A Tale of Two Grannies vs. Robbers!
Photo: Steve Smith / Blend
These Two Grandmother's Didn't Allow Themselves To Become Victims!
Date: April 5, 2022
Cairo, Georgia. An elderly woman is awakened by the sound of intruders breaking into her home. She goes to investigate and they open fire on her. She is hit. Do they then ransack the house, steal the TV, her jewelry, etc.? No, because she too is armed. She returns fire. The burglars, teenagers, as they turn out to be, don’t expect this and run away. Later they are apprehended and charged. The homeowner recovers from her wounds.
If that story, a tale of a senior citizen successfully defending herself against intruders, seems unique, it’s not. All over the country, similar stories take place every day. Ordinary people are confronted with a violent home invasion, arm themselves, and protect what’s theirs: their house, their family, and their life. In fact, the story is so commonplace that a similar event occurred in the same state just three years before:
Jackson County, Georgia. At a remote farmhouse, a 79-year-old woman is in her kitchen when she hears what sounds like someone breaking into her house via the bathroom window. She goes into the living room and arms herself with a pistol. Returning to the kitchen she calls 9-1-1. The burglar continues trying to enter the house. The woman, while holding the phone with one hand and her pistol in the other, hollers at the burglar, “Come on. I got something for you,” and shoots in his direction.
The burglar runs off, seemingly leaving the premises. Moments later, he returns and heads up the outdoor stairs to the second floor, and enters the house.” This is taking too long,” the woman frantically tells the dispatcher. She fires another shot in the burglar’s direction. She hollers defiantly, “you come down those stairs and I’m gonna blow your damn brains out!” The burglar, at this point, fearing for his life, hides in an upstairs closet. The police soon arrive and arrest the man..
Afterward, a reporter asked the daughter of the 79-year-old about the ordeal: “He’s twenty. She’s seventy-nine. What was the difference here?”
“She didn’t allow herself to become a victim,” the daughter responded.
That statement– She didn’t allow herself to become a victim – says everything about the attitude of the defensive shooter. While anti-gun folks will tell you to wait for the police while burglars ransack your house, tie you up or do something worse, grandma knows better. This country was founded on the principle of self-reliance. Sure, the police are invaluable. They showed up in both cases and were able to make arrests. It’d be chaos without them. But in neither situation were they there in time to protect the elderly women from the imminent threat that was in their homes. For that, the women protected themselves. They didn’t allow themselves to become a victim. And neither should any other law-abiding citizen.
The Boy Scouts of America motto is “Be prepared.” It might as well have been the motto of the two grandmothers who protected their homes against intruders. In both cases, the women were armed and knew how to conduct themselves with a firearm. When faced with violence, they were self-reliant and defended themselves. It should be no different for anyone else.
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