Inquirer reporter Natalie Pompilio has written an article on the book Armed America by Kyle Cassidy. The reporter interviewed me for the article, but it doesn’t look like I made it into the final cut. But that’s just as well, since it turned out just fine without me. I also helped put her in touch with Dan, who I think made much better print than anything I had to say:
Daniel Pehrson, 26, bought his first gun for target shooting but began carrying one for personal protection. Recently, he was glad he did.
The Spring Garden resident was walking near Front Street and Girard Avenue when three teenagers surrounded him. One pulled a stun gun, zapped it a few times, and said, “Hey, check this out.”
“I drew my gun and they ran like hell,” Pehrson said, noting that the small pistol barely left the side of his leg. “It was a difficult and an easy choice. . . . The last thing on earth I want to do is think about hurting someone.”
What if, he wonders, it had been his girlfriend walking alone unarmed when the men circled? What if he’d been listening to his iPod and someone decided the $250 device was worth more than his life?
Pehrson runs a nonprofit organization – the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association – that aims to provide information about the state’s nearly 500 pages of gun laws. In Cassidy’s book, Pehrson looks barely out of his teens, a pile of pizza boxes in a corner.
My congratulations to Ms. Pompilio on a very good article.