With tragic events such as the shooting of a bible study group at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, the stories of heroic self defense and lives saved by legal gun owners are often overlooked.

IN 2005, SAM ALLISON, a Tennessee housepainter in his 30s, arrived at Daniel Hoover Children’s Village, an orphanage outside Monrovia, Liberia. He’d come to adopt three children, but ended up with ...