July 18, 2011 8:32PM # Even Imaginary Guns Save Lives By [Ilya Shapiro](https://www.cato.org/people/ilya-shapiro) --- SHARE Because we care about individual liberty here, we think you should be able to engage in self-defense to protect that liberty (and your life, if it comes to that). That includes the right to armed self-defense, of course, a right that becomes all the more important when encountering potential assailants who are stronger and/​or more numerous than you. Indeed [you might recall](https://www.cato.org/pubs/scr/2008/Heller_Neily.pdf) from the legal fight to guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms, that my colleague Tom Palmer once fended off some anti-gay marauders by just showing them that he had a gun. And now we see that same story play itself out, except the would-be victim [scared off a homophobic gang](http://advocate.com/Politics/Commentary/Op-Ed__How_An_Imaginary_Gun_Saved_My_Life/) by merely maintaining *the impression* that he had a gun: > The situation could have gone either way: I could end up beaten or dead, or we could all go our separate ways. > > > All I could think to do was to get to my backpack and find my phone. As I fumbled for the phone, I heard one of them say, “Does he have a gun?” > > > So I kept my hand in my backpack, allowing them to wonder whether I was reaching for a gun. Then a couple of them started to run away, and the others soon followed. I got back on my bike and pedaled as fast as I could out of there. > > > When I got home, I began to reflect on what had happened, and more disturbingly what could have happened. I am in contact with the LGBT unit of the police department to file a report. But I’ve thought a lot about the turning point of the situation — the fact that one of them thought that I might have a gun. None of them said, “There’s a law against antigay hate crimes!” That wasn’t the deterrent. It was the possibility that I might have had a gun that saved my life Friday night. It’s unfortunate that the people Mr. LaSalvia encountered are around — whatever their motivations — but would we be in a better world if people like him couldn’t imply the potential for armed self-defense? Of course, in DC, Chicago, and many other places — which, after the recent Supreme Court rulings, must allow guns to be kept at home — it’s still illegal to carry a gun (open or concealed). If the thugs Mr. LaSalvia ran into knew the local gun regulations (as many professional criminals do) and accurately gauged their target as a law-abiding citizen, they would have known that he was bluffing. Is that what gun-control proponents — many of whom I surmise strongly support gay and women’s rights — want? (H/​t: Lindsay Charles) ##### Related Tags [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).