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The Armed Citizen, The NRA ‘American Rifleman’ Magazine, Nov 2025.

An armed mother in Mississippi used her firearm to shoot an allegedly diseased monkey that had escaped from an overturned truck, according to police.

The mother of five armed herself after her 16-year-old son reported that he thought he had seen a monkey running around outside of the family's Heidelberg, Miss., home. After getting out of bed and arming herself, she stepped outside and saw the monkey approximately 60 feet away. She and other residents had been warned that the monkey was allegedly carrying diseases, so she fired.

“I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” the woman told The Associated Press. “I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that’s when he fell.”

The encounter occurred after a widely reported October 14 incident on a Mississippi highway, when a truck carrying a number of Rhesus monkeys overturned, allowing several animals to escape captivity. The driver of the vehicle told responding officers that the monkeys were aggressive and dangerous, requiring handling using personal protective equipment. The sheriff's office initially reported that the monkeys were carrying a number of diseases, but the department later retracted that claim, stating that all the monkeys within the transport had recently been checked to confirm that they were pathogen-free. (The Associated Press; Heidelberg, Miss.; 11/3/25)