Just a Tool

Back in the late seventies I was living in downtown San Jose.  Lived along the boundary line between the University neighborhoods and the East Side section of town.

Given the nature of college kids, and the nature of some of those that lived in the eastside, the neighborhood wasn’t the safest place to live.

The local convenience store got robbed regularly; we called it the “Stop-n-Rob” cause it had easy on-off freeway access.  The local parks were dangerous during the day from drug dealers, pimps, and other criminals, much less at night when beatings, muggings, and rape were regular occurrences.

I lived in a town-house style apartment right on one of the busy streets, one of the main freeway off-ramps into the downtown.  Spent several years there, moved in to get back in college, stayed through a couple years of mixed college and job, stayed long enough to get married and then moved out when we left the San Jose area for the Central Valley of California.

I grew up around guns; hunted as a kid, shot paper, clay pigeons, and bottles for fun.  To me a gun was, and is, just a tool; and just like any other tool, a gun can be used poorly, or well.

Just after midnight one very early Sunday morning I woke up when something rattled my screen door.  I could hear something bump the door itself and then kinda scratch once and then there was quiet.

I rolled out of bed, grabbed the 7 x 57 Mauser rifle that I kept loaded and slipped quietly downstairs.

I could hear some noise out the back side of the apartment that sounded like it was at the house on the other side of the fence.  I stuck my ear up to the front door and could hear some grunts out the front.

The noises out back had turned into a couple of voices yelling back and forth to each other, they were obviously looking for something; “look over there” and “nothing here” were clear and moving closer.

Unlocking the door, I yanked it open and stepped out…..

Only to trip over a body lying bleeding on my front steps.

 I was able to keep from falling, and just as I got my feet square under me and settled, I heard running feet approaching from around the corner of the apartment.  I racked the bolt, dropped the safety, and had the weapon up to my shoulder just as two guys came around the corner and skidded to a stop.  Both of them had knives in their hands. 

I stared at them.

They stared at the hole in the end of my rifle barrel.

When they glanced at each other, I told them; “You move one step forward, I’m gonna shoot one of you, and break the other one’s jaw with this rifle and I really don’t care which is which”.

Apparently they did. 

They looked at each other again and backed around the corner.  As they began backing up, I moved forward and kept them in my sights until they turned and ran down the block and around the corner.

The bleeder on my front steps appeared to be a high school aged kid of about 17 or 18.  He had been stabbed in the stomach, twice, and was bleeding pretty good.  There was a follow-able trail that came around the front, and ended where he had collapsed against my door.  His shirtfront was soaked.  I had tracked deer that left less blood behind than he did.

After the first aid; and the police and ambulance came and went, I washed up and went back to bed.

That Tuesday evening, just after I had walked in the apartment from work, there was a knock on my front door.  When I opened it, there stood a girl about 16 or 17 and an older woman.  The older woman was looking down at the blood stains in the concrete.  They got to the door so quickly after I had closed it that I have expect they had been sitting in a car somewhere watching for me to come home.

The woman didn’t speak any English.  The girl told me she was the sister of the boy who had been stabbed and asked if she and her mother could come in.  After I had them seated on the couch and had offered them something to drink, the girl proceeded to interpret her mother’s words and added some of her own.  They had come to thank me for saving the boys life.  He was still in the hospital, had been close to dead when the ambulance got him there, and the doctors had to remove some of his intestine, but he would recover.

Month or so later, a second knock on the door brought me face to face with the young man and his sister.  He too came to say thank you.

The media is full of stories about firearm crimes, the CDC can tell you how often someone dies from a firearm, the politician’s tend to be loudly against gun ownership.

What is missing from this discussion is how often is a firearm used safely as a tool, and how often is one involved in saving a life?

And while I have wondered from time to time if that boy ran straight and true from then on, I have never wondered about a gun. 

As I said at the beginning, a gun is just a tool.  No better or worse than the way in which it is used.

Copyright © 2012 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved