by: F.R. Duplantier

On the evening of November 19, 1995, Jerry Hessler of Columbus, Ohio drove to the home of a former co-worker who had reported him for sexual harassment. He burst through the front door, shot and killed Tracey Stevens, her husband, Brian, and their daughter, Amanda, and wounded Ruth Canter, a family friend. Hessler then drove to the home of his former supervisor, whom he also shot and wounded. Hessler fled, however, when the supervisor returned fire with a rifle he kept loaded under his bed. Hessler next drove to the home of Thane Griffin, the father of a girl he'd once had a crush on, and shot him to death when he answered the door.

The names of Doug and Judy Stanton were last on Hessler's list of intended victims. Judy had dated Hessler briefly before her marriage, and she and her husband had moved away from Columbus to escape his persistent harassment. Doug Stanton had anticipated an eventual showdown with Hessler, however, and he had taken the precaution of arming himself and subjecting his four children to safety drills. When Hessler burst through their back door late that Sunday night with gun blasting, Doug Stanton was ready for him, pistols in hand.

"People are quick to espouse the virtues of gun restrictions," Stanton observed in an interview years later, keenly aware that he could not have protected his family without firearms. "Because the Stanton family had a gun, six lives were saved," he asserted. "Had there been restrictions on gun ownership, the Stantons would be dead. This is a fact," Doug Stanton emphasized, "not a hypothetical situation!"

The dramatic account of the Stantons' survival during a murderous attack in their own home is one of several "true stories of intended victims who defended themselves with a firearm," all recounted vividly and suspensefully by Robert Waters in his new book, The Best Defense, published in Nashville by Cumberland House. "In thousands of cases each year, law-abiding citizens use firearms to protect themselves, their families, and even strangers from violent attacks," Waters observes. "These citizens should [and do] have a right to possess guns."

Most Americans know at least one person who is alive today thanks to a gun. Just last year, a farmer friend of mine was jumped, beaten, and robbed by two young savages just outside the warehouse where he worked a night shift in downtown St. Louis. He staggered to his feet in time to see the duo coming back around the corner in a car with two more teen thugs, guns blasting. Dashing to his truck, he reached inside for his own weapon and returned fire. If not for that pistol in his pickup, I'd never have gotten another bushelful of goodies from my old pal Clyde again.