I am republishing this true life story from 2007 for the same reason I republished Jew Without a Gun, my nightmarish report of being trapped with my family, unarmed and defenseless, in the 1992 L.A. Riots.
This is another cautionary tale—not about the riots—but about one frightened and helpless young woman who was being stalked by an ex-boyfriend. I met her in a gun shop where she, a fragile, naive pacifist reluctantly landed because there was nowhere else to turn. There was no choice for this young woman but seek to arm herself.
Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party have made it clear that they want to repeal the Second Amendment. They seek to disarm law-abiding American citizens, not, as they claim, to reduce crime, but in order to solidify their power.
To the Democrats, a party that has always flirted with totalitarianism, it’s perfectly natural to ban a 16 oz. cup of soda, to mandate how your toilet flushes, and to set the water pressure of your shower head. And now with Obamacare, the state owns your body from cradle to grave.
The Democrat party well understands that without the Second Amendment the rest of the Constitution is more easily rendered mute.
To be a Progressive really means to progress beyond the Constitution, to a place where freedom is redefined as the will of the state, as opposed to the will of the people. And that’s why the fascists of the left want to take away your guns.
Fade In:
“Thing is, he’s going to kill me.”
“Have you gone to the police?”
“Yes, of course I have.”
“And what happened?”
She shakes her head from side to side, wraps spindly arms protectively around her chest.
“I got a restraining order against Ned—that’s my ex. But you know what good that is, don’t you?”
“Tell me.”
She inscribes a big zero in the air.
Five Minutes Earlier
It’s a crowded Sunday morning in the Martin B. Retting Gun Shop in Culver City.
There’s the usual cross-section of customers:
Two elderly black women, sisters who have been robbed countless times by drug-addicts. Ignored by the LAPD, they have no choice but to buy a gun for self-defense. The women wear colorful bonnets. Yup, they dressed up to go gun shopping.
There are a couple of hunters buying high-powered ammunition; they sound like Los Alamos scientists as they discuss the exquisite physics of various exotic slugs. It’s way beyond my comprehension.
Two Marines on leave are stocking up on rugged, combat-ready clips for their side-arms. Semper Fi.
There’s also a young Hispanic apartment manager who lives in a high-crime area. His wife just had a baby—mazal tov!—and he wants to protect his family from the local “desperadoes.”
I’m waiting my turn.
Protagonist
And so is a young woman who absolutely sticks out in the gun shop. She’s wearing a cream colored linen baby doll with blue grosgrain trim; on her feet, pink flip-flops that just pop off her white skin. Her hair is the color of Kansas wheat. In her mid-twenties, she’s an iconic all-American beauty. Flash of memory to my great childhood crush: Tuesday Weld in The Adventures of Dobie Gillis.
Looking as if she’s on the edge of a meltdown, she paces, glances nervously at the display cases lined with gleaming rows of pistols and revolvers. She makes a move to exit the gun shop, then returns, as if yanked by a fishing reel.
“Excuse me—do you—do you know about guns?”
She’s even got that vulnerable, tremulous Tuesday Weld voice.
And she is talking to yours truly.
“A bit.”
“I’m terrified of guns.”
I hold out my hands as if checking for rain.
“Sounds crazy, I know… thing is—do you think the salesmen are going to be much longer?”
“There’s tons of paperwork if you buy a gun.”
Her eyes dart about, then she just looks at me straight-on:
“Thing is, he’s going to kill me.”
Antagonist
That’s when she tells me about Ned, the evil, obsessive ex-boyfriend.
Ned is a stalker, a human virus who has infected every aspect of her life.
She speaks of restraining orders:
“The thing about them is that people like Ned always find a way around them. He’s there on my computer. He’s a computer guy, for Chrissakes. He knows when I start going out with a new dude and he makes sure to tell the new one all sorts of trash about me. And d’you think the dude sticks around? No one wants that level of drama. I’ve moved twice already and he always finds me. Ned’s always there. Sometimes I wake up at night, go to my window and I’m telling you he’s watching me. Hey, I’m sorry for unloading on you. You must think I’m such a loser chick.”
“It’s fine. I feel awful for you. But it’s good you’re taking steps to protect yourself. It’s admirable. Men like Ned count on women being scared and defenseless.”
She pauses. Looks down at the display of guns.
Conflict
“I can’t believe I’m here. I’ve been against guns and violence my whole life.”
I let this pass. Now is not the time for a self-righteous lecture.
Intertitle: UTOPIA IS THE OPIATE OF LIBERALS.
“Did Ned threaten you—physically, I mean?”
“Said I belong to him and no one else. That’s about it. But I know what he means.”
“What did the police say?”
“The last cop, as he was leaving, whispered to me to get a gun.”
I tell her that owning a gun isn’t sufficient. She has to take safety classes, self-defense classes. She has to know what she’s doing. From the counter, I grab a handful of NRA brochures and press them into her hands. I make her promise that she’ll sign up for instruction as soon as she gets her gun in ten days.
“Ten days?” she says.
Nodding, I explain:
“First you have to take a test, here in the store, a written test. They’ll give you a booklet to study. Then you get a certificate making you eligible to buy a weapon in California. After you purchase the gun, there’s a ten-day waiting period until you take possession.”
“But why?”
“Background check by the FBI. To make sure you’re not a felon, a psychopath, an illegal immigrant, a terrorist, a drug addict. It’s the law.”
Once again, she wraps her arms around her chest, as if trying to keep her heart inside her body.
“Ned’s really smart—but a psychozoid like you wouldn’t believe.”
Rising Tension
I do not ask her why she went out with Ned in the first place. The answer is obvious: psychopaths are clever at disguising their pathologies. Evil is seductive.
“You’re going to be okay. I know you are.”
She shrugs, scans a row of pistols.
“Are those good?”
She is tiny, barely five feet tall. Her fingers are like gossamer twigs. No muscle tone in her painfully thin arms. I doubt she could even rack a .45.
“Those are .45 automatics. Probably too much gun for you. I’d recommend a simple revolver. Something like a Smith & Wesson J frame, a .38. ”
She manages a thin smile, her first since I’ve met her.
“Cool.”
“One piece of advice, even before you buy a gun, and this is important.”
“Yeah?”
“Lose the flip-flops.”
She looks down at her feet. Her toes are lacquered a hot psychedelic pink.
“Huh?”
“You can’t run or maneuver in those things. Get in the habit of wearing a good solid pair of running shoes.”
“Oh, right, right. What was I thinking?”
I lead her to the glass case that holds the wheel guns, weapons that are simple to load, easy to handle, jam-proof. And, you better believe: lethal.
She scans the display. She seems overwhelmed, lost.
Finally, she looks up at me and says: “What’s to stop Ned from killing me in the next ten days?”
I have no answer.
Resolution: Not So Much, But This is Reality
Hours later, I tell my wife Karen about the conversation. In the background FOX Cable News is reporting the brutal murder of a pregnant woman. The chief suspect is her ex-boyfriend, an evil piece of human garbage with a history of stalking women.
“I’m terrified I’m going to wake up one day and see that she’s been murdered. Maybe I should have done more.”
“What more could you have done?”
Shrugging, I admit I have no idea.
But Ned is out there, obsessively dreaming, watching, waiting for the right moment — to make her his own.
Flash Forward to 2016: I never saw or heard from her again. I paid attention to the news and, thankfully, never saw her named as a stalker victim. I hope that she is all right. But she is just one of thousands of frightened women whose lives are made hell by violent stalkers.
The Cornered Cat is an excellent resource for women who wish to learn about self-defense and firearms. Highly recommended.
Seraphic Secret’s friend, Conservative psychiatrist-blogger Shrink Wrapped links to “Stalked” with a fine piece entitled Leveraging Suppressed Aggression. As Shrink Wrapped explains: “I linked to Stalked as an example of what happens to a pacifist when reality intrudes.”
I have a similar story, but the person looking for a gun was a big hulking guy. The problem was he was the manager of an apt building and one of the tenants, who was an ex professional prize fighter off his meds and could have dismantled my friend within a minute. The fighter promised he was going to come into his room soon and knock my friend’s head off over a dispute. My friend called the police to no avail. He had often lectured me on the necessity of getting rid of guns, but now we took a trip to the gun store so I could make recommendations. He chose a police pump shotgun, he hoped he didn’t have to wait 10 days, but this being California he had to. I also avoided the lectures, he was smart enough to figure it out for himself.
“UTOPIA IS THE OPIATE OF LIBERALS.”
Is this your quote or someone else’s? It’s quite beautiful.
It’s mine. Thanks so much.
Great line, Robert. Now, what are we going to do about The Donald — he appears to be self destructing on daily basis. I am as anti-Clintonian as a guy can be, but picking fights where none exist is not a formula for victory, nor does it inspire confidence.
I am going to vote for Trump. I know what Hillary is going to do and that is enough for me. I feel confident that Trump will, at least, serve the cause of liberty with his choices for SCOTUS.
I think Barry’s worry, and mine as well, is that Trump is working hard to drive away enough voters that he’ll lose. He appears to be dead set on proving that he is the one person in the country capable of losing to Hillary.
This morning’s WSJ had an op-ed on this: basically, the question raised was how to reconcile the behavior we see with the fact that he’s supposed to be a successful businessman. Successful businesses depend on thinking things through before you speak or act. Can it really be true that Trump hasn’t done that? Or if he has, how can it be that he doesn’t feel the need to do so now?
Absolutely.
You either vote for Trump or for Hillary.
You guys have to stop paying attention to the leftist press-tidigitators desperately trying to control the narrative. All they’re doing lately is turning up the volume on their typical point-and-shriek.