Good Guy with a Gun #147: El Llano, NM
The right to keep and bear tennis rackets and fire extinguishers shall not be infringed. | Original incident: March 19, 2024
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. If you bought or received a calendar, contact me for a complementary subscription. Today’s post is significantly updated from the calendar version.
Here’s a free link to one of the sources.
For home protection, there’s nothing like a good firearm… and a tennis racket… and a fire extinguisher. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Anyway, this incident is actually two Good Guy with a Gun stories in one, though there’s very little detail given about the first one. It started at Robert Martinez’s house: He had some kind of run-in with someone, and “shots were fired.”
I suspect they were fired by the homeowner, because the perpetrator left his property and the later news article doesn’t mention any charges in relation to those shots. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
The gunshots and the sound of people yelling woke up Cynthia Varela next door, and thus begins story number two.
She woke her husband, Ross. They saw Robert outside, approaching their house with a flashlight. Then someone else jumped the fence from Robert’s yard onto their property.
Ross grabbed his .22 rifle while Cynthia called 911. They headed down to their kitchen, joined by their 17-year-old nephew, with Cynthia still on the line.
The man entered the kitchen and fell down — and a gun slid across the floor.1 Cynthia grabbed and sequestered it somewhere. Ross pointed the rifle at the man, saying, “Don’t move, don’t move!”
He moved, grabbing the rifle barrel.
Nephew started thwacking him hard with a tennis racket. Really hard — the racket was deformed and dented, leaving injuries to the man’s head and bruising, swelling, and some deep cuts on his arms. (He hit his uncle Ross once, too.) To no avail, though. The man wouldn’t let go.
So Ross pulled the trigger.
I won’t leave you high and dry: Here’s a link to one of the Rio Grande Sun stories.
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