Nebraska Sheriff Praises Woman For Exercising 2A Rights After ‘Suspicious’ Inquiry About Chickens

By Cam Edwards Bearing Arms

The vast majority of defensive gun uses in this country don't involve a trigger being pulled, according to researchers, and it's generally pretty rare for any incident that ends with the display of a firearm to receive any news coverage or publicity from local police departments. But the sheriff in Lincoln County, Nebraska had high praise for a woman in the tiny town of Hershey (population 645) after she displayed her handgun to defuse a suspicious encounter with strangers who took a keen interest in her chickens.

According to Sheriff Jerome Kramer, a vehicle unknown to the resident pulled up at her home and started honking the horn before a stranger got out and knocked on the door.

A middle eastern or Indian women came to the door and knocked. The resident answered and the female grabbed her hand, in broken English asked her to speak with her husband. The owner refused and went back in her residence and retrieved a pistol and put it in her pocket. She again met with the female who attempted to pull her by the hand toward the vehicle to speak with her husband.

When the resident approached the vehicle and began speaking with the man, he told her he wanted to buy some chickens from the homeowner, flashing cash and refusing to take the woman's “no” for an answer. That's when the man stepped out of the vehicle and began to approach the woman, who noticed there was a “large machete” in the front seat area of the SUV.

The homeowner then drew her pistol, at which point the man exclaimed “We leave!” He and the woman then got into the SUV and drove off.

A large amount of on and off duty Deputies and Nebraska State Troopers responded to the area searching for the vehicle. The homeowner advised the vehicle left westbound on Highway 30 from Hershey. After several hours the vehicle was not found and assumed to be out of the area.

Because of the cultural and language issues this may have been an entirely innocent incident. However, the Sheriff's Office applauds the female homeowner for using her 2nd Amendment Right to protect herself, family, and property.

As Sheriff Kramer notes, this could have just been an innocent encounter, but there's also no guarantee that was the case. The couple in the SUV could also have been looking to case the home and were probing to see who else might have been on the property before going after more than the homeowner's poultry.

The most surprising part of the story to me is that the woman's encounter led to such a large response from the sheriff's office and the Nebraska State Patrol, but maybe it was a quiet evening without much else going on. Regardless, it sounds like the homeowner did the right thing here. She was concerned for her safety when strangers showed up at her doorstep but only displayed her firearm when she had reason to believe that those individuals weren't really interested in her backyard flock. And like most defensive gun uses, the presence of her firearm was enough to defuse the situation and send the strangers on their way with no harm… and no fowl.

Find the original article in its entirety on Bearing Arms.