“You constantly hear the left talk about ‘empowering’ women, But the advice [women being stalked] receive is, consider changing your name, move, get a restraining order. The woman has to completely change her life and live like a hermit because some creep can’t take no for an answer. I believe in empowering women with a firearm, and if that were discussed as an option more often, it would save innocent lives.”

–Nikki Goeser

On the evening of Thursday, April 2, 2009, Nikki Goeser’s stalker shot her husband Benjamin in the head, killing him instantly, then stood over him and dumped six more rounds into his lifeless body.

Nikki was powerless to do anything but watch her husband die, in part because she obeyed her state’s laws mandating gun-free zones.

Ben and I used to run a karaoke business in the evenings, and I would usually carry my permitted concealed handgun with me. But, at the time, Tennessee did not allow carrying in restaurants that served alcohol. While I obeyed the law, Ben’s murderer did not. He had no permit to carry, and he brought the gun into a gun-free zone.

The murderer shot my husband seven times in front of fifty witnesses. The whole attack was recorded by the restaurant’s security cameras.

Two years before to her husband’s brutal murder, two University of Tennessee students were kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered. Nikki Goeser, who worked at the university, began legally carrying a concealed firearm for self-defence shortly afterward.

Two years later, Nikki made the same terrible mistake Suzanna Hupp did in Killeen, Texas, 25 years earlier. She left her legally-owned gun in her car because state law said she could not take it into a restaurant.

“This man had never been to the Karaoke venue we were working on that night, and it was at this point that I determined he could be trouble. I immediately became concerned, realizing this man was indeed stalking me. I told my husband I was going to have management remove him. I went to management and told them I was being stalked and needed the man removed.”

The restaurant manager confronted Hank Wise and told him to leave the premises. But instead of leaving, Wise pulled out his 45 caliber pistol, came up behind Ben, and shot him in the head. When Ben fell to the ground, Wise stood over him and continued to fire more rounds into him.

Nicole said the moment she realized Wise was reaching into his jacket to pull out a firearm, her first thought was, “‘Oh my God, I don’t have my gun!’ Once he began firing, I felt completely helpless and in disbelief.”

Like Suzanna Hupp with her parents, Nikki Goeser watched her husband die in front of her because she obeyed the law.

Like Hupp 25 years earlier, Goeser’s experience turned her into a staunch advocate for self defence and committed opponent of gun-free zones.

Also like Hupp, Nikki Goeser fought tirelessly and succeeded in changing Tennessee law so no other wife would suffer the same fate she did.

“I want to educate people out there, especially women, about the dangers of gun-free zones. I’m most proud any time I get a message from a woman who has been touched by my story and has started to think about her own safety. It lets me know that what I’m doing isn’t in vain.”

If you want to read more about Nikki Goeser’s story and her fight to end gun-free zones in Tennessee, she published her experiences in “Stalked And Defenseless: How Gun Control Helped My Stalker Murder My Husband in Front of Me.”