after self-defense shootings, suggests that flowers for the Oklahoma dispatcher and prosecutor might also be in order…

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It is the 70^th anniversary of the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. Thank God we have living Americans still among us who remember that terrible morning.  Cherish them, and if you have access to any of them, ask them about it.  While you still can.

Of the many enduring lessons of December 7, 1941, none resonates more than the importance of preparedness.  As a nation, we must remember that constant vigilance is not just the price of freedom, but the price of survival itself.

As individuals, we can practice that in microcosm.  As I mentioned in my last entry, my sweetheart’s grandson is with us for the week. He’ll be going through Marine boot camp this coming year, and we’re trying to give him a running start on the small arms side. Great warriors of WWII, from Col. John George in the Pacific Theater to Audie Murphy in the European, owed much of their success (and their survival!) in combat to the fact that they had both been serious shooters before the events of 12/7/41 put them in uniform fighting for their country.

In the last few days, the grandson has been briefed on the takedown, reassembly, and assorted subtleties of the M16/M4/AR15 platform by a recently retired Command Sergeant Major of the US Army Special Forces, and a Navy vet Colt armorer. They did the same for him with the Beretta M9 pistol, and shared their wisdom as to successful military life. A top Class III weapons specialist got the kid up and running with full auto.  So far he has qualified, though not yet made Expert and earned a Rifleman patch, at an Appleseed rifle event.  I tender my personal, deepest thanks to all who helped.

He shot a 588 out of 600 on a pistol course today with the Beretta and military ball ammo, extraordinary for someone new to the gun, but the kid is a quick study and implements instructions remarkably well.  The AR15 is already becoming an extension of his hands, and he is putting the 5.56mm NATO bullets where he’s told to put them. I have a couple more days with him, and the already four-figure count of spent brass is going to multiply on the long range shooting bays here.

In macrocosm for nations, in microcosm for individuals, the rule holds true: bad things are less likely to happen to those prepared to deal with those bad things. The warning of Santayana remains valid: those who do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.

It’s a good time to hug an American who wore, or wears, our nation’s uniform, and to say the never-trite, “Thank you for your service.”

The young man gets his first taste of full auto fire with HK MP5 submachine gun, courtesy of a local Class III dealer.

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A pleasant senior citizen couple living out the remainder of their golden years in a quiet, bucolic place.

A madman.

Bad combination. See the link below, sent to me this morning by a nationally respected police chief.

http://www.king5.com/news/Elderly-Humptulips-man-was-shot-with-crossbow-wife-attacked-with-axe-133395258.html

I am reminded of the two teen thrill killers who conned their way into the home of a beloved couple in Hanover, New Hampshire some years ago. Google “Zantop Murders.” The little fiends butchered that good man and woman like Jack the Ripper.

Not long before the atrocity, the same pair had surrounded a home in nearby Vermont, cut the power lines, and attempted the same thing. This time, though, they were met by a dad who protected his kids with a Glock drawn from his ever-present holster, and fled like the cowards they were.

There is, I submit, a lesson in this.

It’s why I carry a handgun at all times when on my own rural property. When a sudden, unprovoked attack comes, there won’t be time to run to the gun safe.

Condolences to the family and friends of the deceased. May others learn from their sacrifice, that it may not be repeated.

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On 9/11/11, my old friend Tom Gresham dedicated his radio show “Gun Talk” to the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attack on our country. He brought in many of us to comment. I made my contribution from a cell phone at the Harrisburg Hunters & Anglers Club, where I was teaching, and mentioned the fact that this region had just been hit with what the newspapers were calling a “hundred year flood,” and “The Great Flood of 2011.”

It was a microcosm of the spirit that pervaded America in general and the city of New York in particular after the atrocity of a decade before.  People working together and helping each other. As in the incident of ten years ago, transportation had been shut down. Some of the students couldn’t make it to the class; some roads into Harrisburg were closed by the flood.  Flying in from the east coast, I’d been stranded in Philadelphia during the massive rainstorms that caused the flood, and had to rent one of the last cars available at the airport to drive to Harrisburg through solid downpour.

The class still went on, as life went on after 9/11/01.  Thousands of people had to be evacuated as the Susquehanna River rose.  Countless homes were ruined.  There were injuries and deaths. The inconvenience most of us suffered was, by comparison, insignificant.

Yet, coming at the time of the somber anniversary of The Atrocity, it showed that the resilience of American spirit was alive and well.  People helping people…helping neighbors, helping strangers.

We have among us senior citizens who remember The Great Depression.  Who remember World War II, from which a generation returned from the horrors of man’s inhumanity to man to create “golden years” of peace, prosperity, and productivity.

Their spirit still lives, and it’s something of which all of us in this great nation can be proud.

 The threat of terrorism still hangs over our nation, as seen in this headline in the days before the anniversary of 9/11…

…and when the flood devastated the area along the Susquehanna, neighbors helped neighbors and even strangers, in the best American tradition…

 …below is the Harrisburg Hunters and Anglers range where  I was teaching, the high water on the trap range visible beforehand and the flooded practical pistol range in the background behind the trees. Volunteers are already repairing it.

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History repeats itself. Monster commits mass murder in the most cowardly ways. Bomb in building, because there might have been armed police and security nearby if he had tried to kill the innocent one on one. THEN goes to an island where he knows there are no armed police OR armed citizens, and shoots helpless young people like the proverbial fish in a barrel…and surrenders as soon as armed protectors arrive, even though they’re too late to stop the horror.

Proving once again that “gun free zones” are places where only those who laugh at the law will be armed…”zones” that might better be called hunting preserves for psychopathic killers.

This never would have happened in Israel. After the Maalot Massacre of schoolchildren decades ago, Israel adopted a program wherein volunteer school personnel and adult family members of students were trained by the civil guard, and placed – discreetly armed with concealed 9mm pistols – in the schools and among the chaperones of off-campus youth activities.  Every subsequent attempt by terrorists to mass-murder children was cut short by these armed citizens.  Mass murders at schools ceased to be the terrorist strategy of choice in Israel. The same protective strategy has been employed in Peru and in the Philippines.

History shows us that evil people with weapons can only be stopped from murdering the innocent by good people with weapons.  We saw it in macrocosm in World War II. We see it in microcosm every time an armed citizen beats and armed criminal at his own game.

And, had there been even ONE armed protector on that helpless little island, we might have seen it in Norway last Friday, and the lives of countless innocent victims might have been saved.

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