The “Fast” part of “fast food” is why people will voluntarily endure the barely edible confections offered by those types of establishments in the first place. If the “fast” is as illusory as the “food” part…what’s the point?

As far as 911 is concerned, the general consensus for as long as I’ve been alive has been “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”

Or as a long retired gun blogger once put it: “Your safety and security is your responsibility, the constables are only there to mark where the bodies ended up.”

Heck, this is as true for ambulance and firefighters as it is for cops!

We all have to be OUR OWN first responders.

‘You Don’t Need a Gun,’ They Said…’Just Call 911,’

A real story. Happened about two years ago to someone I know. Due to the recognizable name and location, to protect their anonymity I’m not going to give the real names and location or date;

It was almost 8 AM Saturday morning. Joe had just arrived home from handling an overnight emergency at work. He was welcomed home with hugs from his three young daughters and his wife Cheryl, his young daughters eager to get moving ’cause Joe had promised them a day out with shopping too. And although tired and wanting to do nothing but go to sleep Joe had promised the girls a day out this Saturday, so Joe showered and changed clothes and off the family goes to breakfast. So it was a day out… breakfast, a movie the girls wanted to see, late lunch, and then to a soccer game to watch his 14 year old daughters latest crush-she-denied-having play, a little shopping, then some lite dinner, a trip to a local Urban Air Trampoline park for the kids, and then home. It was a little after 10 PM and Joe was exhausted by the time he opened the door and stepped inside while Cheryl and the girls got their shopping loot from the car… but he wasn’t exhausted any more when he saw the three guys in the hallway and two of them charged at him with machetes. Joe drew and fired at point blank range barley managing to get the gun pointed at one of them before he fired. It had all happened so quickly but he hit one of them and put him down. Joe was barely inside the door, the door still open behind him as he backed away firing and out the door while hitting another bad guy who had just opened up a pretty big gash to the bone on Joes arm with his machete, then Joe while backing away tripped back and fell back out the door.

Cheryl, hearing the commotion and shots and seeing Joe back out the door bleeding and falling, immediately executed their pre-planned and practiced ‘danger close’ plan – get the kids out of harms way and engage the threat to cover their escape. The kids were sent running down the street to neighbors homes as planned, the 14 year old herding her 9 and 10 year sisters out of harms way and down the street while calling 911 on her cell phone. Cheryl moved to help Joe and engage the threat. Drawing her firearm she shot one of the attackers, one Joe had already shot, as the attacker lunged through the door towards her husband, swinging the machete and bearing down on Joe who is bleeding badly from a previous slash in the initial encounter inside. But Joe had come back up and fired as Cheryl fired. The bad guy fell and wasn’t moving any more.

Total time of incident: By home security surveillance – less than 25 seconds from when Joe opened the door to Cheryl shooting the one bad guy.

Police arrived due to the 911 call, ~8 minutes after it was over. Two bad guys dead, the third had been slightly wounded and ran but got caught a couple of days later.

‘You Don’t Need a Gun,’ They Said…’Just Call 911,’