In real life, crime can be violent, but the good guys sometimes win.

How they win is the subject of North Bend writer and former Snoqualmie Valley Record editor Dave Workman’s new book, “America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age.”

Working with editor and publisher Alan Gottlieb, Workman, who is senior editor of Gun Week magazine, collected accounts of regular citizens who faced violent crime, but refused to be victims.

Workman originally planned to do a column for his magazine on the real-life heroes, but it was Gottlieb’s idea to turn it into a book. Their first draft of the 215-page book took six weeks. It was published this fall, and is now available through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

What sparked Workman’s book was an incident that took place in October of 2006 in Saucier, Miss., where residents Beth and Tommy Greer had returned home from the convenience store they ran and were confronted by an intruder. Tommy was shot and wounded, but Beth, 73, recovered a keepsake pistol, which had been owned by her former husband, and exchanged fire with the assailant, a convicted felon named Bobby Hardy. Hardy managed to escape the scene, but was mortally wounded.

Greer’s story prompted Workman to find others like it.

“From one incident, this whole project grew,” he said. Newspaper accounts and televised reports, along with data from gun advocacy groups and the FBI, coalesced as Workman researched. The result is his first hardcover book.

“Self defense is quite possibly the oldest existing human right,” Workman said. “Even back in the caveman era, there was this human right to self-preservation.” Humanity has advanced to the computer age, he added, but still has the same basic need for protection.

“The public has tried the kinder, gentler approach to criminals and it hasn’t worked,” Workman said. “Gun control laws have given us nothing but body counts, gun-free zones have been a disaster.”

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