There’s an old saying in the gun world: When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.
It’s true.
Many, if not most police officers want to protect the public. They’d love to swoop in and keep everyone safe and sound from the predators that walk among us. They simply can’t. It’s just not feasible.
Yet many people believe that the answer to someone breaking into your home is to just call the police. Just call the police.
I can’t really accept that because I understand how things work in the best-case scenario. You dial 9-1-1 and you get connected with a dispatcher. You tell them everything, then they relay it to the appropriate officer. That officer then has to redirect to your location. Unless he’s just a block away–that’s rare, but it may happen on any given call–it’s going to be a little bit of time before he can get there.
Horrible things could happen in that time.
But a post on X, formerly Twitter, illustrated yet another potential problem. What if you call 9-1-1 and you’re put on hold for almost an hour?
Los Angeles family comes home to find their house had been burglarized. Then they call 911 and wait on hold for 59 minutes.
If you don’t understand this is a direct reflection of the city and state political leadership, I don’t know what to tell you.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) March 1, 2025
Luckily, this wasn’t an emergency call. There was no threat to life and limb. It was reporting a crime, so 9-1-1 was the appropriate number to dial, especially as there was always the possibility that the bad guy would come back, but that didn’t happen.
Yet it still took them almost an hour to actually speak to someone and get an officer dispatched.
I mentioned all the horrible things that could happen in just the handful of minutes it would take for an officer to respond to a promptly-answered 9-1-1 call, but just imagine how much worse it would be if it took that long to answer and the bad guy were still there. You’d never make it.
When I tell some people that I own guns for self-defense, they tell me I’m crazy and that I should just call the police. You’ve all probably heard something like that yourself.
But as we can see, that’s terrible advice. You’re putting your safety in someone else’s hands, and that someone else isn’t necessarily someone who will prioritize your life.
California has been hell on the right to keep and bear arms. Lawmakers there don’t want you defending yourself, they want you calling the police.
Yet we can plainly see how that could work out, too.
The gentleman in the video brings up medical emergencies as an example of a problem, but even his call could have been very different if the burglar had still been there. Residential burglaries turn deadly all too often.
This is why you need a gun.
I have no issue with calling the cops. In fact, you should most definitely do that. My issue is the word “just.” That means to only call the cops; to put your trust exclusively in law enforcement and just hope for the best.
With my family, I cannot do that. I can’t leave things to chance. I can’t just hope that someone will come riding in to save the day.
Luckily, this is a story about a man griping that the local government dropped the ball. This isn’t the story of this man and his family being brutally murdered.
But it’s pretty clear it could have been.
Don’t just call the police. Have a gun. Have training on how to use it. Then use it if you need it.
Read the full article here
