Roughly a dozen years ago I met a woman Adrienne. Like many young women, she feared guns because she didn’t understand them and had years of mostly negative “education” about them from American media and pop culture. As a stay-at-home housewife, she cared for her three young daughters while her husband worked a half-hour away.

One day in the summer, a creepy man showed up at her rural home riding a bike. Seeing the mom and her three daughters, he rather insistently asked for a glass of water. Adrienne, recalling the incident, said that the guy made her extremely uncomfortable as her intuition screamed danger.

She managed to close and lock the front door and when the guy didn’t leave, she called police.  In the meantime, as the creep lingered in the area, she saw her opportunity and took her girls and ran from the back door the 100 yards to her elderly neighbor woman’s home.

Eunice the neighbor had a revolver, and the knowledge, skills and attitude to use it against bad people with evil in their hearts. The five of them watched as the bike rider returned to Adrienne’s house and pounded on the door for what seemed like a few minutes before he finally rode off out of sight.

Thirty minutes after the original call, Johnny Law from the Sheriff’s office arrived. A little sleuthing and Adrienne found the guy’s picture on the State of IL Registered Sex Offender database. He had raped little girls in his past, and thanks to the Land of Lincoln’s “dog years in reverse” prison sentences, was prowling the countryside asking for glasses of water instead of serving his entire sentence in prison.

It was at that moment, she told us, that she realized how close she came to becoming a victim of something terrible. At that point, she stopped resisting her husband’s urges to take a class and learn about guns.

She arrived at one of our Guns Save Life Defense Training courses riddled with anxiety but highly motivated thanks to Mr. Registered Sex Offender. Thanks to patient, skilled instructors, Adrienne discovered how she could harness the power of a firearm for self-defense through learning the fundamentals of shooting a handgun.  Having a fellow woman coaching her proved an added bonus.  We helped desensitize her to those internal fears she had learned.

She remained on the meek and mild end of the spectrum until one of the instructors told her to imagine those three little girls of hers behind her in one of the barricade drills. He later said he could see the switch in her demeanor.  While leaning out from a barricade, she roared “GET OUT!” before shooting the guy coming through the window in the target with two center-mass shots to the chest.

We had helped her empower herself.  She knew that if Mr. Sex Offender returned, she could say no and back it up with force. And if Mr. Shoulda Been In Prison decided to break in, she would have the knowledge, skills and abilities to help him find Jesus if it came to that.

Fast forward today, Adrienne has become a new woman. She took more training and was elected Vice-President of Guns Save Life. She has also become a support staffer with the GSL Defense Training team. After seeing the transformation of other students from meek and mild to empowered and strong, she became an instructor to share her passion with others, but especially women new to guns.

Her daughters have all grown up, but mom and dad (and the GSL Defense Training family) have inculcated them with an entirely different mindset than Adrienne had as a young woman. One of the girls (and her husband) are support staff with the team and another one is a capable instructor. As they have kids of their own, Adrienne knows they will never have a sense of fear and helplessness if a creep shows up at their door insistently asking for a glass of water.

If you know people in your circle of friends who are agnostic or even fearful about guns and gun ownership, gently nudge them to come to the range with you sometime.  Show them a good time and buy them some ice cream afterwards. Make it a day they’ll remember fondly for years to come.

If they find themselves a crime victim (or near victim) and come to you for help, share a great day at the range with them, too. You’ll make a friend for life and help them empower themselves. They might even ask you to accompany them to a gun store.  By all means, do so.

Alternatively, or additionally, help them find a good entry-level defensive pistol course from good instructors. Remind them how they don’t have to be a defenseless victim. They can empower themselves by becoming a gun owner. With a little training, they’ll be more than capable of defending their lives, their families and their homes from bad people with evil in their hearts.

As most Americans know, the only thing that stops bad men with evil in their hearts is a good guy or gal with a gun.