Georgians should be thankful that they live in a free territory that fully embraces the Second Amendment. Not all Americans are so fortunate. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than in the nation's very own capital. Deprived of their constitutional right to keep and bear arms for 37 years, Washingtonians only now have been granted the right to protect themselves within the sanctity of their home. And it's about time.

A native Atlantan, I lived in the District during the late '80s and early '90s. It was during my freshman year at Howard University that I witnessed — no more than 15 feet away — a young man shot multiple times at close range. The air immediately filled with screams of grief and terror, which eventually yielded to the blaring claim that help was on the way. But help that day came too late. By the time the police and paramedics arrived, the perpetrator was long gone and the young man already dead.

Quite shaken by the whole ordeal, I tuned into the evening news in an attempt to glean more information about the shooting. There was no mention of it whatsoever. My search through the next day's newspaper proved equally futile. What I thus came to realize was that bloodshed on the capital's streets was no longer newsworthy. It was instead a very common occurrence that had led to the city being dubbed the "murder capital."

Over the next four years, Washington's criminal element worked overtime at defending its unflattering title. I heard the pop pop pop of gunfire quite frequently, and many of my treks to and from campus required my navigating around freshly spilled blood. Yet despite my living in such a dangerously violent city, the desire to arm myself never once entered my mental crosshairs. After all, most of the carnage was isolated to drug dealers feuding over turf. I was an upstanding, law-abiding citizen. I was a college student. I was immune.

Or so I thought.

It was several years later that I realized that no one is immune to society's wanton violence, not in the streets, not even in one's own home. Having graduated from Howard and returned to the Atlanta area, I was renting an apartment in a very quiet community. Although all my neighbors were friendly, respectable people, one young lady's sometime live-in boyfriend was quite the exception. Rather than working, Clifford spent his days loafing around his girlfriend's apartment, playing cards with his buddies, smoking blunts and drinking.

One night I returned home well past midnight, only to be approached by Clifford in the breezeway. Sloppy drunk and locked out of his girlfriend's apartment, he demanded that I let him crash at my place for the night. I refused, locked my door and climbed into bed. A few minutes later, he began banging on my window. When I rolled over and tried to ignore him, he commenced to kick my door over and over and over.

Boom.

Boom.

As I lay there listening to the loud, hollow thud, a similarly hollow feeling quickly overcame me. It was the empty, sickening feeling of helplessness. With no back door as a means of escape, and armed only with a large bedside stick, I realized just how defenseless I would be were there a real threat on the other side of the door.

The next day I purchased my first handgun, not to protect myself against an obnoxious drunk but rather to protect myself against a stranger intent on doing me bodily harm. Statistically, I realize the chances are small that an intruder will kick down my door in the middle of the night, or that I might be attacked on the street or on MARTA or in the all-night Kroger parking lot. But we all know it does happen.

God forbid I'm ever involved in a violent attack, but if I am, I would rather end it with a bang than a whimper.

Kevin Luttery is an Atlanta writer.