Armed Good Guy: Home Invasion Stopped With AR-15

News stories of civilian self-defense seldom receive adequate media coverage. After all, an armed good guy stopping violent felons does not make headlines like the lives of innocents being taken. Bias and agendas play their part, but the media does not cover an event that did not happen, such as a case where a good guy stopped a violent event before it resulted in the loss of innocent life. However, these are exactly the type of stories we need to highlight to educate non gun owners before they head to the voting booth.

Armed Good Guy Stops Home Invasion With AR-15

Omaha, Nebraska — On August 12, 2019, at about 9:52 p.m., in Omaha, Nebraska, an apartment resident named Mark had some friends visiting him. He heard persistent knocking at the door. It got louder, so he looked out the peephole. Outside, he saw an unknown man at the door with another behind him who had a mask on.

He locked the door and went to get his rifle, a Ruger AR 556 (AR-15 clone). As the photo shows, the door is kicked in with a rear spear-type kick just as the armed good guy returns. As the home invader turns around, he sees the rifle pointed at him, and flees—all in less than two seconds—according to the camera clock.

John Correia, of Active Self Protection, does a running commentary on the lessons learned from this encounter, on one of his videos. John interviewed Mark, which is where we were able to obtain details such as police response, lack of media coverage, and Marks mental process. Mark and his friends were not engaged in any illegal activity, nor did they know or recognize the home invaders.

Several things stand out. The first is Mark used the peephole to discover something was wrong, rather than opening the door.  That allowed him to lock the door as well as to retrieve his rifle. He had situational awareness. On the video, it took Mark 22 seconds to retrieve the rifle and return. Mark has some cover from the closet on the left of the screen.

The reaction of the invaders shows one of the primary values of the AR-15 type system: easy recognition leading to effective deterrence.

Mark did a good job. He was aware. He had an effective self-defense tool easily available and knew how to use it. In my opinion, Mark would have been justified in shooting the home invader. Mark reports to John he did not see any weapons, so he made the split-second decision not to shoot.

It worked well in this case. If he had been further from the door, he might have had a bit more time to make the decision.

There was no news coverage of this defensive use of the AR-15-type rifle. Mark reported the incident to police. We are told they arrived in five minutes. They took a report. No arrests have been reported.

A simple police report will not show up as a defensive gun use (DGU) in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). The FBI UCR does not have a category for defensive gun use. They have a category for justified homicides. However, it only catches about 20% of justified homicides. Justified homicides are a tiny fraction of defensive gun uses.

The vast majority of defensive gun uses are not reported or recorded in the media.

Several surveys show defensive gun uses of between 500,000 and 3 million a year, according to the Center for Disease Control.

Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010).

Only a few thousand are reported in the media each year. My experience as an instructor and member of the gun culture for 60 years, is most defensive gun uses are not reported to police; a very small subset of DGUs reported to the police are recorded in the media. Most of the DGU recorded in the media are in small, local markets. It is very rare for a DGU incident to make national news. The lack of reporting skews how people think about the issue. In many markets, people think DGUs are rare.

In the video, after having stopped the violent home invasion, Mark goes into the hall. Later, his friend goes even further. Mark is careful not to point the muzzle at his friend.

Mark and his friend may have exposed themselves more than necessary. They stopped the threat before they went into the hall.

This is a timely example of a common defensive use of an AR-15-type rifle. It refutes the current propaganda that such rifles are not useful for the defense of self and others.

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California Armed Good Guy Thwarts Kidnapping And Sexual Assault

Redding, California — An armed citizen carrying a concealed firearm, in California nonetheless, noticed a woman who appeared to be in distress and used his best judgement to enter into the situation.

That situation could have turned very bad, as he was unaware at the time that he was walking into an active kidnapping and sexual assault.

The suspect, just moments before, had beaten a woman that he knew and then kidnapped her sister. Who knows how it would have ended if the armed citizen hadn’t intervened.

Police said it all started shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday, when people began reporting that a man was fighting with two women on the lawn of a home on the 2000 block of Westwood Avenue.

Sgt. Todd Cogle said the suspect, 44-year-old Carl Dudley Hulsey, was gone by the time officers got to the scene, and one of the women he’d attacked told them he’d also assaulted her sister and driven off with her.

via redding.com

While police were searching for the suspect and the kidnapped woman, they received a tip that they were spotted at a nearby gas station.

As they headed to the gas station, calls started pouring in that described a man holding another man at gunpoint. That man turned out to be a concealed carry permit holder, who knew something was off and made the decision to get involved.

The woman was still in the vehicle and told officers Hulsey had assaulted her, tried to steal her car and drove away with her against her will. Hulsey also tried to sexually assault the woman in that time, Cogle said.

Both women received injuries, and were treated at the hospital.

Police say that while it’s rare that citizens get involved on that level, it does happen from time to time.

Redding Police Sgt. Brian Torum said citizens don’t necessarily intervene with crimes that often, but in this case, it was clear that the woman needed help.

“If people are good people and they’re brave enough to do it and they see something is clearly amiss, you know, sometimes it happens. We don’t see it a whole lot because a lot of times, crimes don’t go to a level where people feel like they need to,” Torum said.

Hulsey faces a multitude of charges, including domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon, carjacking, kidnapping, sexual battery and resisting arrest.

An armed citizen is more of a rarity in California than compared to a large portion of the Country, and we’re incredibly happy to hear that he was at that location, at that time, and made the decision to get involved.

He could have very easily saved this woman’s life, and at the very least, helped get her out of a very dangerous situation.

Here’s to the armed public.

Do you have a story of armed good guys that shows the importance of firearm ownership for self-defense? Share it in the comment section.