A Well-Educated .32!

That's one of the pictures illustrating this otherwise excellent story on self-defense and concealed-weapons licensing in Memphis. (At least it wasn't described as a .9mm or a 40mm Glock service revolver.) Excerpt:

A 53-year-old Thai woman who works behind the counter of a convenience store in Hickory Hill has been robbed four times. And so she got a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol and formal training.

It comes in handy early one morning just three weeks later when she is doing inventory behind the counter and has the front door locked. As shown on store video, a lone male knocks on the window at 1:45 a.m. He asks if the store is open. She tells him it is, but to pull back the hood on his jacket and she will buzz him in.

He complies and the door unlocks. But as he comes through the door he crouches down and pulls a mask over his face. As soon as he reaches the counter, he pulls a gun and points it at her.

She sees what's coming. She moves to her left and bends down below the counter as his gun comes out. She then rises slightly, still using the counter for cover as much as possible, and has both hands wrapped around the grip of her gun.

She fires one shot. The robber flinches, then turns and flees without firing his gun.

"I think I hit him in the shoulder," she says.

The whole thing takes mere seconds.

"It was like automatic," she explains. "I'm not excited. I don't want to shoot anybody . . . it's just automatic."

Except, it isn't just automatic. It is training combined with instinct and poise.

"After I attend class, I know how to operate," she says late one night at the store, where she still works. "I really trust this gun."

• •

"A gun is morally neutral," says Givens. "It works for a good man; it works for a bad man."

And as the store clerk's story proves, it works best for a trained man (or woman).

Apparently Chris Muir read the same piece:

(h/t Arms and the Law)