When people talk about repealing the Second Amendment, they tend to labor under the delusion that the only ones who will be impacted are the criminals.

The reality, though, is that a repeal of the Second Amendment will have long-lasting ramifications that go well beyond the criminal element.

It’ll impact people like this South Carolina woman.

WALHALLA, SC (FOX Carolina) – The Oconee County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after a suspect entered a woman’s home on Wednesday.

Deputies said they received a 911 call around 1:45 p.m. about an intruder at a home on North Laurel Street.

According to investigators, a woman at the home was armed and pulled her gun on the suspect, who fled the scene.

That woman’s name is Keri Reeves and she spoke with FOX Carolina following the incident.

“I immediately thought, he going to get a gun, he’s about to shoot me. I’m not about to die in my own house,” said Reeves. “This could’ve been a very different situation had I not been properly armed.”

…

[Apprehended suspect Ralph Jake Goss, Jr.] appeared in bond court on Thursday where he was confronted by the victim.

“You came within 2.5 seconds of having a full clip unloaded into your skull,” she said. “Next time you will have the full clip unloaded.”

Now that just warms my heart.

Reeves admitted that, after things settled down and she was on the phone with police, she broke down.

“The severity of it hit me, and I was in hysterics. I was crying, I was scared, I was very shaken,” she told the local television station.

That’s normal. It’s probably more of a result of adrenaline dumping into and then leaving the system than anything else, but it’s still unsettling. Trust me, I know.

However, Reeves is dead on right that, had she been unarmed, things would have ended very differently.

A break-in like this is referred to as a “hot” burglary. These are particularly dangerous because the chances are high that the criminal knows there’s someone in the house and is fully prepared to hurt whoever it is.

Reeves, who was alone and female, may well have been singled out for those very things. The intruder likely thought she could easily be overpowered, and he might have had worse things in mind than just stealing from and beating her.

Yet, because Reeves was armed, she was on better footing to deal with a larger, stronger, and more aggressive attacker. She changed the criminal calculus in a heartbeat.

That’s what an armed citizenry can do. We can change how criminals think about targets. In time, we can make potentially violent crimes too damn risky for them. While it may push some to other kinds of crime, the kind that doesn’t risk anyone life or limb, it’ll push others out of the game entirely.

At a minimum, however, it’ll make people safer. Even if we have just as many people attempting violent crime, at least they’ll be met with armed resistance that will change the very nature of the confrontation.

We need more of it.