Bleeding and weakened from the bullet wound in her chest, Susan Gonzalez aimed her husband's .22-caliber pistol, the one she hated, and emptied it into one of the robbers who had burst through the front door of her rural Jacksonville home.
Those shots ended the life of one robber, led to a life prison term for another and became an epiphany for Gonzalez, a 41-year-old mother of five who runs a photography studio.
Gonzalez had always feared guns, never wanted a gun and argued with her husband, Mike, to please not keep guns in their home.
"I hated guns, all of them," she said. "I was that scared of them that I didn't want them around."
That all changed that terror-filled night nearly three years ago when Susan Gonzalez fought for her life inside her family's home near Jacksonville International Airport.
She and her husband, 43, no longer argue about guns, and she goes almost nowhere without her holstered Taurus .38 Special. She sits with it while watching television and takes it outside to do yardwork.
She joined advocacy groups such as Women Against Gun Control and the Second Amendment Sisters.
And she became a vocal opponent of gun control, traveling to Washington in May to meet with President Clinton and counter-organizers of the Million Mom March, which organized a huge Mother's Day rally to support gun control legislation. She recently taped a segment scheduled to air on ABC-TV's 20/20 in the fall. And this month, she was filmed by a British TV crew for a documentary on Americans and guns.
Gonzalez's story is naturally compelling because she was anti-gun and because she successfully defended herself against an armed intruder after being shot herself, said Janalee Tobias, founder and president of Women Against Gun Control.
"Reality set in when I was shot," she said, "to the point where I realized why my husband and others had guns for self-defense."
As a mother of five, all now grown, Susan Gonzalez said she understands the gun control lobby's concerns about children getting access to guns. he said she believes in gun locks or unloading weapons that aren't being used. But she also believes people should have the right to keep an unlocked gun close by to protect themselves -- like she did.
"I feel I have the right to self-defense," she said, "and I feel that other people do, too."
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/071800/met_3568307.html
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