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SHOOTING BACK:
The Right and Duty of Self Defense
A friend sent me a copy
of Charl van Wyk’s Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self
Defense. This is a story you hope you’ll never have to
re-live.
On July 25, 1993 Charl
van Wyk was worshipping in the evening service at St. James Church
in Cape Town, South Africa. Two terrorists entered the rear of the
large sanctuary and began shooting and lobbing grenades into the
congregation. Charl van Wyk was armed. “Instinctively, I knelt
down behind the bench in front of me and pulled out my .38 Special
snub-nosed revolver, which I always carried with me. I would have
felt undressed without it. Many people could not understand why I
would carry a firearm into a church service, but I argued that this
was a particularly dangerous time in South Africa.”
Charl van Wyk shot
back. He manoeuvred his way out of the church trying to get behind
the attackers, but outside found a man standing next to the getaway
car. Firing at the attackers, he wounded one. (That’s a miracle
itself, considering the pistol he was using.) Later that wound led
to the attacker’s arrest. The attackers had murdered eleven people
and wounded 53 more.
Afterwards the firestorm
burst, as you can imagine. On the one side were those who fiercely
denounced van Wyk for his “violence.” On the other, those who
gratefully praised him. Shooting Back recounts the events of
the attack, but offers something much more valuable than that. It
offers mature Christian answers to the questions we have to ask
ourselves:
Should we carry arms?
When are we justified to
defend our families and ourselves with force?
The attack on St. James
Church was not an isolated event in southern Africa, but part of a
pattern of terrorist activity. Is it possible in the increasingly
violent United States? You bet. In fact, two days after I wrote
this Moslem terrorists attacked a church service in Pakistan and
killed several worshippers.
Get this book and read
it. After you have, I think you’ll agree with me that the only
proper gun control is hitting the bull’s eye consistently.
Order Shooting Back
from Gun Owners of America web site,
http://www.gunowners.com/bookst.htm. It is the fourth book down
the list. Cost is $8.00 plus 4.50 shipping.
Order directly from
Gun Owners Foundation
8001 Forbes Place No.
102
Springfield, Virginia
22153
(703) 321-8585.
Or you can order by
telephone from (800) 417-1486 for $12.50 postpaid, credit cards
accepted.
-- F. Sanders
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