NEW BOOK***Guns and Self-Defense***NEW BOOK

Guns and Self-Defense: 23 Inspirational True Crime Stories of Survival with Firearms

by Robert A. Waters and Sim Waters

I’ve often wondered why ID Discovery, the self-described true crime television network, rarely, if ever, features a story of “righteous” armed self-defense.

Here’s a case they could use, directly from the new book, Guns and Self-Defense: 23 Inspirational True Crime Stories of Survival with Firearms, co-written by myself and my son, Sim Waters.  (All these stories are dramatic, poignant, and inspirational.  Using police case files, one-on-one interviews with would-be victims, transcripts of 9-1-1 calls, court documents, and local news stories, this book provides the “inside scoop” on what happened in nearly 2 dozen riveting cases.)

In “Demise of the Cutthroat Committee,” we describe the violent invasion of the home of Foster and Pam Coker in Jacksonville, Florida.  The “Cutthroat Committee,” as they called themselves, was a makeshift gang—they’d all been in prison and each member’s life was spent preying on others.  The Cokers, on the other hand, were hard-working Christians whose seven-year-old grandson happened to be spending the night.

Early on the morning of August 15, 2014, Marquise Trevel Yates, armed with a Beretta .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun that held a “30-clip,” kicked down the door of the Coker home and brutally attacked Pam, who was dressing for work.  Foster, still in the bedroom, heard the commotion and ran out to help Pam.  A brutal physical fight ensued, with Pam and Foster both eventually shooting Yates, killing him.  While the homeowners suffered life-altering injuries during the struggle, their grandson was physically unharmed.  Cops chalked it up as just another case of “justifiable homicide.”

Other members of the Committee had been involved in the attempted heist and were quickly rounded up and arrested.  Fortunately for Jacksonville, the Cokers’ defense of their lives resulted in the destruction of the so-called Cutthroat Committee.

This story, based on an interview with Foster as well as police reports and local news sources, will leave you in tears.  The violence inflicted on this law-abiding family will amaze and anger you, but their courage will inspire you.

Oh yeah, one other little detail.  Had the family no had guns in the house, they, and probably their grandson, would be dead.  And yet, this is not the whole story.  In this and other cases in our book, the dramatic “story behind the story” is often as exciting as the climax.

Now here’s a word to the producers of ID Discovery: forget your tired, standard fare and try something new and exciting, like filming the story of the cop whose life was saved because an armed passerby shot his murderous attacker dead.  Or the woman who single-handedly stopped a carjacking ring in Milwaukee.  Or the wheelchair-bound invalid who ended a violent home invasion.

If you produce it, they will come.