The way Fox reporter Emily Miller tells the story, she had been out walking her friend's dog in suburban Washington, DC, when she returned home to find a thief in the house.

Miller says the man stole her purse and she chased him outside, only to be confronted by about 15 men who started "running at me" near the bottom of the driveway.

Terrified, she returned inside and called the police. It was that night, Miller says, that, for "the first time in my life, I thought: 'I just wish I had a gun by my night table.Then I could defend myself if those men come in.' "

In the following years, Miller, the chief investigative reporter for Fox's WTTG-TV, went on to become a well-known gun proponent. She immortalised her story in her book Emily Gets Her Gun ... But Obama Wants to Take Yours and even appeared in a National Rifle Association re-enactment of the robbery.