“Riding Shotgun With Charlie” is a great YouTube resource, Charlie being a friend of ours and of all 2A advocates. In this edition, he picks the brain of Charl van Wyck, who some years ago was the hero of a mass murder incident in Cape Town, South Africa perpetrated by a gang of terrorists armed with machine guns and grenades. He broke the attack with return fire from a five-shot .38 Special snub-nose revolver.
A profoundly religious man, he has much to say that justifies this use of force from a Christian belief system, and also has much to say about how the current government of South Africa has hampered its citizens’ rights to protect themselves. If you’ve followed my writing in Backwoods Home magazine and elsewhere, you’re familiar with his heroic action. I think you’ll find his words very much worth an hour of your time, here:
Not exactly the body image or demeanor of the stereotypical hero type but he definitely has the mindset of someone I’d want beside me when it hits the fan.
Good interview.
As the late, great Bill Jordan would say “He’ll do to ride the river with.”
S&W Mod. 438. Been carrying it in my pocket now for 20 years. Thanks for sharing this Mas. It was definitely worth an hour of my time.
Very amazing story, on many levels. Thanks, Mas
this chap reminds me of another from South Africa I me some years back. Another christian missionary who is not afraid of guns and knows how to use them, and train others to do so as well.
His name is Peter Hammond He soent years working in the southern part of Sudan as the moslems were working hard to drive the Believers out and /or kill them off. Of course the peasant locals had o means of defense. So Peter and his grou flew in arms, bibles, medical supplies, trained the locals how to use them all, and helped strengthen the churches in the region. He wrote book Faith Under Fire in the Sudan. His mindset and resultant actions are a lot like Charl’s.
It seems now I have a couple of books to locate and acquire….. should keep me up at night for some time. It will be good.
Fantastic interview! Here we have a Christian missionary, armed with a snubnose revolver, who prevailed in two gunfights, despite being a bad shot.
As Charl spoke, I realized that the self-defense principles we learn are universal.
Any combat in Africa reminds me of the Good versus Evil contest there on 24 November 1964, “The Stanleyville Massacre.”
Charl proves that anyone can be a hero if they stand up to evil. As Jeff Cooper taught us, when ambushed by bad guys, the right thing to do is to instantly perform an explosive counter-attack. The bad guys are not expecting resistance.
How’s that for coincidence? I just now finished re-reading his book; “Shoot Back – the Right and Duty of Self-Defense”. Has much to offer, shows, more clearly, where our elected officials would want to lead us.
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