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15-Year Old Boy Uses AR-15 to Defend Himself, Sister Against Home Invaders

bicycleman said:
Canada has some very strict gun regulations. How is that working out for you guys?
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Fine for now. As far as I know, the Canadian Government hasn't done things like what's mentioned in this post though:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/break...l-guns-weekly-standard-29.html#post1061346517

So it's less of a concern. Also, I think our social safety net is much stronger then the U.S. social safety nets, which I believe means that less people are left to fall through into madness.

To its credit, the conservative party here did recently destroy the long gun registry (small arms) at any rate. The downside is that long guns are pretty much the only weapon that almost all civilians are allowed to own. To be honest, I would love it if we could trust our governments to never use such registries to confiscate weapons, but history has taught us time and again that tyranical governments frequently do confiscate people's weapons right before becoming completely totalitarian and having a registry can almost be seen as someone posting a sign on people's backs labelled "grab my guns whenever you please, I've already told you I have some".
 
Soooo...Good for the kid. I'm glad he was able to protect himself and his sister. I don't really know anything about guns so I'm not going to be able to say much more than that although I am a bit frustrated that gun control has become this whole big issue after the sandy hook shooting. Has anyone even asked why it happened or do we just jump to the conclusion that it's because guns are evil and they need to go?

We should put this issue on the back-burner for a bit while we do a case study on the sandy hook shooting and other similar ones, find out what's really going on and then come up with a real and appropriate solution. Meanwhile congress can get back to the whole sequestration issue because I know people who might lose their jobs if that goes through and honestly it's a bit more important than people just randomly shooting their mouths off about an issue that they don't really know anything about because they (big generalization I know) don't ask the real questions they just magically come to their own conclusions.
 
Risky Thicket said:
One might ask why you would want to kill someone as opposed to stopping them from harming you and yours, but I'm fairly certain that you are not given to philosophy at any level...ahem. You seem to be the kind of person most gun owners want to avoid being associated with, if you are old enough to own a gun. Your attitude does not represent responsible gun ownership. I'm guessing you have little or likely no formal firearms training. Might I suggest you get some formal training?
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If you want to just wound someone that breaks into your house and threatens your family, that's your call. If you want to worry about that person coming back when they heal or get out of jail and taking revenge on your family, that's also your call. More power to you. Me, if you break into my house one of two things are gonna happen, I'm either gonna kill you or your gonna kill me. The next time you see a police officer or Sheriff ask them the best way to deal with an intruder, I'd be willing to bet that each and every one of them will tell you, " shoot for mass, Shoot to kill" I value my family too much to play John Wayne. But your free to do as you see fit.
 
Monserrat said:
Soooo...Good for the kid. I'm glad he was able to protect himself and his sister. I don't really know anything about guns so I'm not going to be able to say much more than that although I am a bit frustrated that gun control has become this whole big issue after the sandy hook shooting. Has anyone even asked why it happened or do we just jump to the conclusion that it's because guns are evil and they need to go?

We should put this issue on the back-burner for a bit while we do a case study on the sandy hook shooting and other similar ones, find out what's really going on and then come up with a real and appropriate solution. Meanwhile congress can get back to the whole sequestration issue because I know people who might lose their jobs if that goes through and honestly it's a bit more important than people just randomly shooting their mouths off about an issue that they don't really know anything about because they (big generalization I know) don't ask the real questions they just magically come to their own conclusions.
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I think the biggest issue is the Mental Health issues in this country. If you look at these types of shootings all the perpetrators have all had Mental Health issues that were just ignored either by their Doctors or their families. This whole Gun issue is just a knee jerk reaction.
 
buck said:
Not certain. Did any miss? Even if a bullet did miss, does that mean that the kid sholdn't be allwoed to defend himself from intruders just in case a bullet misses the target?
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I don't know if any stray bullets went flying or not and this kid did the right thing. It might have been the only gun he had available to use. However, one thing to keep in mind when choosing a fire arm to use for home defense is what happens if you miss, does the bullet go thru the wall into your neighbors house? that's why I choose a 12gauge 00buck shot gun. 99.99% of the time your gonna kill the intruder and its not very likely to go thru the wall.
 
TheNextEra said:
I never said he did contemplate which weapon to pull and fire. All I'm saying is that there have been situations where multiple intruders have invaded a house and the people with a firearm defended themselves successfully. An AR-15 is not NEEDED.

However, again, I'll state that I am not for ANY ban of assault weapons. I think the more armed people are, the better.
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The typical boogie man might well re-think his plan facing an AR15 instead of a 22 cal. I get what you are saying but ANY ban on citizens weaponry must be subjected to debate versus mass panic and propaganda like this filthy government is spitting out.
 
Monserrat said:
Soooo...Good for the kid. I'm glad he was able to protect himself and his sister. I don't really know anything about guns so I'm not going to be able to say much more than that although I am a bit frustrated that gun control has become this whole big issue after the sandy hook shooting. Has anyone even asked why it happened or do we just jump to the conclusion that it's because guns are evil and they need to go?

We should put this issue on the back-burner for a bit while we do a case study on the sandy hook shooting and other similar ones, find out what's really going on and then come up with a real and appropriate solution. Meanwhile congress can get back to the whole sequestration issue because I know people who might lose their jobs if that goes through and honestly it's a bit more important than people just randomly shooting their mouths off about an issue that they don't really know anything about because they (big generalization I know) don't ask the real questions they just magically come to their own conclusions.
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Immediately following the Sandy Hook shooting there was a GREAT opportunity for a national dialogue on weapons security. That shooting occurred because the mother, KNOWING her son was unstable, left weapons in her home unsecured. THAT should have been discussed.

I have a 900 pound gun safe in my sub basement (yes...thats a vault...below even my basement). All except two firearms are secured in that safe and of the two that arent, one is either on me or both are in locations, separate from but accessible to the ammunition in case of emergency. There are several pepper-foam canisters at different locations but that is non lethal defense and at worst, someone gets into them accidentally and they are just having a very bad day. I dont have kids in my home and when grandkids are over those weapons are secured as well. People dont HAVE to have gun safes, but they should have a means of keeping their WEAPONS safe. In a home were people are unstable, extra precautions should be made.

That shooting could have been prevented had the mother of a mentally unstable 20 year old taken basic precautions. THAT conversation should have taken place but it never did because people were in such a huge rush to seize the opportunity to pass gun bans.
 
VanceMack said:
Heres what you do. You say "Damn I sure am glad that family owned an AR15 and trained their kids. I think the AR15 is a GREAT home defense weapon!"
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Handguns are by far the weapon of choice for self defense and those are the ones that SCOTUS mentioned in Heller. So if it's about self defense, an AR15 probably won't stand up to scrutiny as being the weapon of choice by the vast majority and will likely become more heavily regulated. Just sayin.
 
Moot said:
Handguns are by far the weapon of choice for self defense and those are the ones that SCOTUS mentioned in Heller. So if it's about self defense, an AR15 probably won't stand up to scrutiny as being the weapon of choice by the vast majority and will likely become more heavily regulated. Just sayin.
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Personal self defense on the street...perhaps. There is a reason why SWAT teams dont train to enter and sweep homes and structures using pistolas. They use those same AR15s (or a tactical .308, or some other variant).

Different strokes. Some prefer handguns (and then we can have the dialogue about the 'best' home defense caliber). Some prefer tactical shotguns. Some rifles.

In combat scenarios the common saying is you use your handgun to fight your way to your rifle. In the cited scenario, young man handled himself more than admirably using a more than adequate weapon.
 
DDD said:
The problem is that I think you watch the news and are scared all too more often. I went through a bloody Balkan war where unarmed old people, women, children, were in deed being killed, raped, burned, and their possessions were taken away and burned by Serbian forces. This was not a rare happening like this one but it was a daily routine for 77 days.

But even I do not go crying in hysteria and panic as much as you do. When you cry out like that in fear you make it sound like there is such a Balkan war going on in USA. These two thugs choose to attack what they may perceive a "weak" house with only two adolescents living there. It is not like families with adults in them are being systematically targeted from thugs who now have advanced to using home invasions, is it?

You are overgeneralizing from a single case and call me apathetic and that I do not care about these adolescents. That is a groundless presumption. I told you to calm down from panicking like in a manner someone close to you would do by slapping you back into your senses (the technique though vulgar works). Not that I do not care about these adolescents.

So my comments are not about the gun issue that it seems never to get old in USA. It is about you trying to influence everyone here to panic and get them to have guns with your emotional appeals to fear. They should not work to people who use reason for they should be able to see various flaws of overgeneralisation based on single case used as a flawed analogy.

That this case may somehow be applied to all other people in USA requires statistical data.

Whether other people in USA have only and only one solution from threat (apart from buying guns) if they want to be saved from a certain harm - and that of course is to buy guns, is also flawed for one can think of many alternatives to protect oneself.
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The other alternatives I am partial to have shall we say, a tendency to create severe collateral damage.
 
VanceMack said:
Personal self defense on the street...perhaps. There is a reason why SWAT teams dont train to enter and sweep homes and structures using pistolas. They use those same AR15s (or a tactical .308, or some other variant).

Different strokes. Some prefer handguns (and then we can have the dialogue about the 'best' home defense caliber). Some prefer tactical shotguns. Some rifles.

In combat scenarios the common saying is you use your handgun to fight your way to your rifle. In the cited scenario, young man handled himself more than admirably using a more than adequate weapon.
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SWAT teams? LOL The vast majority of Americans are not SWAT teams and for the vast majoriyt of the population a handgun is the weapon of choice for personal self defense both at home and on the street. We're not talking about SWAT teams and combat we're talking about that little old lady next door and that family down the street and handguns are their weapon of choice. We don't need combat weapons in our communitees...we are not at war.

But since you mentioned it, what is the best caliber handgun for home defense?
 
Moot said:
SWAT teams? LOL The vast majority of Americans are not SWAT teams and for the vast majoriyt of the population a handgun is the weapon of choice for personal self defense both at home and on the street. We're not talking about SWAT teams and combat we're talking about that little old lady next door and that family down the street and handguns are their weapon of choice. We don't need combat weapons in our communitees...we are not at war.

But since you mentioned it, what is the best caliber handgun for home defense?
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Not the point...the point is that IS what SWAT teams, tactical teams, police officers, military personnel etc ALL use for clearing homes and there is a REASON for that. The AR15 is not a 'combat weapon', it is a hunting weapon that works also very well for home defense.

As for home defense...or personal defense, it all depends on individual taste and personal preference. I have a red dot 45 carbine that would work just fine for sweeping a home. So does my 8 round riot gun. My Ruger 45s work quite well. My daughter prefers the .45...her husband the 9mm. Some love the .40. I wouldnt recommend a .22lr, but if thats all that I had I wouldnt toss it aside. I wouldnt own a Desert Eagle but hey...different strokes. You said you ran out and bought a handgun during the LA riots...right? What did you buy?

The best weapon for defense is the one you can access quickly and use confidently and accurately.
 
Moot said:
SWAT teams? LOL The vast majority of Americans are not SWAT teams and for the vast majoriyt of the population a handgun is the weapon of choice for personal self defense both at home and on the street. We're not talking about SWAT teams and combat we're talking about that little old lady next door and that family down the street and handguns are their weapon of choice. We don't need combat weapons in our communitees...we are not at war.

But since you mentioned it, what is the best caliber handgun for home defense?
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depends on many things

if you are an average sized woman who doesn't train a lot and would not have to search your home to protect a child but rather can barricade yourself in a room while calling the Po Po a 20 G shotgun would be the best choice. If you have small children and (God help you if you have to do this-its extremely dangerous) go to the child(ren) and protect them then a handgun of at least 38 Special or 9mm with a flashlight attached is probably the best choice for moving throughout a house. its easy for a criminal to take a shotgun away from someone who does not have lots of training in how to move through close quarter structures with a long gun

since concealment is not at issue in a home-you want a heavy pistol to soak up recoil that has plenty of stopping power. a 7 or 8 shot 357 revolver is very reliable (and can shoot milder 38 special rounds which can be plenty effective).

as to combat weapons-police are not at combat and if they are issued certain weapons they are for defense against criminals rather than weapons of war
 
Here's the deal. The point of the article was to show that the AR-15 isn't the problem. The gun doesn't walk into a school and start shooting, people do. The gun isn't inherently evil, as many in the press are trying to portray it, the people are. In the right hands, it can and does save lives. So we are faced with a problem, ban the gun (and others like it) and face the consequences of violated rights and lost lives or keep the gun and face the consequences of lost lives. Either way, you still have innocent people dying at the hands of evil people. If you think any school shooting wouldn't happen if we banned these types of weapons think again.
 
BMCM said:
I think the biggest issue is the Mental Health issues in this country. If you look at these types of shootings all the perpetrators have all had Mental Health issues that were just ignored either by their Doctors or their families. This whole Gun issue is just a knee jerk reaction.
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I'm kind of leaning that way too, it seems to be a common denominator but I'm only familiar with the columbine and sandy hook shootings.
 
ksu_aviator said:
Either way, you still have innocent people dying at the hands of evil people. If you think any school shooting wouldn't happen if we banned these types of weapons think again.
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What about escalation of arms and where does it stop? Violence overall cannot be stopped, I agree, but I think it's all aimed at reducing the overall risk. Recall hollywood shootout, where some guys saw a Hollywood movie which arguably did the most damage (Heat was the movie that inspired them), and they used assualt rifles. For the AK-47s, I think they modified them to be fully automatic with some minor bench work. They then put on body armor and had a movie-style shootout after robbing a bank. Their weapons and ammo far outgunned the entire police force opposing them. They shot more rounds I believe, and it pierced the cops car doors, body armor, etc. Likewise, their own body armor, resisted countless shots from the cops low relatively low powered weaponry.

It can be argued both ways. That the fact that law enforcement just had .38, 9mm, and shotguns, was part of the problem OR that such legally available ARs made it far more deadly than it otherwise would have been. The issue with up-arming the police is additional cost, training, and the additional risk in general to the public. Arms race is that the danger is as you note ALWAYS there. The violence will never go away, period. The question is, do you want to set up an arms race which traditionally just ramps up the destructive capacity for all parties (including criminals), and costs the society that supports it more and more resources? Or do you resist the animal instinct to engage in an arms race, and while the violence doesn't go away, its overall cost and destructive capacity is reduced.
(the two guys were eventually taken out, in part because SWAT came in with some AR15s)

Now, that's partially devil's advocate, I'm just so tired of reading complete **** from the anti-gun crowd debaters that I have to take their side just to see if I can learn something on this issue from their point of view..
 
VanceMack said:
Immediately following the Sandy Hook shooting there was a GREAT opportunity for a national dialogue on weapons security. That shooting occurred because the mother, KNOWING her son was unstable, left weapons in her home unsecured. THAT should have been discussed.

I have a 900 pound gun safe in my sub basement (yes...thats a vault...below even my basement). All except two firearms are secured in that safe and of the two that arent, one is either on me or both are in locations, separate from but accessible to the ammunition in case of emergency. There are several pepper-foam canisters at different locations but that is non lethal defense and at worst, someone gets into them accidentally and they are just having a very bad day. I dont have kids in my home and when grandkids are over those weapons are secured as well. People dont HAVE to have gun safes, but they should have a means of keeping their WEAPONS safe. In a home were people are unstable, extra precautions should be made.

That shooting could have been prevented had the mother of a mentally unstable 20 year old taken basic precautions. THAT conversation should have taken place but it never did because people were in such a huge rush to seize the opportunity to pass gun bans.
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That's a good point.

I come from a family of responsible gun owners, I don't think that any of them has or had a sub-basement to store them but I don't know I never really saw them growing up. My cousins who actually were interested in going to the shooting range were taught how to handle them properly and responsibly and there was always an adult present.

Personally I don't like them but they're not going away and 'bad' people are not going to all of the sudden relinquish their weapons if we decide to start taking them away from responsible (law abiding) gun owners or just seriously limiting access to them. Maybe there should be more gun control, it probably should be looked at by each state but I don't really know.

I think you're right though dialogue after Sandy Hook should have been about weapon security, I think it also should have been about what makes someone take a gun into a school and shoot little kids because your average 'bad' guy wouldn't do that either.
 
In most cases, a 15yo that used a handgun without adult supervision could be in trouble with the law, and his parents with him. A long gun is more permissible in most states, and of long guns an AR15 is a good defense weapon for a woman or young person.
 
Moot said:
Handguns are by far the weapon of choice for self defense and those are the ones that SCOTUS mentioned in Heller. So if it's about self defense, an AR15 probably won't stand up to scrutiny as being the weapon of choice by the vast majority and will likely become more heavily regulated. Just sayin.
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That's FAR too broad a generalization.

A handgun is convenient because it's rather small and light weight which makes it more practical to carry on a regular basis but the trade off is that it has limited range and much less penetration power than a rifle round. If one is defending themselves from someone who is at a significant distance then a handgun is pretty much useless. For most close defense applications a handgun is a good option but let's say that you are being fired on by someone outside your house..that handgun is going to be much less effective than a rifle.
 
Lutherf said:
That's FAR too broad a generalization.

A handgun is convenient because it's rather small and light weight which makes it more practical to carry on a regular basis but the trade off is that it has limited range and much less penetration power than a rifle round. If one is defending themselves from someone who is at a significant distance then a handgun is pretty much useless. For most close defense applications a handgun is a good option but let's say that you are being fired on by someone outside your house..that handgun is going to be much less effective than a rifle.
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If someone is at long range then they probably aren't an immediate threat and you would be hard pressed to claim self defense. Not to mention, it raises the odds of you shooting an innocent person. Besides, the interior of most homes would only require a short range weapon.
 
Moot said:
If someone is at long range then they probably aren't an immediate threat and you would be hard pressed to claim self defense. Not to mention, it raises the odds of you shooting an innocent person. Besides, the interior of most homes would only require a short range weapon.
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Long range for a pistol is anything over, say, 25 yards.

Think about this....you have a restraining order on some nut you were dating and one day you notice him sitting in a car across the street. You pick up the phone to call the cops and realize that he just got out with a rifle. You have a Ruger LCR in .357 but it's only got a 2" barrel because it's designed for up close shooting and concealment. That nut is going to have all the advantage over you based on the range alone because he will be a whole lot more accurate at that distance than you could possibly be. Wouldn't it be better to have a rifle available so that you could engage him before he got into the house?
 
Lutherf said:
Long range for a pistol is anything over, say, 25 yards.

Think about this....you have a restraining order on some nut you were dating and one day you notice him sitting in a car across the street. You pick up the phone to call the cops and realize that he just got out with a rifle. You have a Ruger LCR in .357 but it's only got a 2" barrel because it's designed for up close shooting and concealment. That nut is going to have all the advantage over you based on the range alone because he will be a whole lot more accurate at that distance than you could possibly be. Wouldn't it be better to have a rifle available so that you could engage him before he got into the house?
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Okay, suppose I just stand off to the side or behind the door and wait until he comes in and then blow his head off? That would make more sense than having a shoot out with him...not to mention save bullets.
 
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