Farm Fresh Blog

I want to take a moment to weigh in on the recent debate regarding "assault weapons." Since I am a cop in a major metropolitan city, since I am a steadfast environmentalist, since I have stood over more than my fair share of dead men, since I am a rancher, and most importantly, since I am a woman, I feel well qualified to comment on this issue.

I am not a gun guru. I am not a gun collector. I do not have guns to compensate for anything other than the fact that I am an average sized woman who enjoys waking up in the morning. Let me be perfectly clear on this one issue. Cops do not have guns to protect the public. Cops have guns to protect themselves. Cops must protect themselves because while everyone else is running from danger, the cops are running towards it.  As a citizen, you must protect yourself until a cop can get there.

That said, I do not carry my AR-15 at work. I carry my AR-15 in the one place where I am almost completely safe from predators of the two-legged variety. I carry the AR-15 when I'm on our ranch in North Texas.

Why?

I give you Exhibit A:

The first time I encountered these guys when walking alone with four dogs I nearly peed my pants. My police training kicked in and I found myself shouting and pointing a puny .380 handgun at them. Fortunately they ran. Had they not, it would have been very bad. THAT'S when I realized that I needed something bigger. Unfortunately a gun with more knockdown power is also much heavier and I'm on foot. I needed something light. I also needed something with more bullets (i.e. high capacity)

Hogs are tough. If a hog is running at you, do not expect that first bullet to bring it down. When you run out of bullets, a gun is nothing more than a club, and I assure you, you will not be clubbing an enraged sow hog to death with an empty rifle. So I got the AR-15 because it is light enough for a woman to handle, there is little or no recoil, and it carries enough bullets to make me feel safe.

Getting between a sow and her piglets is no laughing matter, but let's look at the other end of the spectrum.

Warning! I don't like pictures like this either. Posing with dead animals appears to be a male thing, but I use this picture to illustrate my point . . . . . .

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This is not some internet "Hog-zilla" photograph. This picture was taken Christmas night, on my husband's cell phone of a boar hog that roamed our property. The neighbor shot him and came over for our help because he was too big to handle alone. Other Half took the picture to show me because I stayed in the cabin (by the fire) with the dogs.

THAT is what is running around on our ranch. We have game cameras set up all over our ranch. I easily estimate at least 30 hogs with piglets and several large boars roaming at all hours of the day and night. THAT is why I carry an AR-15 when I walk.

I am not at all worried about the coyotes, bobcats, (and reported cougar sightings) when I walk, but I would be a fool not to take precautions with something like these hogs. Because of that I carry the lightest rifle with the most firepower and least amount of recoil that I can handle. And while many would like to paint us as nutjobs who carry guns like this because we are unenlightened rednecks, such a broad sweeping notion just doesn't hold water.