No one wants children to die in school shootings. We want women like Christine to live.

Every time I click on YouTube, it seems like I get another Sandy Hook Promise gun control ad. I’m sympathetic to parents who have suffered the worst possible loss and want to feel like they can do something to redeem it. Without agreeing with them.

Even setting aside all the foundational and philosophical ideals of liberty on which the Second Amendment is based, gun control can put unarmed people at the mercy of the armed, but that’s always been the case in human history.

What a gun can do is reverse the usual balance of power.

Gun control activists insist that we want children to die in school shootings. No, we want women like this to live.

An 85-year-old Idaho woman is being hailed as a “hero” for gunning down a home-invasion suspect with a handgun she kept under her pillow after he allegedly handcuffed her to a chair, pistol whipped her and threatened numerous time to kill her, authorities said.

Christine Jenneiahn survived the harrowing incident at her home near Blackfoot, Idaho, after being shot multiple times by alleged assailant 39-year-old Derek Condon, who died in her kitchen when the octogenarian turned the tables on him and shot him twice with her .357 Magnum, authorities said.

She told investigators she decided to use deadly force to protect her and her disabled son, saying it was “now or never” as she feared the suspect was otherwise going to kill her.

What would she have done without her gun? She would have died. And the same gun control activists who lecture us about Sandy Hook would be okay with that and with the other deaths and with the larger culture of impunity that so many criminals already enjoy in urban ‘gun-free zone’ areas spreading around the country.

No one wants children to die in school shootings. We want women like Christine to live.

When the assailant went downstairs, leaving her alone in the living room, Jenneiahn told investigators she dragged the chair she was handcuffed to back to her bedroom to retrieve the gun she kept under her pillow. She told investigators she went back into the living room and hid the revolver between the armrest and cushion of a couch she was seated next to and waited to see what Condon did next, according to the report.

When Condon returned, he allegedly became angry with Jenneiahn for not telling him her son was in the house and again allegedly threatened to kill her, according to the report. That’s when she lunged for her gun hidden in the couch and opened fire on Condon, hitting him twice.

Condon allegedly returned fire, emptying his 9mm pistol, leaving Jenneiahn with gunshot wounds to her abdomen, leg, arm and chest, according to the report.

Condon apparently collapsed in the kitchen and died while Jenneiahn remained on the floor of her living room bleeding and handcuffed to the chair for 10 hours until her son came upstairs and handed her the phone to call 911, according to the report.

Citing Idaho’s “stand your ground law,” Jolley said Jenneiahn was justified in using any means necessary to defend herself.

“Any reasonable person would believe it necessary to defend themselves or their disabled child under such circumstances,” Jolley said in his decision released Tuesday. “That Christine survived this encounter is truly incredible. Her grit, determination, and will to live appear to be what shaved her that night.”

And the gun.

Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield