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Have gun, will not fear it
anymore
By Paul Pinkham
Times-Union staff writer
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.
"She actually fired a gun," Tobias said. In most cases
where potential victims protect themselves, Tobias said, a
person is able to scare off an intruder simply by displaying
a weapon.
Gonzalez never imagined herself advocating gun owners'
rights. She still weeps at the memory of taking a man's life.
"I live every day knowing I had to shoot that boy," she
said.
But she said she thinks it's important that stories like hers
get told.
"Two and a half years ago I felt just like all them other
women [at the Million Mom March]," she said. "You hear
about criminals with guns, and you hear about kids
committing suicide with guns, but you never hear about the
self-defense aspect."
'I knew I was dead'
The 42 bullet holes police counted in the Gonzalez home
the morning of Aug. 2, 1997, are stark evidence of the
sheer terror the couple endured on the night that changed
their lives.
The night seemed to be winding down as any other. While
Mike Gonzalez slept, his wife sat on the couch watching
television and waiting for their 18-year-old son to arrive
home from a friend's house, where he had been playing
video games.
Susan Gonzalez remembers hearing the doorknob jiggle
about 12:40 a.m. She thought to herself as she walked
toward the door, "Wow, he's early."
Suddenly the door flew open and two masked men burst
into the doublewide wearing gloves and camouflage
jackets and waving guns. One of them ordered Susan
Gonzalez to lie down, but she ran. He chased her back to
the master bedroom, where she woke her husband and tried
to hold the door shut. She was shot in the chest.
"It burned like a fire going through me," she said.
As her husband, 43, wrestled with the two robbers in the
living room, Susan Gonzalez dialed 911, told the operator
they were being shot, gave her address and hung up. She
then grabbed her husband's Ruger .22 from a drawer in the
headboard and, fearing she would hit her husband by
mistake, fired several shots over the robbers' heads to
scare them off.
It didn't work.
"One came towards me firing, and I ran," she said. "After
running to my bedroom, the intruder didn't follow me all
the way . . . because he now knew I had a gun also."
She peered out from her bedroom doorway and saw one of
the gunmen, Raymond Waters Jr., crouched near her
refrigerator. She crept along the wall, sneaked up behind
him and emptied the Ruger, hitting him twice with her
seven or eight remaining bullets. The other gunman, Robert
Walls, then shot Susan Gonzalez, now out of ammunition,
as she retreated to the bedroom again.
"I was standing in my closet asking for forgiveness of my
sins, because I knew I was dead," she recalled.
Reality sets in
Walls fled from the house but returned when he found the
robbers' getaway driver had left. He put a gun to Susan
Gonzalez's head and demanded the keys to the couple's
truck. As he sped off, the truck ran over Waters, who had
staggered outside.
Walls, 24, is serving five life prison terms for
second-degree felony murder, armed robbery, armed
burglary and two counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Louie T. Wright, 27, the getaway driver, pleaded guilty to
robbery and was sentenced to five years.
Susan and Mike Gonzalez, each shot twice during the
gunbattle, were treated at area hospitals. She required lung
surgery. His injuries were less serious, and he went home
in three days.
Nancy Hwa, a spokeswoman for the Center to Prevent
Handgun Violence, was reluctant to criticize Gonzalez.
"Every incident is different," she said. "In this particular
case, she certainly was justified using whatever means
necessary to defend herself."
But the compelling story obscures the fact that "incidences
like Ms. Gonzalez's are very rare," Hwa said, citing
statistics that show firearms are far less likely to be used in
self-defense than in suicides, accidental shootings or
homicides involving members of the same household. And,
she said, the center believes having a handgun escalates the
potential for violence.
"People have to weigh the risk of losing a TV, jewelry or
whatever vs. losing their life," Hwa said.
The statistics don't matter to Susan Gonzalez.
"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."
Living in fear
In April, Mike and Susan Gonzalez traveled to New York
to be interviewed for a TV talk show pilot with 20/20's
John Stossel. It was the first time since the robbery she had
been without her gun for any significant length of time, and,
as she and her husband dined at a steakhouse, she got
scared about walking back to their hotel.
"I told my husband, 'Take one of their steak knives,'" she
said.
At home, they live behind burglar bars. The doors and
windows are always locked. And there's the ever-present
pistol.
"That's sad to have to live that way, but it's the only way I
can feel comfortable," Susan Gonzalez said.
Her fears were only heightened when she and her husband
were crime victims again in March. Burglars used an ax
from their shed to break down the burglar bars on the back
door while they weren't home. Among the items stolen --
the Ruger .22 she used to shoot Waters.
Police are still recovering weapons taken in the burglary --
a 9mm turned up in Virginia last week -- but the Ruger
remains missing.
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. She questions some
positions taken by the National Rifle Association. Neither
she nor her husband are members.
"I think they're a little over-the-top, but I think . . . they're
doing it [because] they're afraid once it starts, then it's not
going to stop," she said, referring to legislation limiting gun
owners' rights. "They're trying to preserve Second
Amendment rights."
She 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."