crime does happen… what will you do?

This kid is unquestionably a hero:

The homeowner said she and her 11-year-old son were in bed when she heard banging coming from the front door.

She got up to check and she saw two Hispanic males men wearing masks and armed with handguns walking towards her.

She quickly closed the bedroom door but one of the men allegedly tried to force it open.

The masked man kept telling her to open the door and she would not open the door.

The woman told deputies that the home invaders shot through the door and hit her son on the left hip area.

Her son had a 22 cal. Rifle and shot back at the alleged robbers.

[...]

Paramedics took the woman’s 11-year-old son to the McAllen Medical Center where he’s listed in stable condition.
But deputies told Action 4 News that a man with a gunshot wound to his neck ended up at the same hospital.

Investigators said nothing was taken from the home and that the wounded suspect was taken to a hospital in San Antonio for further treatment. He remains under guard.

Criminal charges are expected to be filed against him, if he survives.

Incidents like these will always happen, and will always prove anti-rights, hoplophobic idiots like MikeB302000 and Laci the Bitch Dog wrong. Furthermore, these incidents prove that anti-rights advocates are simply aiding and abetting criminals in their illegal activities against law-abiding citizens.
Consider this incident. The criminals were already inside the victims’ home. They had already gotten through the front door, knocking it off its hinges in the process. This is important to note because exterior doors are typically steel-cased/solid wood and deadbolted, whereas interior doors are scant more than particle wood or even paper with barely-locking doorknobs. Any individuals who are capable of taking down an exterior door are more than capable of taking down an interior door, with considerably less effort. Likewise, any individuals who are capable of knocking an exterior door off their hinges are also more than capable of beating down a mother and her 11-year-old son, and doing whatever they want with their victims and their home.
Even worse, these criminals were already armed, and showed that they put no value on the lives of their victims by shooting through the bedroom door as they attempted to force their way in – obviously, in this situation, “give them what they want and they will go away” is already patently false. Criminals will always get guns, even if their possession/use is banned for average citizens – we know this already from once-Great Britain’s situation – so these particular criminals would have had their firearms in question regardless of whatever laws might be in place to try and prevent them. After all, breaking and entering is a crime, robbery is a crime, theft is a crime, carrying a firearm in the execution of a crime is a crime, discharging a firearm in the execution of a crime is a crime, discharging a firearm in a city/neighborhood is often a crime, assault is a crime… obviously, these two individuals were not exactly concerned over the copious numbers of laws in place supposedly preventing them from doing what they were doing.
So here we have a probably-illegally-armed pair of aggressive, strong, malicious criminals illegally in someone’s house. What is one to do?
Well, according to folks like MikeB302000 and Laci the Bitch Dog, the mother and her son should have simply rolled over and died, and the world would be better for it. Those of us with an ounce of compassion for law-abiding citizens, a modicum of appreciation for laws, an iota of understanding about rights, and a solid spine in our body know the right answer: shoot the frak back.
And, thankfully, the son did just that.
Not only did he shoot back, he shot back after being hit in the hip himself, and he shot through the door and scored a hopefully… er… potentially lethal hit on one of the criminals… and he did this with a .22 rifle, at eleven years of age. I do not know very many grown men who would be capable of doing the same under the same circumstances, myself included. I can only hope whatever damage the son received to his hip is not significant, and is not permanent… he is going to need a good set of legs to support those massive, titanium clankers when he gets older…
What are the take-aways from this situation?
1. Be willing to defend yourself. Without that mindset firmly entrenched into your psyche, nothing else anyone says will matter, no tool you have will matter, and no preparations you make will matter.
2. Have a good exterior door, lock it, and reinforce its frame. In all honesty, the average exterior door in a house is not all that hard to knock down for one grown man, much less two. I would strongly recommend checking out these two posts at HellinaHandbasket on how to strengthen and reinforce your doors – I know I will once I have a house.
3. Interior doors will not stop a damned thing, not even a .22. But, do not count on steel-cased doors to stop a lot more. If you are really interested in stopping an intruder and whatever hardware he might be carrying, you need to look less towards big-box “steel doors” (which are little more than thin-gauge steel (typically 20-gauge) over wood and insulation), and instead turn your eyes to “ballistic doors”, “intruder doors”, “security doors”, or at least “hurricane/tornado doors” or “fire doors”. Some companies even offer varying levels of bullet-resistant doors. Furthermore, installing these on the exterior doors of your house is a good first step, but what about your bedroom? After all, windows are entrance points, too.
4. Have a security plan for your family, and know what it is and how to execute it. In the case of intruders, for Better Half and me, it is simple – we are going to hunker down in our bedroom with whatever firearms we have at hand in hand, call the cops, and wait. If the intruders leave, so be it. But if anyone not-a-cop comes through our bedroom door, he had better be wearing Level III armor. For families with children, though, the situation becomes a little more complicated, and must be considered. In the case of just a “strange noise”, what are you going to do?
5. Have a firearm, know how to use it, and be willing to use it. Without that 11-year-old perforating one of the criminals, it is very safe to say that both he and his mother would be dead right now. There are bad people in this world, and they do want to do bad things to you. Are you going to let them? Worse, are you going to let anti-rights advocates help them in hurting you? As for what kind of firearm, it simply needs to be one that you will actually use, practice with, and be effective with. If that means a 10-gauge shotgun, more power to you. If that means a .22, more power to you. Any hole in a bad guy is better than no hole.
All I know is that in 10 years or so, I owe that kid a drink… and in seven years or so, something tells me the USMC will be beating down his door…
(This post originally started as a comment at Robb‘s, but I figured it needed to get bigger. More at Stuff from Hsoi.)