The Armed Citizen® February 2010

*When a woman knocked on the door, Donald Kaighn--an NRA member, World War II veteran and gun collector--opened it. Her car had broken down so Kaighn allowed the woman inside to use the phone, a favor she returned by spraying the 84-year-old's face with lighter fluid and hitting him in the head with the can. Kaighn grabed a Colt .32-cal. pistol while his assailant ran upstairs. He confronted her. "She said something like 'Stop or I'll shoot,'" Kaighn explained. "I immediately fired the gun." The woman briefly returned fire before leaping from the second story window with some of Kaighn's possessions. "I'm a member of the NRA and I subscribe to its policy of not being a vicitim," Kaighn said. "I don't want to hurt anybody." (WPVI-ABC6, Philadelphia, PA, 12/01/09)

*Nathan Brown remembers, "I heard three distinct bangs like someone was kicking in my door. It wasn't like a knock, it was emotionally charged. It scared me." Brown was especially frightened for his 2-year-old daughter, who was sleeping in a back room. Police say Brown got his gun and ordered whoever was on the other side of the door to go away. Two men shouted back and one of them broke the door's lock and charged inside. "I said, 'Stop, I'll shoot you!'" Brown recalls, but the men pressed on. "That's when I shot." Both intruders fled. Police found one of them nearby suffering from a gunshot wound. A full-time student and single father, Brown recently bought his first firearm out of security concerns. "I don't feel safe here, which is why I bought the guns in the first place," he said. (KPTV-FOX12, Portland, OR, 11/27/09)

Armed Citizen Extra

(The following account did not appear in the print version of American Rifleman.)

Police say a Lexington homeowner was taking a shower early one morning when he heard something outside of his house. When he went to check it out, he saw that a man was attempting to break in through a window. Immediately, the homeowner grabbed a gun, called 9-1-1 and held the would-be burgular at gun point until police arrived. The intruder is now behind bars for burglary. (WTVQ, Lexington, KY, 09/24/09)

From The Armed Citizen Archive

February 1969: In Los Angeles, hotel manager William A. Boothby came to his night clerk's call when an unkempt man sought to rent a room and became abusive over the price. As Boothby came to the desk, the stranger pulled a gun on the pair, announcing a stick up, and herded them into the office. Boothby slammed the door shut on the gunman's face and the bandit fired through the door, wounding the clerk in the thigh. Manager Boothby grabbed a rifle, flung open the door, and killed the gunman with 5 shots. (Los Angeles Herald and Express)