Assault Weapon Can Prevent Attacks and Save Lives -

http://www.khou.com/news/crime/Burglary-suspect-shot-by-15-year-old-son-of-deputy-97430719.html

This report is from 2010 but, due to the advantage that Progressives are taking in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, it has made its way back into recent news searches.

These accounts are almost always ignored by the mainstream media. The sheer volume, both of events such as these and the ultra-conspicuous absence from news reports, point to one conclusion.

The Left will work night and day to publicize crimes committed with firearms  but will ensure that lives saved by the use of the same will be buried.

The weapon used in this instance was a civilian model AR-15. The use of the word "civilian" is admittedly superfluous, but many people think that militarily personnel are also issued AR-15's. In fact, the military issues M-16's and M-4 carbines, which are selective-fire weapons and can be operated in semi-automatic and an automatic three-round burst mode. Contrary to the false definitions foisted upon us in the early 90's, the AR-15 is not, and never has been, an assault weapon. Unlike the AR-15, the latter two can be classified as assault weapons.

The young man was faced with a situation that, unlike far too many places in the world, is experienced only by a tiny fraction of Americans. We are blessed with a largely peaceful society.

This, of course, is not reason, nor is it an excuse, to be unprepared.

In our society, we have far too many people who have no guilty feelings about living in a house that has not a single weapon to employ in the event of a crime. I hold that one who refuses to be prepared in any appreciable manner forfeits his right to enter into debate on this subject.

The criminals, after trying to enter via the front and rear doors of the house, broke a window and entered an occupied dwelling in which the brave soul was home with his twelve year-old sister. Fearing for both his life and that of his sister ( And also likely fearful that she may be raped or kidnapped), he shot the creeps with his father's AR-15.

For those who will, just possibly, entertain the thought of a hunting rifle, shotgun, or handgun in the house but cringe at the thought of a weapon such as the AR-15, the following must be noted:

Rifles and shotguns can be unwieldy in the hands of a teenager or a woman with a smaller frame. A criminal  can approach victim prior to a shot and turn the barrel (Pointy end) away from him. The most common type of sight on a shotgun is the "bead" type, which is simply a sphere-shaped object towards the top of the muzzle. Mastering the acquiring of a target while using a firearm with a bead sight takes a long time. The most common mistake less experienced shooters make with these sights is to raise the barrel up high enough so that the entire bead is in view. This tends to bring the plane (top) of the barrel into view also. When this occurs, the weapon will fire (very) high. Some trainers teach shooters to aim low with a shotgun to get around this problem, but it this does not address the issue. The best advice that I ever gleaned from a trainer was to peer over the plane of the shotgun until only the top half of the bead was in view. While this technique works very well, it is not easy for a less experienced shooter.

The length of these weapons also makes in difficult to move around corners, which abound in homes. Unless the victim can position himself safely at the end of a hallway, the criminal can again seize control of the weapon as the victim approaches a corner or moves into another room.

Handguns take far more training to use safely and effectively than do long arms. The manner in which a handgun must be gripped is much more exact to ensure that the targeted, and not an innocent, is hit.

The following has terms designed for the lay reader:
The recoil of a handgun is substantial for a person with smaller hands. It can cause a victim to miss the target. If the handgun is a semi-auto,  the recoil in smaller hand can cause the victim's hands to be thrown back. The energy of the recoil is then absorbed by the hands and wrists, rather than the weapon. When this occurs, the slide (Top part) does not have enough "oomph" or energy, to be thrown back against the lower receiver (Handle portion)  The result is a spent (Shot) casing from the first round that is not ejected from the weapon and is stuck between the ejection port and the feedramp/barrel chamber when to slide returns to the front of the pistol  (This is called a stovepipe). The malfunction needs to be cleared immediately and takes too much time for a shooter who has not done it many times previously.
I was a pistol and shotgun instructor in my agency for many years. I watched smaller-handed officers experience this time after time. I would not recommend this to any shooter that has not has extensive training, but, to demonstrate to the officers what was happening, I would hold their pistols just loosely enough to absorb some recoil in my hands as opposed to providing a solid base against which the recoil could do its job to cycle the weapon. The result was a stovepipe. Until this is cleared and a new round is chambered, the gun will not fire.

The shorter barrels of handguns also pose another problem for the untrained or nervous victim. If a criminal is able to get his hands on the weapon, the hands/wrist of the victim may be turned. This could cause the barrel to be pointing towards the victim or another innocent while a finger is inside the trigger guard.

For many people, the best weapons that can be employed in the event of a home invasion is either a short weapon such as a semiautomatic pistol-caliber carbine* (Chambered for 9mm, .40 cal., or .45 cal.), or a AR-15 or other civilian-legal rifle. Both types are easy to handle and with which to move. The pistol-caliber carbines are especially useful for home defense as they have a much quieter report (Important in a confined space - especially for a shooter who is not an expert) and the bullets are less likely to penetrate a wall and go into another room. They are not very long and make it more difficult for a criminal to approach closely enough to grab. Due to the longer plane of the weapon (But not too long) and the type of sights on these, they can be accurately aimed in a instant. Unlike the most common shotguns and rifles (Lever/Bolt/Pump-type), the semiautomatic actions  do not need to be worked after each shot. As most of these types of weapons are external magazine-fed, they can be safely kept in an unloaded condition but loaded quickly with several rounds. This is far better than fumbling with hand-loading one round at a time into an internal magazine.
[Added 1/19/13- I realized that I had forgotten to note one very important point; that shoulder-fired weapons such as rifles and shotguns offer the advantage of distributing the recoil onto the shoulder as opposed to the hands. When one uses a AR-15 or another magazine-fed rifle, the operation of  extracting, ejecting of spent rounds and loading of new rounds uses energy (To move the bolt/bolt carrier). This use of energy reduces the amount of "kick" against the shoulder. So not only do these types of weapons offer easier handling and moving, better pointing on target, but also a platform that does not cause pain or discomfort to the shooter. This allows the shooter to be confident that the weapon can be fired without the shock of a hard recoil and makes it much easier to keep the weapon on target after the first shot]

*Carbine refers to a short rifle. Some of these are chambered for rifle rounds, and others for pistol ammunition.

The Left clearly would rather than the boy and his 6th-7th grade sister be rendered unable to stop an attack. They Like this kind of stuff. After all, the more people are killed or raped, the more control the Left can justify exerting on all of us. They tell us that, if magazine-fed semiautomatic carbine are outlawed, school and theater shootings will stop. The people who are victimized in their homes will be nothing more than collateral damage.

Nothing takes away from the horror and grief at the massacre of innocents, but the Left has shamefully assured us that, unlike other regions of the world in which this is common, they will somehow be able to guarantee us that we will never see one of these in this nation again. The sheep eagerly accept such lies.When another does in fact occur  we will be told that this is no fault of theirs and that we need another round of legislation for disarming the people.

Like the young man, I am a sheepdog. People of my type are always on guard for the wolf. We are unable to pretend that we can legislate the wolf away. Those of us who are capable or violence but will use it only in defense of the sheep and ourselves will never allow ourselves to be de-fanged.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/29/on-sheep-wolves-and-sheepdogs/

"......“Then there are the wolves,” the old war veteran said, “and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy.” Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep.

There is no safety in denial.

“Then there are sheepdogs,” he went on, “and I’m a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.” If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

Let me expand on this old soldier’s excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids’ schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid’s school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep’s only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours. Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports, in camouflage fatigues, holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, “Baa.” Until the wolf shows up.

Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog........"