Who's At Risk?

Who's At Risk?

When I was young, one of the very comforting ideas that helped me weakly support gun control was that for the most part, if you stayed away from criminals and druggies, you didn't have much to worry about. It may have even been true, once upon a time. Similarly, it is an article in faith in some gun control circles today that even if there are a lot of people who use guns in self-defense, a lot of them are criminals using them in defense against other criminals.

As I have been editing the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog these five plus years, I have noticed that yes, some of the people using guns in self-defense I would not invite over dinner. There have been legal defensive uses that show poor judgment, where a little care might have precluded the need to shoot anyone.

There have been a few drug dealers who have shot people who were trying to rip them off--and while the police have not charged the drug dealers with a crime involving the shooting, they have charged them with drug violations.

But I have been surprised and gratified at how few such cases there have been. And even when the victim using the gun isn't going to win any citizenship awards, even non-violent criminals don't deserve to be victims of violent thugs. This news story from the April 10, 2009 Wenatchee (Wash.) World is one of those reminders:

WENATCHEE — Josh Ray always sleeps with a gun next to him.

"I just feel safer," he says.

Early Monday morning, he felt he had to use it to defend himself.

The 25-year-old Wenatchee man says he was just falling asleep on his living room couch when "my door flew open and there was a man standing there in the doorway and he said, 'Freeze, police.' "

Ray, who says he is an avid viewer of the television reality show "Cops," was not buying it.

"I kind of got real scared and I jumped in the air and put my hands up but it took me only a couple of seconds to know that this guy's not a cop," Ray said. "I know from watching that show that if police are coming to someone's house, they announce themselves before they boot the door open, not afterwards."

The next few seconds would culminate in the wounding of Ray, the death of the man at the door, Scott D. Bates, and possibly the solving of three armed robberies at Wenatchee area pharmacies. Wenatchee police say they suspect that Bates was involved with those robberies, one of which was committed with an accomplice. Wenatchee police cannot confirm what happened inside the residence before they were called.

Ray called The Wenatchee World to say that he was never convicted of three misdemeanors, a statement that was published in stories earlier this week. The only charges listed for Ray in the The Washington State Patrol's criminal data base are the new charges pending against him. After the shooting he was booked into the Chelan County Regional Justice Center on suspicion of possession of less than 40 grams of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a legend drug, Ambien, a sleep aid. No other charges are pending against him in the WSP database.

Ray said he had a pistol on the coffee table next to the couch, but when he jumped up, the movement put him closer to a semi-automatic rifle, which he grabbed. At that point, he said, Bates shouted, " 'Freeze' at least two more times and I pretty much said BS. Those were the only words I ever said to that man."

Ray said Bates then shot him in the thigh and "it hurt really bad and I immediately returned fire. I shot him eight to 10 times. I wanted to make sure I didn't get shot again because he still had the gun in his hand when he was on the ground."

Better in jail facing drug charges, then in the morgue, facing an autopsy.