NEW YORK — Does Pamela Geller regret organizing the Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest that ended in gunfire?

No, she says confidently. In fact, she says, she probably saved lives by hosting the event and plans to have more just like it, with one difference: Next time, she’ll be wearing a bulletproof vest.

“I will continue to speak in defense of freedom until the day I die,” Geller said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press, as a grim-looking personal security guard hovered nearby. “It’s just that simple. It’s not even a choice. It’s a calling.”

Geller has always hired armed security personnel to protect the scores of events she has spearheaded across the nation in recent years to decry Islamic extremism. But furor over Sunday’s shooting in Garland, Texas, has led to a specific threat against Geller, posted on a website related to the Islamic State group, and the New York Police Department is taking it seriously. Now she doesn’t travel anywhere without protection.

Geller said she believes she saved lives by hosting the contest because the two Muslim gunmen shot to death by police would have picked another soft target and killed innocent civilians.

“Would you regret saving lives?” she asked.

A master of rhetoric and clearly comfortable in the spotlight, the 56-year-old former media executive shifts easily from charming to combative. Her critics have called the cartoon contest needlessly provocative, practically an invitation for violence. But Geller argued that any blame should be focused on extremists who can’t be criticized or lampooned without resorting to violence.

“Cartoons are political critique. It’s a cartoon,” she said. “Is that what we want to outlaw? We want to outlaw humor? We want to outlaw comedy? If you want to know who rules over you, find out who you cannot criticize.”

Her activities have prompted the Southern Poverty Law Center to add her to its extremist files, calling her “the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead.”