by Cope Reynolds

My wife was born and raised in the People's Republic of Kalifornia. Lusting for freedom, she contacted me via a secure internet connection in the fall of 2009, and we began planning her escape. By 20 October, we were ready to execute our plan, and I headed to the PRK. Two days later, under cover of darkness, we headed towards freedom. On 24 October, we were married. 

Like many people who have escaped from the belly of the beast, one of her very first ambitions was to obtain a handgun and be able to freely exercise her constitutionally protected right to provide for her own defense. The next thing on the agenda was training. She took several of my handgun classes and became a daily carrier of a Glock 26. She will not walk out of the house without it!

So, where am I going with all this? Well, stay with me…

On Valentine's Day of 2012, I got a text that said, "You need to come home. I shot Snaps." I thought, "Oh great!" I had visions of getting home and finding Snaps standing beside the fence on quivering legs with blood running out of both nostrils and a very distraught woman with a gun in her hand.

I wasn't really looking forward to it. You see, Snaps was a very large Billy goat that we had raised from a wee kid, and he loved Amy. Everyone else, not so much, but he loved Amy… until Valentine's Day of 2012.

On that morning, Amy got up like every day, got dressed (which included putting on her gun), and headed out to feed the animals before coming into town to work. She helped me at our gun shop. But that day was different.

That day, she and our youngest daughter went out to feed and were greeted by a very large, very unhappy billy goat standing spraddle-legged in the middle of the trail with his head down and smoke coming from his nostrils. Amy recognized immediately that this wasn't going to go well. In the first place, he should have been in the very sturdy pen that I built for him. To this day, we have no idea how he got out of it.

Well, it all went downhill from there.

Understanding that the wheels were about to fall off this situation, Amy told our daughter to go lock herself in the pen with the baby goats while she kept the goat's attention. Snaps became more aggressive, and the two of them danced around a tree for a little bit before Amy was able to seize an opportunity to run towards the feed shed. He caught up with her and knocked her down from behind.

She regained her feet, made it to the shed, and slammed the door behind her, thinking she would be safe. Wrong! Snaps began butting the door until he eventually broke it down. Just to emphasize the size and power of this goat, this door was very solid, built of 2x4s and plywood. It also opened to the outside and closed against a solid stop. When Snaps got done with it, it opened to the inside!

OK, so now Amy and Mr. Attitude are in this little 10'x12′ shed together, and Amy has no way to escape.

Left with no other option, she quickly presents her Glock 26 and fires a single shot at his head. At the very instant that she pulled the trigger, he lowered his head to charge, causing the bullet to first go through a horn and then into the body. Snaps kind of sat back on his haunches, his eyes rolled back in his head, and, assuming he was done for, Amy quickly sidestepped him and made her escape out the door.