A home invasion prompted Washington Times Senior Editor Emily Miller into action, for fear the perpetrators would return.
It took four months to get approval, but she got a gun.
"I was like, 'What if these guys came back and what if it happens again?' D.C. has an increasing crime rate. This is what I need to do to protect myself," Miller told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Thursday.
The trauma of the home invasion promoted Miller to write a book about gun ownership and gun control titled, "Emily Gets Her Gun … But Obama Wants to Take Yours."
"I was dogsitting for friends and walked into the house and found a man robbing it," she said. "It was obviously terrifying. Thank God I wasn't physically harmed in any way but I decided I was going to follow him down the street, just to get a picture for the police and found 15 of his buddies around the corner who saw me— I ran."
Miller, who says she first shot a gun only two years ago, believes the process of background checks for getting a gun is flawed. She indicated mental health and felony records need to be a part of the system for approving who can own a gun legally.
"Mental health records are not being put in, in a lot of states. The felony records are not being put in. That absolutely needs to be done," she said.
The media is also to blame in the gun debate, Miller maintained, with confusion over the definition of military weapons, assault weapons and high-powered rifles.
"I absolutely believe there is a lot of language being used — that high capacity magazine, high-powered rifle, high-powered ammo don't mean anything. I think a lot of media uses them, without quotation marks, incorrectly," Miller said.
"My point is only that the AR-15s and the military assault weapons and the military-style weapons people are scared of — they are 100 percent not functioning any different than a hunting rifle," she added.
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