The New York Post reports that a pregnant mother in Florida saved her husband and 11-year-old daughter from a home invasion using her AR-15 to kill one of the two intruders.
Two intruders broke into the home in Lithia, Florida, armed with handguns, and attacked the husband and daughter, viciously beating the latter with a pistol. The mother, eight months pregnant, ran into the bedroom to retrieve her AR-15 rifle.
When one of the attackers approached the back door, the woman shot him multiple times, forcing him to flee; the fatally-injured robber eventually collapsed in a ditch “roughly 200 feet” from the house and died of his injuries. The other intruder fled the scene and remains on the loose.
The husband, Jeremy King, said that his injuries included “a fractured eye socket, a fractured sinus cavity, a concussion, 20 stiches, and three staples in my head.” He credits the AR-15 with having “evened the playing field and kept them from killing me.” The local sheriff’s office confirmed that the family owned the firearm legally.
Despite this and other examples of the AR-15’s widespread and successful use of a home defense weapon, the rifle has come under fire as a popular target for Democratic politicians seeking stricter gun control measures against what they call “military-grade assault rifles” like the AR. Most infamously, former Congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) answered a question at a recent Democratic primary debate saying “Hell yes, we’re gonna take your AR-15s, [and] your AK-47s.” O’Rourke dropped out of the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination last week.