In perhaps the first documented civilian defensive gun use in Walton County, Georgia this young year, Donnie Herman’s wife took cover in a crawlspace, according to news reports, with her two children and a .38 Special handgun, when a home invader forced entry into their Loganville home with a crowbar.
32-year-old recidivist criminal Paul Slater of Atlanta found this Mama Bear and her 2 cubs hiding, but prepared. With the violent criminal mere feet away, presumably armed with at least a crowbar and obviously in willful commission of at least one felony, the Ability - Opportunity - Jeopardy triangle of justifiable use of lethal force was complete, and Mama Bear opened fire, stopping the threat to herself and her family with five shots to the perp’s head and neck, according to initial reports.
Contrary to just about anything Security Examiner, in some 41 years, has seen portrayed in movies or on TV -- where incapacitation or death generally occur within fractions of a second of the first shot connecting -- the perpetrator managed to escape to his SUV and drive off, crashing into some nearby woods and then collapsing in a driveway, before emergency personnel arrived.
The perp is reportedly on a ventilator at Gwinnett Medical Center, being treated for punctured lungs, liver and stomach, with 4 exit wounds (the original report regarding Mama Bear’s shot placement notwithstanding). He’ll be charged with burglary should he survive the night and subsequent surgeries.
Meanwhile, Mama Bear took her children to a neighbor’s house and called police.
While defensive gun use totals in the United States are estimated between a low of 108,000 and a high of 2.5 million annually, one thing is certain: even at the lowest estimate, guns are used in self-defense nine times for every one murder -- perhaps as many as two hundred and fifty times for every one murder -- every year. In other words, even the lowest defensive gun use estimates -- those provided by the anti-gun/anti-liberty lobbies, such as the Brady Campaign and Coalition to Stop Gun Violence -- admit that law-abiding Americans with firearms justifiably save at least 9 lives, perhaps as many as 250, for every 1 life that criminals with firearms take -- every year.
Mama Bear’s husband, Donnie Herman, was interviewed by WSB TV’s Kerry Kavanaugh, first reporter on the scene. Donnie was on the phone with his wife as the home invader broke in. He told Kavanaugh: “My wife is a hero. She protected her kids. She did what she was supposed to do as a responsible, prepared gun owner...Her life is saved, and her kids' lives are saved, and that's all I'd like to say.”
That’s all you need to say, Mr. Herman.
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