Happy St. Patrick's day everyone!
This is a story of survival that happened on this day (March 17th) in 1993, 24 years ago.
I was renting a house with my wife that was owned by her step-great grandmother. The house behind us (about 50 yards away) was owned by the step-great grandmother's brother (his name was Floyd).
Floyd had installed a single wide trailer for his grand-daughter Debbra (and her unemployed husband, Jerry) to live in so she could be close and help take care of her aging grandparents.
This granddaughter's husband (Jerry) was a weasel, a thief, a lowlife, wife abusing dirt bag. While looking for money to score drugs, he came upon Floyd's Ruger Speed Six .38 revolver. He liberated the gun and sold it for drug money.
the Ruger Speed Six (just for reference, this is not the actual gun that was stolen or the one used in the shooting)
Floyd at the time did not know who had stolen his gun, but he reported it to the police and his insurance.
Floyd knew that I was into guns and asked for assistance in finding another Speed Six.
I was able to find one at the gun show and arranged for Floyd to meet the guy (he was a dealer) and buy the gun. Floyd was happy to have another gun, nearly identical to the one that was stolen.
A few days later, while high on meth, Jerry beats the crap out of Debbra (the grand-daughter). She calls cops, he goes to jail, a protection order is issued.
A week or two later, the county released him from jail and notifies Debbra that he was out on bail.
Debbra calls my wife, who was at home (50 yards away remember) to tell her that her husband had been released from jail and she thought that she had seen him lurking around. She asked that my Wife keep a look out.
While this conversation was going on my German Shepard was going crazy, barking at a large tree in our back yard (between our house and Floyd's house). My dog then chased a man (it turned out to be Jerry) out from the tree. My wife watched him run for the back door of Floyd's house. She told them (she was still on the phone with the grand-daughter) to be prepared for him to break down the door (he was kicking on it).
My wife then hung up and dialed 911, before the operator could get any information from my wife, she heard two quick gun shots, followed shortly by a 3rd one. Even scarier, the gun shots came in the direction of my house.
My dog hightailed it back to the security of my house when the gun shots rang out. I guess you could say that he was one of the heroes that afternoon.
We waited up all night to see what had happened, that night we didn't know who got shot and who was injured. It wasn't until the next day that we learned Floyd and Debbra were OK and Jerry was in the morgue.
Floyd was given just enough warning to get his Speed Six (the one that I found for him) off of the refrigerator (where he stored it) and shoot Jerry twice in the chest, when he looked like he might take another step, Floyd hit him again. The distance was about 10 feet.
The Ruger Speed Six was a .38 special model, loaded with +P hollow points. Floyd later told me that the bullets put a small hole in his chest and a huge hole in his back. The bullets then exited out the windows on the porch. The Police never did find where the bullets ended up.
The 38 Special +P hollow points went completely through a full sized (6ft, 220+lbs) man, taking plenty of flesh with them.
Keep in mind, Floyd was 87, was on oxygen and needed a walker to get around.
This is a clear case of the gun acting as a force equalizer, putting the frail old man on par with a deranged meth head (just as is detailed in the essay: Why the Gun is Civilization by Mark Kloos).
I often use this story as an example of why the Second Amendment is important, remember this when someone says we don't need guns because we have the Police to protect us.
here are some links to the news story