Defensive Gun Use Is Point of Second Amendment

In an interview last month with talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Vice President Kamala Harris once again played up her status as a gun owner, emphatically declaring: “If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot!”

Let’s put aside the reality that her well-armed and taxpayer-funded security detail almost certainly would confront any would-be intruder long before he or she successfully broke into Harris’ home. For the millions of Americans who own firearms for self-defense, Harris’ quip about her quick draw was perhaps the most relatable sentence she’s ever uttered.

It took her almost no time to walk it back.

Literally.

Harris immediately laughed and remarked that she “should not have” made the comment and her “staff could deal with that later.”

It was as though by declaring her willingness to use her right to keep and bear arms in lawful self-defense, Harris had committed an embarrassing gaffe that would need a subsequent PR spin to clean up.

Right on cue, one of Harris’ top advisers chimed in to insist that the vice president’s remark about shooting an intruder was merely “a joke.”

The problem is that exercising one’s right to armed self-defense against threats to life, liberty, and property isn’t a joke. It’s the whole point of the right to keep and bear arms.

Almost every major study has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, according to the most recent report on the subject by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2021, the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the issue concluded that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States every year.

For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes a monthly article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read accounts from past months and years here.)

The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use during crimes that we found in September. You may explore more by using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database. 

• Sept. 1, Houston: Police said a woman asked a male relative to leave her home, angering him and triggering an argument during which he stabbed the woman with a kitchen knife. When the woman’s husband tried to intervene, the relative “lunged at [him] with the knife.” The woman’s husband shot and wounded the man, who faced a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
• Sept. 4, St. Petersburg, Florida: A man drunkenly telephoned his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend out of jealousy, threatened to harm him with a gun, and told the ex-boyfriend that he was driving to his house, police said. The man didn’t know the ex-boyfriend wasn’t home. When the man arrived in his truck and yelled angrily, the ex-boyfriend’s brother—who didn’t know the man—armed himself. The brother told the man to leave the property, then fatally shot him when he reached into a console and made movements consistent with chambering a round. 
• Sept. 7, Chicago: An 18-year-old returned to her bedroom in a towel after bathing and saw a man trying to force his way in through her window, police said. She yelled for her mother, who grabbed a firearm and ran to the bedroom, where she warned the intruder that she was armed. The woman shot and wounded the intruder when he continued trying to enter. Police arrested the man on pending criminal charges. The woman told reporters that she hopes to move soon because police seized her gun although she wasn’t charged with a crime.
• Sept. 10, Gaston County, North Carolina: During an armed robbery at a local food store, the assailant pointed his gun at a customer who tried to intervene, police said. The customer—a concealed carry permit holder—drew his own gun and fatally shot the robber.
• Sept. 11, Baker City, Oregon: When a couple woke up to see a man they didn’t know in their bedroom, police said, the woman grabbed a handgun from a nightstand and ordered the man out of the house at gunpoint. The intruder, detained on the porch, grew agitated and walked away as they waited for police, who due to staffing shortages don’t patrol for a five-hour period overnight. Later identified and arrested, the man was charged with first-degree criminal trespassing and failing to report as a sex offender.  
• Sept. 13, Hobbs, New Mexico: After a man forced his way into their home in the early morning hours, residents barricaded themselves in a bedroom before one ultimately shot and killed the intruder. Police said they later determined that the intruder’s mother resided in a nearby home, where they found her dead.
• Sept. 18, Dearborn, Missouri: Police said an armed resident fatally shot a man during a “bizarre” home invasion. The man—only partially clothed—arrived at the property and began to “pray to a horse,” attacked the family dog, and tried to force his way into the home.
• Sept. 23, Centralia, Washington: A teenage girl who fell asleep on a couch in her grandfather’s home was awakened in the middle of the night by a hatchet-wielding intruder making noise in the kitchen, police said. The girl alerted her grandfather, who armed himself, confronted the intruder, and held him at gunpoint until police arrived. The intruder—who apparently knew the homeowner’s son—told investigators that he broke into the home to “ax” an unidentified man over a fight in Mexico a year and a half earlier.
• Sept. 24, Harrison Township, Ohio: One day after reporting a burglary in which intruders stole multiple firearms, police said, an armed homeowner confronted two men who entered his house during a second burglary attempt. The homeowner shot at the men, wounding one and sending both fleeing. Responding officers found and detained the men, then arrested several others suspected of being involved.
• Sept. 26, Las Vegas: A homeowner called 911 after a strange man broke several windows while attempting to enter the residence, police said. The intruder ignored the homeowner’s demands that he leave and “was acting extremely irrationally,” investigators said. When he continued toward the front door, the homeowner fatally shot him.
• Sept. 27, Tallahassee, Florida: In the hours after a major hurricane passed through the area, two would-be robbers entered a hemp store and threateningly approached the only employee there, police said. The employee ordered them to leave and drew his firearm, but they continued advancing as he backed himself up to a wall. Cornered, he fired at the men, killing one.
• Sept. 28, Walker Place, Arkansas: Police said a male resident shot and wounded an intruder who tried to break into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment through a bedroom window. The intruder fled, but later was arrested and charged with felony aggravated residential burglary.
• Sept. 29, Philadelphia: Police said aman witha concealed carry permit shot and wounded a teen who approached him with another person and tried to rob him with a fake but realistic-looking gun. Police arrested the wounded teen but couldn’t find the accomplice, who fled.

For the ordinary and law-abiding Americans described above, the exercise of their Second Amendment rights in defense of themselves and others certainly wasn’t a joke or an embarrassing gaffe.

They understood what Harris apparently is too afraid to admit: The right to keep and bear arms isn’t premised on sport shooting or hunting, but on the unalienable right of self-defense.

The Heritage Foundation is named here for identification purposes only. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect any institutional position of Heritage or its Board of Trustees.