FRIGHTFUL NIGHT OF TERROR

For only the second time in two months, I had all of the windows of the house wide open. Smoke from the California fires had forced me to keep them shut. The fresh, mountain air smelled good, felt good. I was sawing logs.

I was abruptly awakened by the sound of a thump. It sounded as if it came from the garage, at the other end of the house. Almost immediately, the burglar alarm went off and the dogs went charging down the hall, barking ferociously. As I rolled out of bed, my hand instinctively reached for the 40 caliber Glock semi-automatic on my night stand. The alarm clock read 2:00 AM. By the time I had rolled behind my dresser, I had slammed the clip and ten rounds of hollowpoint ammunition into the grip of the gun. Now crouched behind the dresser, I pulled back on the slide and let it spring forward, forcing a live bullet into the firing chamber. For the fourth time in my life, I found myself armed and ready to defend myself.

As I peered down the hall, I could see the red dot from my laser sight against the living room wall. The dogs continued their relentless barking. "GET OUT!" I yelled, 'GET OUT OR I'LL SHOOT AND I DO NOT MISS!" The din of noise from the dogs and the alarm continued. There was no reply and no noise of exit. "GET OUT OR I WILL SHOOT TO KILL!" This time, I almost screamed it out. The dogs shut up, but only momentarily.

Instinctively, I moved down the hall at a crouch to the doorway into my office and went in. Now hiding behind the hallway wall, I listened intently for signs of someone leaving or moving. With all of the noise, I couldn't really hear anything. I decided my next move should be down the hall, into the living room and to duck down behind the couch to take stock of things from that point.

Down the hall I went, running to the next point of cover. Just as I reached the living room, a tremendous flash of light lit up the house and the simultaneous "kaboom" convinced me that someone had fired a shot. I crouched and got behind the couch. I didn't feel any pain. The rumble of the shot continued to echo for several seconds and it then dawned on me that it couldn't have been a shot....shots don't rumble like that.

The next thought that went through my mind was some kind of explosion. I had a new, full propane tank in the garage. If that had exploded, the house would be on fire.

I stood up, just as three more bright flashes of light lit up the night, and the kabooms thundered immediately. I was in the middle of a lightening and thunderstorm! Thank God for that.

The point, of course, is that this was the fourth time in my life that I had held a loaded gun in my hands, ready to shoot. I've never had to pull that trigger, except on the shooting range. But, if the threat had been real and I had not had a gun in my hands, I would have been defenseless and, maybe dead.

Just because there are criminals out there who perpetrate crimes with rifles and pistols does not mean that legal, law-abiding citizens should have their avenues of defense taken away from them.