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Book Review
Outgunned!
Cumberland House Press, 2004.
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Robert A. Waters’ first book, The Best Defense, dramatically retold modern true stories of private citizens who successfully defended themselves with firearms. In Outgunned, Robert and his co-author John T. Waters, reach back into history to remind us that several notorious career criminals were stopped by armed citizens. Many Americans know about Jesse James, some know about the Dalton Gang, but how many know that these crooks and other nasty fellows were actually stopped by ordinary folks with firearms?
Outgunned reads like a thriller, delivering the factual accounts with dramatic pacing and vivid details. One of my favorite chapters is Chapter One: The Hog Gun. Telling the story of the tricky, conniving and manipulative bank robber, Henry Starr, this chapter gets you moving and, if you’re like me, you never stop reading. In Starr’s own words, it was a hog gun – a firearm modified for slaughtering hogs – that took him down. The notorious Starr was heard to say, “A hog gun, and a kid, too. I wouldn’t have minded it so much if a man had shot me. … a kid with a hog gun – that hurts my pride.”
Chapter Four, entitled “The Most Enterprising All-Black Town in America,” reveals how the African-American citizens of Boley, Oklahoma, brought down a group of white thugs who were linked to the “Pretty Boy” Floyd gang of homicidal bank robbers. This story isn’t about a single citizen who takes a lucky shot; there was “a regular war after the first shot was fired,” as folks bearing arms blasted the robbers as well as the get-away car and its driver.
Boley’s most prominent banker, Mr. Turner, personally stood up to the desperados, rang the bank’s alarm during the robbery, and refused to be a cowering victim. One of the gangsters did shoot and kill Mr. Turner there in the bank, but when he did, he unleashed the fury of the townspeople. None of the robbers escaped, and only one member of the gang survived his wounds. Interestingly, “Pretty Boy” Floyd himself had chosen not to be involved in robbing the bank in Boley because of the town’s reputation for fighting back. By that decision, Floyd avoided being killed in Boley that day.
The chapters in Outgunned are not quickie “armed citizen” blurbs, but are full stories about the criminals involved, the plans they made, the crimes they committed, and the ends they met. Because the authors supply these extra details, Outgunned actually provides an inside look at the way these kinds of criminals think and operate. The way the stories are told, you feel like you’re there watching the key events.
I recommend Outgunned for the sheer fun of it, and it’s a great gift for the adventure book readers you know. If you like action-packed stories where the good guys win for the right reasons, then you’ll really enjoy Outgunned.
Reviewed by Richard Stevens, Editor, The Bill
of Rights Sentinel