"I Carry" wrote in message
...

About 5 years ago, just before Christmas, my son was car jacked coming
home
from an evening with his friends. He was on the way home, pulled over to
buy some gas and continued on his way. When he stopped at a stop sign, the
car jacker jumped in the passenger door with a gun in his hand. He ordered
my son to drive giving him directions. During the "ride" the car jacker
was
leaning out of the passenger window wildly pointing the gun at passing
cars
and people on the street.

After getting to the car jacker's destination, he told my son to stop.
Then
he demanded my son take off his new and expensive leather coat. My son is
a
weight lifter and extremely strong. At that point, my son did something
quite stupid. Rather than taking off his jacket, he reached over to the
car
jacker and grabbed him intending to beat the hell out of him. During the
struggle, the car jacker managed to get off a shot. The bullet went
through
my son's neck and lodged in the opposite shoulder where it still is today.
The bullet just grazed his neckbone and missed the major arteries and
esophagous. A fraction of an inch either way and he would have been dead.

The car jacker then jumped out of the car and got into another car and
drove away. Witnesses heard the struggle and got the other cars
description. My son stepped on the gas to drive away. He made it about a
block or so when he started to lose conciousness and crashed into a tree.
He was able to get out of the car and went to the nearest house to call
for
help. He knocked at the door, told the homeowner he had been shot and
needed help. The homeowner told him to get out or he would shoot him
again.
He went to a second house calling for help. At the second house he lost
conciousness on the porch and that was where the ambulance picked him up.

I'll not bother with the rest of the story including the total
incompetance
of the police department (that is a story in it's own). Trust me when I
tell you that police departments don't give a damn and can be prejudiced
when the detective is the same race as the car jacker. This includes lying
by the detective on his final report. Think a little bit about how my wife
and I reacted when we got the call from the hospital. Think about the
agony
a parent suffers when there is the real possibility that your child might
not make it.

The moral of the story is this, had my son been carrying, he could have
pulled his weapon while the car jacker was leaning out the window wildly
waving the gun around. The car jacker would have been the one at the
receiving end.

Does my son carry today, do I carry today? You can bet your life on it.

I hope you have also learned to lock your doors when driving.