The son probably saved his mom’s life. I need to get my mom a revolver. She has my dad’s semi-automatic in the bedside table. She’s got arthritis pretty bad now and I doubt she could operate a semi auto. Especially if it stove piped. She couldn’t clear the jam.
http://news.yahoo.com/woman-shoots-intruder-gun-her-son-gave-her-210137065.html
That is only true if the burglar was actually intent on killing her. I think burglars really want stuff rather than blood, hence the stealing bit.
Right. He could have just been a rapist.
Good for her and good for him. Seems like she knew how to use it too.
My mom has my dad’s .45 semi auto and it’s really frustrating me because I can’t get her to take a class. She let me take all the rest of his guns because I am actually a shooter, but she kept that one because it’s the “biggest and scariest looking”. I would like to get this one from her because I don’t think she can handle that large of a gun or, like your mom, handle clearing a jam.
I guess what she really needed was an “Aliens” remote sentry unit. It’s the only way to be sure.
The more burglary is seen as a high risk profession, the fewer people will apprentice into the trade.
Good for the woman and the son in the OP, but this doesn’t necessarily mean every son should buy their mom a gun. Every mom is different. A gun in my mom’s hands would be far more of a danger to her and random bystanders than any bad guy, due to her physical limitations.
Fathers Day 1989…my wife gave me a .22 caliber rifle. It was for plinking with a neighbor. Had never owned a firearm. Two months later, 1:30 AM, I shot two convicted felons crawling in my daughter’s window. One never knows.
Per the news story, he broke into a house across the street and was chased out.
aceplace57’s statement that “The son probably saved his mom’s life,” is almost certainly statistically not true. By the numbers, the intruder was probably not going to kill her, especially given his previous behavior.
Everything else anyone wants to say about this is fine – she had a gun, it was her right to use it to defend her home, I’m not faulting anyone for that. But to say that if she didn’t have a gun she probably would have died is a gross exaggeration of the actual risk.
Model 10 Smith -------- fairly cheap used and they’ll hit pretty well without too much practice.
It’s… a story. I don’t suppose it’s any more individually meaningful than “Boy accidentally shoots and kills sister with gun his parents bought a week ago” or similar stories. Anecdotes, data, blah blah blah.
With a .22?
Yes, a .22 is a gun.
What about the other one?
If you hit them enough times in the right place a .22 would be adequate. Personally, I’d give them a penal colony.
Stories like this seem to imply that a gun is the only way to protect yourself in this situation. However, the gun would not have done any good if she hadn’t woken up. And if the intruder had overpowered her, he now has a gun which he might not have had before.
I think other solutions would work better in her case. For example, she could get a dog. Pretty much any dog will at least bark at intruders, which will wake you up if nothing else. Or she could have an alarm system and panic buttons throughout the house. That way if someone breaks in, she could activate a loud alarm from where she was instead of having to run to where the gun is stored.
I think it’s fine she has a gun, but I don’t like how people seem to think that’s the start and end of their personal security solution. The gun should be the last resort after the intruder has not been stopped by the other protections (like dog and alarm).
I think one hit might be enough to do the job.
If someone plugged me in the shoulder or the guts with a .22 while i was climbing in a window, i don’t think my first thought would be, “Well, that’s a really small-caliber gun, so i’m going to keep going.”
That would depend upon how much meth you has ingested. It might just piss you off.
thats why extended capacity magazines are a good thing…
Let’s say the scenario is an elderly person living alone, and the only firearm they have is a Ruger 10/22 .22 caliber carbine…
Two meth-heads break in, intentions unknown, but up to no good…
Having 25 rounds of .22 on tap, in a lightweight rifle with zero perceived recoil would give the homeowner an advantage, even if all they have is a “lowly” 10/22, I’m sure even the most strung out meth addict would rethink their current course of action if they encounter a hail of gunfire, even if it’s from “only a .22”
Interestingly, the .22 is third lowest in incapacitation but the 2[sup]nd[/sup] highest (of handgun rounds) in terms of fatality (link).