I agree she had every right to protect herself and would go to the grave saying so. I am betting meth had some involvement here but, of course, that is another issue altogether. Had she had more practice she could have put him down permanently with one or two shots. She doesn't need a clip of sixty bullets or a machine gun. Yes Seb, the entire family will bear the scars for the rest of their lives. My prayers go out to them.

If she had been using a .45 chances are she would have dropped the intruder there on the spot, the problem is/was the calibre of bullet she was using. The Army switched from .38 to .45 during the Philippines Insurrection 1898 because they found that the .38 wouldn't keep a drug-charged opponent down. Now that they have switched to 9mm I'm sure history will repeat itself.

Loganville has been the scene of several deadly home invasions in the past 6 months(I've been personally effected by 2), a lovely rural bedroom community to Atlanta that is only a car-ride away for any criminial element. Taxpayers can't afford to place a police officer in each home for protection, and budgets have been cut or skewed that law enforcement is at best reactive, honest citizens deserve the right to protect themselves.

yea, I am a gun totin liberal democrat and am glad she shot the intruder. I would have done the same thing, but not, even if I had one, with an assault rifle.

Me too Jimmy. I am single and I always have my gun, because to be honest I worry about someone breaking in.
And if they do, it will be the last step they take.

An Assault weapon? There is no need for them. The only one's that use them are the people who shoot up people, the people who stockpile them to protect themselves from a Government take over. And Ted Nugent, need I say more. He is insane. And then this guy is a perfect example of who I surely don't want to have them. His big mouth got his gun permit taken away, lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV9nnf...

What I want to know is. And I asked and got no response. Why do so many people think "Obama and the Liberals" are coming after ALL the guns???

I see people who think this and I don't even argue with them, it's like you don't even know what you are fighting for!

I see comments like "if you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns", And people flat out saying Obama is coming after all our guns.

There was a post about the Obama and the Secret Service protection on here and there was a comment made by someone named Rand. "I thought he was going to disband the secret service since he plans on taking all our guns away.
If no one is armed why does he need the SS?"
Then another comment to his from Sebekm
"I guess for protection from all the "outlaws" who will have the remaining guns...."

HUH???

Nobody wants all your guns.

""If everyone who had a gun just shot themselves, there wouldn't be a problem." George Harrison"

That would solve everything, wouldn't it?

"If she had been using a .45 chances are she would have dropped the intruder there on the spot, the problem is/was the calibre of bullet she was using."

I agree. The term is "stopping power," and anything less than a .40 cal/9mm supposedly comes up short in matters of self-defense. I have one .45 cal ACP Colt Defender for home protection. I have three seven round clips. (When the gun was delivered from the manufacturer at the store in Midway, it came without a magazine. When the order was finally fulfilled a couple of weeks later, the manufacturer sent along three clips. I guess that was supposed to make up for the lack of one when the gun arrived.) Like the Herman's, I've taken my wife out to the range to practice, and she knows the combo to the gun safe.

The Hermans probably had a .38 revolver because revolvers are generally easier to operate by the inexperienced - especially in times of crisis. I'm not sure whether revolvers much larger than .38 caliber are sold nowadays. (The .45 cal revolvers I've seen way back when were somewhat "unwieldy.") With a semi-auto like my Defender, you have to deal with charging the weapon (assuming you don't keep a round chambered); the safety; and they also are more prone to jam than a revolver. In fact, I'm not sure that a revolver even with minimum maintenance will "jam." So Mr. Herman may have considered the "stopping power" issue and if so, his assessment probably was that Mrs. Herman would be better off - all things considered - with a revolver.

Of course, the NRA and the gun control opponents are going to use this event as an example of why Mrs. Herman should have had three AK-47s with 25-round banana clips at the ready - just to make sure Mr. Paul Ali Slater didn't have several armed buddies waiting outside to provide a helping hand in case there were problems with the burglary. It's a tough situation to balance. I guess that's why there's such controversy.

Froggy: My comment about outlaws was sarcasm. I know it's hard to tell. But when I think about the concept of "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" - I can envision the scenario:

First - if guns are "outlawed" - presumably permitting only law enforcement to legally own firearms - what you're left with is a total reliance on law enforcement for universal population protection. Also, "outlaws" have always been able to acquire weapons. There's no reason to believe that would change. We don't have a "police state" and law enforcement can't be everywhere. So in the case of Mrs. Herman and her two children, we may very well have had a triple homicide instead of a situation where the "outlaw" was stopped.

Also - if you speak to anybody who lived in Nazi Germany (very few are alive nowadays) - they would tell you that the lack of an "armed population" or "civilian militia" made it a hell-of-a-lot easier for Hitler and his henchmen to keep the furnaces going.

"Why do so many people think "Obama and the Liberals" are coming after ALL the guns???"

I take this as a talking point consistent with the "slippery slope" argument re: gun control. The staunchest gun rights activists are selling the concept that once you give up ANY gun "rights" (assault weapons, high capacity magazines, etc.), eventually the laws will expand - little by little - until "the government gets what it REALLY wants" - a total ban on private firearm possession. I must say - to me there has always been more than a little bit of paranoia in this mindset.

Passing more gun control laws that keep responsible people from procuring weapons is ludicrous. Any law abiding citizen should be able to purchase as many weapons that they choose to have and can afford. Draconian gun control laws didn’t work in Chicago and more than 2.5 million people defend themselves each year with guns. Over 400,000 believe if not for their gun they would be dead. Here is an interview with Jesse Jackson trying to defend the failed gun laws of Chicago.

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states...

And here’s another article by Larry Elder featuring “Ice T” defending the right to keep and bear arms and some more astonishing facts on how often they are used in self defense.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/larry...

The bottom line is if you don’t want to own a gun that’s alright, if you want to own one that’s ok too; however no one has the right to tell any other law abiding citizen what type or how many weapons they should own. Just leave the machine guns and automatic rifles for the military.

We have armed secret service to protect our president and other elected officials, we have armed guards protecting our money being transported or at a bank. Why don’t we have armed professionals protecting our schools and little children? Aren’t they important enough too? That would help deter some of these tragedies along with electronic entry points accessed by a proximity card issued to occupants of the school. The Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora and Newtown shootings had one thing in common that the lunatic salivates over, a no guns policy and no opposition; it’s time for a change in our thinking of protecting the innocent and the Obama administration approach is the same old failed policies that never work!

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The word shall is absolute in legal terms, and is used strategically within the constitution.

Hi Funky.

"Just leave the machine guns and automatic rifles for the military."

I agree. I do think you need to have something done on the "hardware" front. When the founding fathers contemplated an armed "regulated militia," they did so at a time when they were battling an "oppressive government" from which they fled across an ocean and which later came and attacked them. To think about the Second Amendment in this day and age as a means to arm the civilian population to fight government law enforcement and the armed forces of the United States seems - on its face - to be foolish and wrong-headed.

My thought is that the politicians who are working this problem should view it from the standpoint of what kind of weapons does the civilian population-at-large need to feel "safe and secure in their homes" and in their "persons" - as opposed to "what do I need as an American citizen if my local/state/federal law enforcement and/or state/federal military services attack me in my home." They should also examine what can be done to improve identification of the "mentally ill" in order to prevent their acquisition of guns, but this will never be totally successful.

There also are cultural aspects to be examined. I saw something in the news the other day where video game marketers were claiming that "studies" had demonstrated no connection between violent video games and gun-related mass murders. To me, that smacks EXACTLY of the tobacco companies telling everyone that cigarettes weren't addictive and didn't cause cancer.

There are many aspects of the problem to be examined, but - IMHO - you have to look at the types of weaponry, magazines, ammunition, etc., as well. These are the TOOLS of the mass murderer.

....and on its face, it does seem like we have the right Commander-in-Chief to be in charge when we tackle this issue. I was watching The McLaughlin Group on GPB about an hour ago, and they had a promo for a Frontline program titled "Inside Obama's Presidency" which is airing Tuesday night at 10 p.m. on GPB and SCETV. In the promo, the narrator described President Obama as:

"The only Nobel Prize winner with a kill list.

Yes Sebe, we gotta off the evil-doers.

I agree with you Chief and JimmyMack; however come Tuesday I don't want to hear any new laws that prohibit law abiding citizens from purchasing what they want or need.

I want to see something passed that helps the good guy proure firearms, and prohibit the bad guys.

Me too, Funk. Just as long as they can not get their hands on drones armed with missles.