The Truth About Gun Control posts another great essay called The Problem of Collectivism:

Being told to rely on others (the police) to defend us, when that obviously does not work, is bad enough. Being told we MUST rely on others, though, is unconscionable. It is essentially telling us that we have a duty to die when a madman like Cho decides to commit murder, all in the name of a no-guns policy that is meant to make people "feel safe."

I find it very distressing that so many people don't get that pro-CCW people are suggesting that people must take responsibility for their own safety. When they talk of the odds that a CCW holder would be in the class to stop the crime, they illustrate very clearly that they are picturing themselves not as the person taking action to save himself (and thus everyone else as well), but as the helpless victim who expects others to protect him!

That would not be so bad if the people who cannot break out of the role of helpless victims only put their own lives in danger, but they're not content with that. They have to make ALL of us into helpless victims. In their simplistic logic, they think the only difference between themselves and people like Cho is that Cho had a gun-- and as such, they can't tell peaceable armed citizens from crazed murderers!

If this blog isn't on your list, it should be. Posting is infrequent, but always hits the mark.

At FOXNews.com:

"He was well done."

That's what one woman said Monday after helping her son apprehend an alleged child rapist using her barbecue meat fork.

"I stuck him in his butt!" Linda Rhodes told MyFOXdfw.com, explaining how she and her son John Jennings apprehended the 17-year-old suspect Friday night in Garland, Texas.

Jennings was barbecuing chicken when he heard a 7-year-old boy calling for help. He said he saw the suspect, Deshaun Ridge, on top of the child, allegedly raping the boy.

"He stood up, and I just punched him right in the face," Jennings said. "He put his hands up and I grabbed him, and we went fighting."

Rhodes called police and then jumped into the fight to help her son apprehend the suspect. They held Ridge until police arrived.

"They were citizens that jumped in, most definitely, and did a good deed," Joe Harn, a spokesman for the Garland Police Department, told MyFOXdfw.com. "These people are heroes."

Second Amendment Foundation Press Release:

The founder of the Second Amendment Foundation today said he will supply Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke with documentation on the “text book case” from Missouri that helped convince that state’s legislature to pass a “Stand-Your-Ground” law to protect citizens from criminal or civil prosecution when they shoot in self-defense.

In a series of debates with SAF founder Alan Gottlieb last week, Helmke told MSNBC viewers that he has been unable to identify anybody who has ever been sued and suffered financially for shooting in self-defense.

“Helmke is sadly uninformed, and we’re going to educate him,” Gottlieb said. “The case of a Carroll County man who was charged in December 1992 for shooting a burglar and subsequently acquitted, but then was sued almost immediately in civil court for $250,000 by the burglar’s family, is exactly the kind of outrage this law, and similar statutes in other states, is designed to prevent.”

Helmke is not sadly uninformed, in my opinion. He is a liar.  This is just another of his lies.

Three times in a couple of weeks.  This is getting kind of weird.  This time the hero is a 5-year-old boy, and the animal was another fox.  In Kingstown, North Carolina:

A 5-year-old boy grabbed a rabid fox by the neck and pinned it to the ground during a family cookout, protecting six other children before his stepfather could step in.

"I wanted to protect my little brother," said Rayshun McDowell, who battled the animal in the front yard of his home Sunday in Kingstown, a town about 50 miles west of Charlotte.

The fox bit Rayshun in the leg, but the 61-pound-boy held the animal down. Health officials later identified the fox as rabid.

"I looked out the window and Rayshun had the fox by the neck and was pushing it into the ground," said his mother, Shinda Linder. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Rayshun's stepfather, Ryan Thompson, pulled the boy off the animal and kicked it. A neighbor fired a handgun three times but the fox continued to advance.

Thompson, wearing a cast because of a broken leg, said he used a stick and his crutch to beat the fox to death. Rayshun, meanwhile, asked only for a Band-Aid and didn't complain of any pain. "Rayshun was really calm and wasn't upset," his mother said. "I couldn't believe he would do something like that. He was so brave, and I was a wreck."

Without being there I can't criticize the neighbor for apparently trying to fire "scare shots."  It could easily have been a case of a mad fox tearing into the step-father and the boy at close quarters, and he didn't want to risk hitting them.

Way to go, kid.

Last week it was a fox.  This time it's a bobcat in Wesley Chapel, FL.  And this time, he killed it.

Dale Rippy says he was acting on instinct when a rabid 25-pound bobcat attacked him on his porch in this central Florida suburb.

Rippy, 62, endured the bobcat's slashes and bites until it clawed into a position where he could grab it by the throat.

Then he strangled it.

Rippy said it was clear the crazed bobcat had to be stopped.

"I was bleeding everyplace," the Vietnam veteran said of the May 30 attack. "If that cat had attacked a child, it would've been really bad. It wouldn't have quit."

Rippy's neighbors in this suburb 25 miles northeast of Tampa called for help. Tests showed the dead bobcat was rabid. Rippy was treated for exposure to rabies, and several bites and cuts.

Authorities praised Rippy for clear thinking under pressure.

"We give this guy a lot of credit for what he did," said Pasco County Animal Control Manager Denise Hilton. "The man was definitely using his head when he did that. If he let the cat go, we could have had more victims."

Yikes.

Londonderry, NH:

A mother kicked, chased and eventually pinned down a rabid fox that bit her 8-year-old daughter while the girl was on a swing set. Pamela Berube, 39, of Hudson, had taken her eldest daughter to a flute lesson at a private home in Londonderry on Thursday.

Her other two children, 8-year-old Deena and 10-year-old Joshua, were playing in the flute teacher's back yard when Berube heard a scream - "and it was not a regular scream," she said.

She ran outside to discover a fox chasing the children around the yard. Deena fell, and her mother kicked the fox away from her.

"Apparently not hard enough, because he kept going after Deena," said the flute instructor, Cindy Winsor, who also ran to help.

Winsor grabbed a plastic baseball bat and hit the fox with it, but the blow didn't stop him. Berube chased the fox until it bit her arm. Then she grabbed it by the neck and pinned it to the ground for 10 minutes, until police arrived and shot it.

I have to give credit to her for keeping a rabid fox pinned to the ground for 10 minutes.  That must have been terrifying.

But what if this had been a crazed human intent on murder?  What might have happened in those 10 minutes if she had tried to stop him/her with a plastic bat?

The interesting thing in this bit of San Antonio self defense news is what they don't mention.  Fearless Store Clerk Shoots Out Thief’s Windows:

Police say a robber came into the store and acted as if he had a gun. Once he got cash, he hopped into a waiting pick-up truck. The clerk ran outside and shot at the truck as it drove away.

What isn't mentioned is if there were any consequences for the store clerk.  After the robbery was "finished," he followed the thugs outside and shot at their vehicle as they were fleeing.  And yet, no word on if the clerk got in trouble with "authorities."

Don't get me wrong.  I have no problem with the store clerk shooting at them as they flee.  But in some parts of the country, the clerk would be in serious trouble.  Never mind that that store is his livelihood, never mind that he probably spends most of his day watching so-called "customers" like a hawk to prevent petty thefts, never mind that his store will be tagged if he turns his lights off for more than 5 minutes.  Yes, this is self defense, because that store is how he supports himself and his family and every punk who gets away is a punk who will come back, and a punk who will tell all his fellow punks that the store is an easy mark.

In some places people would already be plastering their panties because he shot at them as they ran away.

Hard luck.  You don't want to get shot, don't rob convenience stores.  In San Antonio, anyway.

Via Civilian Gun Self Defense Blog.

I first blogged about this here.  In that post, I said that I hoped the justice system nailed him to the wall, if the story happened as reported.  Apparently, it did not.

Mallot was found to have used justifiable lethal self defense.  New article at Click2Houston.com.  (Via Xavier).  Mallot did not testify himself, but several witnesses did.

I'm glad for Mr. Mallot, and glad my initial reaction turned out to be incorrect.

Someone has reposted an older article by David Kopel at Packing.org:  Does God believe in Gun Control?.  Excellent article, and worth bookmarking for future reference.

"Happy" only because the good guy isn't going to be prosecuted for defending himself, and can't be taken to civil court either because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law.

At The Smallest Minority.

Note that this is another case in which the victim got the gun away from his attacker.

Note also that the 3-day waiting period very nearly got this person--and possibly his wife--killed.

Note also the "baggy pants syndrome."

I remember several years ago I read a newspaper account in San Antonio of a burglar who was being chased by cops.  The burglar was wearing "baggy pants."  He tripped over them, fell and broke his femur.

When will they ever learn?  Live by the pants, die by the pants.