AR-15 For Home Defense: When Defensive Gun Use Is Labeled As A “Mass Shooting”

A recent shooting involving an AR-15 left one dead and two wounded, but it did not make national headlines.  This story was likely not covered by mainstream media because it involved a “defensive gun use” (DGU) inside the home of the victims:

Three men say they were asleep inside a mobile home in Glen St. Mary about 4 a.m. Sunday when they heard a voice outside yell “Sheriff’s Office!” before the front door burst open.

In stormed a masked gunman who fired off a single round before two of the men inside, one armed with an AR-15 rifle and the other with a handgun, emerged from two bedrooms and opened fire.

Gunfire ripped into the masked gunman and two other intruders, who crumpled to the floor with multiple gunshot wounds.

The Sheriff’s Office said the five were among seven masked individuals armed with guns who barged into a mobile home on County Road 125 about 4 a.m. to confront four people staying there over a feud.

The AR-15 and similar platforms have been ballyhooed as a weapons system that “no one needs”, in spite of the fact that it is often an ideal choice for home defense, as this particular instance demonstrates.  This flies in the face of claims made by former Vice President Joe Biden, who once quipped that “you don’t need an AR-15” for home defense:

“I promise you whoever’s coming in is not gonna,” Biden said. “You don’t need an AR-15 (assault rifle). It’s harder to aim. It’s harder to use and in fact you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself.”

“Buy a shotgun,” he said, lowering his voice almost to whisper.

Perhaps “Crazy Joe” feels comfortable defending his home with a shotgun, but a woman who is 5’0” weighing 100lbs (or less) will likely have a much harder time aiming and firing a shotgun than she would with a semiautomatic .223 rifle.

The ease of use and short range accuracy of the .223 cartridge has led to its popularity and widespread adaptation by civilians, military and law enforcement.  Notably, the cartridge is not permitted for hunting of deer and larger animals due to its smaller size relative to larger cartridges.

The truth is, an attacker or mass murderer can always plan around a magazine restriction (if they even use a gun at all).  But in those pivotal moments defending your home facing down multiple attackers, and when a magazine change adds valuable seconds, Biden’s “30 round” restriction could be the difference between life and death.  

Of even greater ignorance is the statement that the “velocity” of the .223 rifle round makes the round more deadly and/or less suitable for home defense:

SWAT teams have almost universally switched from SMGs and AR-15 variants chambered in the 9mm pistol round to the .223 rifle cartridge.  The reason for this?  The reduced risk of over-penetration in home and building construction materials:

Taking a moment to closely examine the bullet box, I pried apart the layers of wax media and found that the .223 TAP round had penetrated just shy of 8 inches.  At that depth I discovered several bullet fragments.  The projectile had come apart completely.

Moving on we found that the 9mm projectile had traveled a full 15 inches into the wax media after passing through the wall façade.  It had not deformed and looked almost good enough to be reloaded.    So much for the .223 will over-penetrate theory.

For the unaware such as Biden, Senator Feinstein and mainstream media “expert” Lawrence O’Donnell, bullets can go through people, and walls, and sometimes both.  When defending the home, and the gun safety adage of “know your target, and know what is behind your target” can be lost in the heat of the moment, it is ideal to choose a cartridge with the least risk of harming an unintended target.  So how does Biden’s shotgun penetration compare to the AR-15?

Now, when most people think of overpenetration risks they assume that pistol bullets would penetrate less than the rifle or shotgun.

That’s actually dead wrong.

Pistol bullets consistently penetrate the most.

Shotgun is next.

And rifles, at least the so-called “high powered assault weapon” AR-15 in 5.56 NATO/.223 Rem penetrates the LEAST.

So not only is the AR-15 ideal for home defense when facing down 3+ assailants, it is least likely to harm your loved ones or neighbors in the process.  While Joe Biden may have US Secret Service protection in addition to his shotgun for repelling multiple invaders, the semiautomatic .223 rifle is a great choice for the rest of us without similar security.

Sadly, these instances of home defense using AR-15 weapons systems will likely be exploited by Bloomberg and his gun control groups to manipulate statistics, and may well be classified as a “mass shooting” in an upcoming report:

“Everytown’s recent analysis of mass shootings is riddled with errors,” wrote Mr. Lott, president of CPRC, in its abstract dated Sept. 30, released to The Washington Times.

“Those errors occurred because they did not do a complete news search on each case,” he wrote. “They made simple accounting errors and included cases that did not fit their claimed criteria. Also, their arbitrary definition of ‘assault weapons’ seems chosen to obtain the results that fit their ideological agenda. Their numbers should not be relied on for any type of policy analysis.”

Yes, this is what gun control has come to – manipulating statistics to use justifiable homicides in the home to promote a broad ban on a weapons system commonly used for home defense.

There is an entire subreddit devoted specifically to DGUs, which highlights a number of incidents that are underreported in the mainstream media.  Townhall also compiled a list of AR-15 home defenses which demonstrate the weapons platform’s utility for home defense.  Of note, this includes a recent incident in Oklahoma, where a man successfully engaged and killed three assailants armed with melee weapons.

Now, I’m not writing this article to inject myself into the home defense debate, or try to talk someone into choosing a .223 rifle platform over a shotgun to defend their home – my opinion is that the ideal weapon for home defense is the one the shooter feels most comfortable with. 

However, I’m also not pushing firearm restrictions on the American public.  Far too often, it has been stated that an AR-15 platform is “not needed” for civilians, even though it has been repeatedly been demonstrated to be an ideal choice for home defense.

Hopefully none of the readers are ever faced with a situation where they have to use an AR-15 to defend their home.  However, if that time comes, an AR-15 is preferable to being disarmed via gun controls peddled by anti-gun propaganda.  

Note: Free Market Shooter plans to cover firearm cartridge types and sizes in-depth in future content.