A Valentine’s Day Love Story That Refuses to Be Helpless
Valentine’s Day still matters to me. Flowers. Dinner. Time together.
But after surviving the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting, love carries a deeper meaning now.
That night, 58 people were murdered. Hundreds more were wounded or forever changed in minutes of chaos and terror. I walked out alive, but not unchanged. What I learned is simple and unshakable:
Love isn’t just romance.
Love is refusing to be helpless when everything goes wrong.
I grew up listening to Guns N’ Roses—loud, raw, unapologetic. Back then, it was just music. Now I hear it as a metaphor for life: beauty and violence existing side by side, whether we like it or not.
This year, my Valentine’s gift to my girlfriend wasn’t jewelry or a card.
It was a Sig P365 Rose Edition—placed beside two dozen roses, a Sig Rose Edition Hat & Rose Edition T-shirt and, more importantly, committed, professional training.
Not because I’m afraid.
Because I love her.
Love That Refuses to Be Helpless
Route 91 shattered the illusion of safety. Shots echoed. People dropped. Panic swallowed everything. I was there. I survived. Many didn’t.
That night rewired my definition of love.
“I love you” now also means: I won’t leave you unprepared.
When I was in my 20’s, I was an EMT for almost 5 years in Anaheim, Buena Park, Southgate & Compton. When Julie was shot in the back, I didn’t freeze. I assessed her injuries, extracted her from the venue, moved her to triage, into an ambulance, and got her to the ER. She lived through a wound that should have taken her life.
Later, she tattooed a 5.56 round over her entry wound scar with two words:
Not Today.
Not today I die.
Not today I give up.
Not today I’m powerless.
That defiance became the foundation of everything that followed, including the name of my company: Not Today Self-Defense & Firearms Training.
Guns and Roses, Finally Understood
Roses are softness. Beauty. Intention.
Guns are responsibility. Discipline. Readiness.
One without the other is incomplete.
I didn’t give her a firearm because I expect violence. I gave it to her for the same reason I gave her flowers: because I want her safe, strong, and able to come home.
Real love holds both.
Tenderness and teeth.
A Full Circle Moment
This year, something else happened, something quieter, but just as meaningful.
When Julie is ready, I’ll be signing off on her concealed carry permit in the same county where we were raised and still live. The same place where our lives began, long before Route 91 changed everything.
After Las Vegas, nothing felt linear. Survival fractured time. For years, life felt like movement without resolution. But standing here now—years later—there’s a sense of completion I didn’t know I needed.
That night, my hands were focused on stopping the bleeding and getting her out alive.
Now, those same hands acknowledge what she’s become.
Not as someone being protected.
Not as someone being allowed.
But as a capable, trained woman, choosing responsibility for herself.
Life doesn’t always come full circle.
But sometimes, if you keep walking, it does.
Strength You Can Feel in Your Body
Over the last several years, I have put in the work and earned NRA and USCCA certification as an instructor, as well as California Department of Justice P.O.S.T. certification as a Firearms Instructor, turning survival into something useful and actionable.
But self-defense doesn’t stop when the threat is over.
I’m also a certified American Red Cross First Aid, CPR, and AED instructor, and a Stop the Bleed® trainer, because knowing how to defend yourself is only half the equation. The other half is knowing how to treat an injury when someone is bleeding, broken, or barely breathing.
Violence doesn’t end cleanly.
Sometimes the fight is over, and the real work begins.
Basic self-defense means stopping the bleeding.
Keeping air moving.
Buying time when time is all that’s left.
That’s why medical skills aren’t optional in my training. They’re part of the responsibility that comes with being prepared.
Confidence That Goes Beyond the Trigger
Training isn’t bravado. It’s competence.
It’s learning to stay calm when your heart is hammering.
To move with purpose instead of panic.
To trust yourself under pressure.
We train awareness first—reading environments, recognizing danger early, listening to that quiet inner voice that says something’s off. Skills are built deliberately, under stress, so confidence isn’t imagined—it’s earned.
And we train what comes after—the moments when someone is hurt, blood is real, and help is still minutes away.
Watching her transform from cautious to capable is one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever experienced.
There’s a strange weight in being the one who now trains the woman who was standing beside me that night. The same hands that pulled her from chaos now guide her through disciplined preparation. Every drill carries memory. Every step forward is built on what we survived together.
Training her isn’t about erasing the past—it’s about making sure helplessness never gets the last word.
This is empowerment.
Not waiting to be rescued.
Knowing you can protect yourself—and keep someone alive.
The Story That Continues
Survival doesn’t end when the bleeding stops. Recovery is its own fight.
One year after Route 91, I organized the Route 91 Memorial Ride, not as a protest or spectacle, but as a remembrance. We rode to honor those who didn’t make it home, to say their names out loud, and to refuse silence once the headlines faded.
Preparedness looks forward.
Remembrance honors what came before.
In 2019, Julie and I shared our story on the Country Strong Survivors Podcast, not for sympathy, but to show what resilience actually looks like after mass violence. Survivors speaking in their own voices. Choosing to live fully again.
Preparedness matters.
So does healing.
Why This Matters to the Men Who Love Them
If you’re a husband, partner, father, or brother — this isn’t about fear or control.
It’s about respect.
You can’t be everywhere. You can’t stop everything.
But you can invest in training that gives the women you love the ability to act, whether that moment calls for defense, first aid, or both.
This isn’t buying a product.
It’s building capability.
A Love Forged in Fire
I never imagined giving a pistol and two dozen roses as a Valentine’s gift.
I never imagined building a life and a business out of survival.
But life doesn’t ask permission.
This isn’t about living in fear.
It’s about living ready.
So if the world turns dark again, we’re not victims, we’re prepared.
This Valentine’s Day, I gave her flowers for the beauty we share, and training for the promise that we make it home.
Because real love isn’t fragile.
It’s resilient.
It’s disciplined.
It’s ready.
Guns and roses.
Soft enough to love.
Strong enough to fight.