Earlier this week, a Houston family was victimized during a home invasion nightmare. Some time in the early morning hours, twin 19-year-old brothers woke to their parents screaming while being beaten and held hostage by four armed home invaders.
Reports don’t say exactly what firearms the four invaders brought to the attack. At least one had a pistol; the father and twins were reportedly “pistol whipped.” The mother and 10-year-old sister were held hostage. The robbers demanded jewelry and money.
Houston Police Department officers responded around 4 a.m. Tuesday to a call of a burglary in progress at a home in the 3700 block of Crandon Street.
“They had my little sister at gunpoint, so we couldn’t do anything,” said 19-year old Rene Garcia.
He and his twin brother tried to lock themselves inside their bedroom when they heard their mom and dad screaming and struggling. At least one gunman threatened to shoot a family member if Rene and his brother didn’t open their bedroom door, Garcia said.
The uncle, who lives next door, heard the screaming and came to the rescue.
Some accounts say the uncle came across an invader beating a family member in the back yard. Another says the Uncle broke into the house and shot the invaders. The presence of three .223 steel casings in the driveway indicates shots were fired from a scary black rifle before the uncle entered the house, if he did.
One of the reasons that instances of defensive uses of semi-auto rifles aren’t documented more often: reporters are invariably ignorant of firearm models and calibers. Numerous reporters were on the scene and took excellent photographs of the shell casings.
The caliber matters because those who want a disarmed population claim that .223 semi-auto rifles are weapons of war, that they’re never used for defensive purposes and aren’t suitable for that purpose. It’s likely that the firearm associated with the casings shown above would be banned by the Maryland law at issue in the 4th Circuit Kolbe v. Hogan decision. From reason.com:
In Kolbe, the 10-judge majority concludes that the guns and magazines covered by Maryland’s ban are “dangerous and unusual” because they are “exceptionally lethal weapons of war” that are not appropriate for civilian use: “We are convinced that the banned assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are among those arms that are ‘like’ ‘M-16 rifles’—’weapons that are most useful in military service’—which the Heller Court singled out as being beyond the Second Amendment’s reach.”
Heller did nothing of the sort. But that didn’t stop the 4th Circuit from concocting the lie. Or the uncle from saving his family.