Mossad ayoob biography of mahatma

Massad Ayoob likes to talk about how he once fended off three bruising troublemakers on a dark city street. He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a matchbook with a $10 bill tucked in the fold.

“Have some beers on me, boys,” he said, flipping the peace offering to the biggest thug. Before any of them could say a word, he was past them and down the street. Ayoob, of course, was armed, as he has been since the age of 11, when his father taught him how to shoot. He has received advanced tactical police training and is a part-time Grantham, N.H., police officer.

Over the years, he has written hundreds of articles on handgun techniques, invented a grip that carries his name, won quick-draw shooting derbies and even trained police instructors in the combat use of firearms.

And he has never fired a shot in self-defense.

“I believe that citizens have the right to kill in defense of innocent life,” he says. “But too many people believe they have the right to shoot a suspected criminal-say a thief in flight-when no such right exists. That mistake can ruin your life.”

At 45, small and lean, Ayoob jokes that he looks very much like a potential victim. He mocks this self-image when he teaches at the Lethal Force Institute here, one of the few handgun training centers for civilians in the country.

To Ayoob, gun ownership is the final and most vital element in a self-protection network that includes alarms, lights, locks, extra phone lines, a dog, a home-defense plan and proper weapons training. In this he is at deep odds with handgun-control advocates, because he insists that in an American society bedeviled by violence, every civilian has a responsibility to learn how a firearm works.

But Ayoob is also a pariah to the National Rifle Association, because he advocates mandatory uniform licensing for handgun owners who want to carry a firearm in public. His proposal includes eyesight, written and skills tests that would be administered much like state-by-state driving tests.

“Massad performs a very important service to civilians,” said Michael Yacino, executive director of the Gun Owners Action League of New England and a life member of the NRA. “But on competency tests I totally disagree with him. Owning a gun is a constitutional right, not a legal privilege like driving a car. People should be responsible enough to become competent on their own.”

Ayoob, whose writings include “The Eight Dangerous Myths of Self-Defense,” is quick to stand his ground.

“To the gun owners who say this abridges their rights, I say, `No, this is the best way to guarantee your rights,’ ” he insists.

Without such tests, which he believes would renew the public’s confidence in handgun ownership, Ayoob says that gun-control advocates will continue to win support for curbing access to firearms, even among the law-abiding.

Ayoob hopes never to have to fire at what he will always refer to as “a predator,” and his reasons are deeply personal. Both his grandfather, in Syria, and his father, in Boston, were shopkeepers. Both were shot and maimed by assailants whom they themselves were then forced to shoot dead. Both men bore the scars of having killed for the rest of their lives.

“I want this mark of Cain off the Ayoob family name,” he says. “Yes, I would shoot to rescue the innocent, but there is no glory in it. Only pain.”

Originally Published: