I'll not bury the lede. Keep challenging laws that restrict access. Keep pushing for the right to self-defense. Push all the political parties.
Most people don't expect me to have that opinion but having a lifetime to reflect and acknowledge difficult truths has led me to this point. I’m not sure my siblings agree with me or not, or if they like me talking about it but we each must make the choices our consciences dictate. Even fewer seem to expect me to have this opinion, since I was for a time a paying member of the NDP (when and why I stopped is a different conversation) and tend to skew to the left.
This story did not occur inside of Canada, but it’s relevant.
Today was my father’s birthday. That's why I'm posting this today, it weighs heavily on my mind and heart today. When I was a teenager, he was shot once in the abdomen with a .22LR. It was a point-blank shot. The round hit his spine. The tumbling and fracturing did so much internal damage that they couldn't get blood into him fast enough or repair the damage fast enough. It was a terrible six hours of agony before he passed. That was in 1993.
As one can imagine, I've been haunted by this for most of my life, but the uncomfortable truth is - in that situation, the person with the firearm I believe was justified.
My father was a large man. A strong blue-collar mountain man. Now, there are a lot of details that my family wouldn't share with me when I was a teenager and still don't like to talk about now but there are a few things I know to be true.
1- He was under the influence. Be it alcohol, drugs, both, I've heard conflicting stories.
2- He was fighting with another man, who was much smaller than him.
3- The other man fell back to his home, was pursued, made it to his rifle, and aimed it to deter my father.
4- This detail varies depending on the teller. Some have said my father hit the gun and it went off. Some say he pulled it toward him and it went off. Some say he was just close and shot. The truth of the matter is though; it was a fight. There was a significant size and strength difference, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a 100lb difference. He was close enough that touching the rifle when it went off was viable.
The shooter was arrested initially. I visited him in jail and talked to him. He was released after a short time and not charged. Every handful of years or so I talk to him still, all these years later. I know the toll that it took on his heart and soul is heavier than any sentence the law could lay on him. I've hugged him. I've told him that he didn't need me to forgive him, because he didn't do anything wrong.
He tried to escape from a much larger violent person. He tried to deter that person. The reality is, all it takes sometimes is one good punch to hit the wrong way and life changes forever - or ends. I try not to think about how it could have turned out for him if he didn't stop the threat.
Could pepper spray have worked? Maybe, it's hard to say. A stun gun? Honestly probably not. I can easily see a big mountain man slapping it away before it was effective. The .22lr did though. It wasn't done easily, it exacted a damning price, but it worked.
Even my father, while in the hospital bleeding and in terrible pain, asked that the man not be charged before he died. He took responsibility for his actions.
I've had a lifetime to think about this. Twice per year it's heavy on me. His birthday and date of death.
Don't give an inch. You can't and won't win them all in the courts, but the fight must be fought. Exact a terrible political cost for every win that the ones who want to restrict firearms further win.
It's not likely statistically, sure, but the next person who finds themselves in that spot can be any one of us.
Firearm rights are human rights. A right to protect your life. Your family’s life. At least an option, even if it’s a bad one, in the event of foreign aggression of any kind. A right to at least have a chance of keeping food in a pot for your family, and a tool to do so that can be passed down over generations. As the world and technology evolved, it’s become an intrinsic part of survival for hundreds of years.
