IMHO, guns also save lives. Nothing deters an would-be assaulter better than a bullet in the foot. I doubt he would have stayed under the bed if she had no weapon and had pled with him to stay away from her.

I loved Strangers; I got my hands on it when I had just started reading Dean Koontz’s books. Since then I have read plenty of his novels, but Strangers is still one of his best novels to me, along with Watchers, Demon Seed, Servants of Twilight, and Phantoms.