(courtesy wxyz.com)

It’s amazing, astounding really that the wxyz.com’s printed version of their TV report [click on screen cap to see it] doesn’t mention the fact that the “brave Mom” defending her brood against home invaders ended the attack with an “assault rifle.” The video report calls it “this rifle.” Of course, CNN chat show host and rabid anti-gunner Piers Morgan will highlight the weapon wielded for this defensive gun use on tonight’s show, admitting that “I was wrong to say that Americans never use assault rifles for self-defense.” Or not. Here’s what happened . . .

The mother tells Action News she “didn’t have time to get scared.” When she heard the door to her home on Woodrow Wilson being kicked in, she immediately warned the three teenage intruders and then opened fire.

One of the teens dropped a handgun on his way out the door. He then tried to get back inside the house a second time, but was again met with gunfire. Once again, he took off and all three were arrested shortly after the incident by Detroit Police.

Recalling the panic she felt, the mom says “I let them know I had a gun once they were in the house. They said no you don’t so I shot off the first round. I wasn’t feeling anything at the moment, I got scared afterwards.”

One wonders how the antis will spin this AR-style defensive gun use. More likely they’ll just ignore it.

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129 COMMENTS

        • Roger that. You don’t get any points for “pretty” after a gunfight. Besides, the po-po are going to take it away after the DGU; I wouldn’t get all tore up over this particular unit.

          Hi-Points are pretty much the Bic lighters of the gun world.

        • Hear hear! Whether there’s an appropriate time and place for gun snobbery is debatable. Whether that time and place is zero dark thirty in one’s own hallway, however, is not.

          Run the gun ya brung, I say, to coin a phrase with no hope of ever catching on.

      • Off the cuff comment on my part.
        My remark wasn’t so much about the make or quality of said gun but the condition it appears to be in. The surface rust and dust if it were a less robust firearm I wouldn’t elect if to feed reliably. I use my tools, trucks, and guns hard, I also take care of them, a little wd40 and a rag goes a long way.

        • HiPoints don’t care about oil – they’ll run dry and rusty. Then, when it finally does lockup hard you just send it back to HiPoint and they’ll honor their lifetime warranty, no questions asked! People hate on HiPoint because they’re ugly and clumsy (both true), but they are an All American Firearms Company of The People!

        • WD-40 is not oil, it’s a water displacer. Great for keeping rust away as you mentioned, but if you use it in your guns internals, then all you are doing is making sure that they aren’t wet while they grind themselves into dust.

        • It is oil, but not intended as a lubricant.

          Non-gaseous/non-wax/non-tar petroleum fractions: oil.

          I’d not lubricate a gun with heating oil, either, but it’s oil.

    • You need to re-title this article:

      “Moms TAKE action.”

      And that would be a great title for a series, BTW.

    • Remember, it’s purely based on appearance, not whether it’s any good:
      Color=Black: Check
      Pistol Grip:Check
      Military Style:(read, black) Check
      Offensive and Scary looking:confirmed
      =Assault weapon!

    • Funny you should ask, since the Hi-Point carbine was specifically designed to be compliant with the ’94 AWB law. But, one was used in the Columbine shooting, forever sealing it as an “assault weapon” in the eyes of the media. This is, of course, despite the fact that the one used was specifically NOT an AW under the AWB and all 13 magazines possessed by the shooter were of compliant, 10-round capacity flavor. 96 shots were fired through the Hi-Point there.

      Compare the above to the other shooter’s primary weapon, a TEC-9, which WAS an assault weapon under the law, including the 52-, 32-, and 28-round magazines the shooter had with him. Despite this, the TEC-9 only fired 55 times.

      • dammit Jeremy, stop it with all the facts and stuff! You are a buzzkill for liberal “feel-good” legislation.

  4. The Hi-point carbines also make excellent bludgeons if you run out of ammo, tipping the scales at over 6 pounds.

    • You can’t honestly say that about 3 kg (6 pounds) is bludgeony. Yes, “bludgeony” is a word (adjective).

      • Most baseball bats are longer than the hipoint “carbine” and weigh about 1 kg. I think we can agree that baseball bats are very “bludgeony”. Something 3x the weight in a shorter package definitely qualifies as “bludgeony” in my book.

      • The noun would be “bludgeonry”; I love the sound of “bludgeonry”, don’t you?

        “After shooting the perp down, the little lady of the house committed bludgeonry upon his still body.”

        • It is preferable to not commit bludgeonry with a loaded weapon, however. If you still have ammo, use that instead.

        • As they used to say in ze Army regarding bayonets, if you’re close enough to stick ’em, you’re close enough to shoot ’em.

  5. I will never understand why someone would fire a warning shot within their home. If I had to fire within my home, I want “something” to catch lead that I dont/didnt have to pay for.

    • That was my thoughts. It was a firearm and it fired. I doubt the teens at the receiving end stopped to ask her, “say, is that a Highpoint rifle you just fired at me? Well if it is, I’m not scared”
      That’s like concerning yourself over what kind of rock you just got hit in the head with. It makes no difference if it was crushed rock, river rock or a chunk of Utah red rock.

    • Yep. On the “Money Spent vs. Utility for Self-Defense” graph, the slope is greater between $0 and $300 than between $300 and $1000.

      Going from no gun to a Hi-Point is more of an improvement than going from a Hi-Point to a Sig.

      • I would argue that for some people going from a hi-point to a sig would be a step down…. if you have to shoot someone with it, the local po-po ain’t gonna let you KEEP it. And with the savings from keeping a hi-point instead of a Sig… you can buy another hi point.

    • Yup. They have a face only a mother could love, but like a fat girl at an all you can eat buffet, they just go and go.

  8. And this why we need a company or two like Hi-Point in the gun market.

    I know a lot of us gun snobs think they are crap, but for a single mom in the inner city (not that this was necessarily the case here, but you get my point) on a budget, a gun that goes boom on the cheap is what they need.

    Bravo Hi-Point!

    • I agree vehemently.

      I know I’m probably one of the worst about being a gun snob here on TTAG. I like nice guns, nice old guns, nice guns that were made 100 years ago. I wave my hand dismissively at higher-priced modern guns.

      But… I’ve been inside a Hi-Point carbine in .45 ACP. It wasn’t a plan, and it wasn’t a customer of mine. A LGS where I sometimes breeze through to talk to the folks behind the counter had sold a Hi-Point Carbine to a customer of theirs who came in a week later wondering how to detail strip it for cleaning. The gent behind the counter asked a favor and I happily helped show the customer how to strip it. Never been into one before, but it was straightforward enough.

      When I was done, I thought “If I want to recommend an inexpensive, handy little rifle for home defense, this is probably going to be it.” There’s nothing “nice” about it whatsoever, but it fills the price gap, it works reliably and it is offered in 9, .40 and .45, so a person could have only one type of ammo to worry about. For what it is intended, it works.

      A person who has problems aiming a handgun could do far, far worse than getting a Hi Point carbine in .45 ACP. Load it with some heavy JHP rounds and call it good.

      • A simple .45ACP carbine (or a Mech Tech “pistol accessory” for a 1911 or G21) is quite a good indoors defense weapon. With a 230-grain bullet in a standard load it stays sub-sonic even with the longer barrel, produces less muzzle flash, has little recoil, and is a bit less loud. Almost everybody can fire it more accurately than a .45ACP pistol. (With a light-for-caliber 165-grain +P load it’ll go super-sonic in a hurry.)

        • I remember hearing somewhere that hi-points all are rated for +P… unlike some .45ACP pistols… and actually seem to cycle better with those +P rounds.

    • For sure.

      I’m a bit of a snob running around with the latest German steel and plastic, but any gun that runs and has a track record of doing so, is a good enough gun. I’m glad there are options for people of all economic situations and would like to see more come to market.

      I know if I had been in that house I’d be damn glad to have it if that’s all I had to protect my kids.

    • The reporter is a good friend of mine and I’m going to tell him to follow-up with this story to highlight self-defense heroes/heroines.

      • Isn’t that sort of good news if a mother defending her babies against hoodlums found an evil assault weapon to be just the thing. I’m going to start calling them MHDW, Mothers’ home defense weapon.

        • I don’t think it is ever a good thing when journalist call things by what they are not. It is like calling a Ford a Chevy, it leads to craziness.

          They didn’t even say ‘assault weapon’. They said ‘assault rifle’. Wrong on so many levels.

          I regularly watch wxyz local news and abc world news (they are on back-to-back-to-back-to-back) and this always seems to happen to stories that start local, then get picked up by abc. They are ‘re-written’ to lean to the left. Of course, stories that wxyz picks up that came from abc already lean that direction, and wxyz tends to just ‘read’ them ‘as-is’.

  10. Lady, stop talking about your DGU.

    P.S. I own one of those. It’s fun, cheap, simple, and works every time.

    • did you watch the video? The cops are happy she did this, they aren’t charging her with anything, she can talk all she wants. There is a time and a place for paranoia, but in this instance, it looks like the system is working for the citizen, not against.

      • I think Detroit’s new police chief is changing views on private gun ownership in the city (and surrounding areas). Because of the city’s budget issues he has, on multiple occassions, said that if more citizens were legally armed then the entire city would be safer.

        As for the Hi-Point…..as I’ve always said a Hi-Point in your hand is better than a Glock on the gun store shelf. Purchase what you can when you can, then save up for what you want.

        • The new Chief is the best thing that could’ve happened for Detroit and the Detroit PD. The PD simply doesn’t have the resources to respond and they openly admit it. Detroit is a HUGE city geographically, and the PD really only has the resources to mount active patrols in the downtown core. Their presence in the outer areas of the city is more akin to a Sheriff’s department.

          If people want to live in Detroit and take it back from the criminals, they’re going to have to buck up and do it themselves. They NEED the active support of people like Chief James Craig, who unlike so many police chiefs and politicians, states flat-out that you have a responsibility to protect yourselves before the police arrive, and that you should do everything you can to exercise that right.

        • One addendum, Jeff:

          The Police NO WHERE have the resources to respond. And it’s not even that; it’s not a money problem.

          Detroit’s present chief is just being honest about what applies everywhere.

        • JR I’m not sure how accurate that is for absolutely everywhere, but as far as major cities are concerned, I would say you’re correct.

          I’ve lived in smaller cities (~50K) where I’ve had to call 911 for suspected burglary, etc., and have an officer show up in under 5 minutes. But, those are places where virtually nothing is going on.

        • That’s his point, Jeff…. 5 minutes is a long damn time in some instances… and you’re responsible for your safety… actually, legally, the police CANNOT be held responsible for your safety. Only you.

      • The idea that we have the rights as ordinary people to defend ourselves and not have secret service or special guards is entirely out of line to those who are in politics or have a big bank accounts. Wake up people – WE have the right.

  11. High points are butt ugly but they seem to get the job done. Glad to hear the lady is OK and I hope that someone explains to her for future reference that warning shots, are a terrible idea. The main stream media will do what they always do and pretend this did not happen.

    • They’re totally uncomfortable to me. It’s a shame because they’re mechanically reliable and pretty accurate. I just wish the carbine had a completely different stock design, not only to alleviate the ugly factor, but to better the ergonomics.

  12. Gun snobs, take note. There is a necessary space for ugly, functional firearms which do what they’re told when Goblins call.

    We may think that’s an ugly Hi Point carbine, but to its grateful owner that gun is doubtlessly the prettiest weapon ever made by mankind.

    Nothing wrong with liking HKs and Sigs, but we should welcome the Hi Point owners with open arms. This incident is why.

    • There is a necessary space for ugly, functional firearms which do what they’re told when Goblins call.

      If there wasn’t, GLOCK would be out of business by now…

    • My hunting weapons, most of them, are beautiful. My go-to home defense weapons are ugly. I think an ugly gun puts a person in the right frame of mind for the task at hand.

  13. Just goes to show you that even inexpensive arms can protect people. I’m pretty sure this will boost Hi Point a bit in sales.

  14. Hi-Points are butt ugly but they go boom every time, from what I’ve heard, and their customer service is top notch. The pooooooooor need access to inexpensive fire arms for defense too…

    • And Hi-Point has a great warranty! Have one and is more fun to shoot than my higher priced weapons. Butt ugly? Beauty..eye..ect. Only complaint is that without extra TLC it WILL rust. Mine has had about 300-350 rds through it with any cheap 9mil I can find (haven’t tried Russian ammo yet). The one I have was able to hit a steel 8 inch target at 100 yds reliably right out of the box with iron sights. BTW if you get one in .40 or .45 you can also get a pistol in the same caliber that uses the same mag as the carbine, how cool is that? Might improve sales for some companies to copy that trick! A .22 pistol that uses the same mag as the 10/22? Ruger?…Ruger?….

  15. Piers Morgan is an ass clown he got banned from the UK BBC broadcasting for lies. He is anti-american till the end! his last job in the UK was for a newspaper very similar to The Enquirer, A BS newspaper rag that carries a bunch of non existent unrealistic totally fabricated BS! we really should revoke his visa and kick that lousy piece of garbage out of our country! I like to see that some b**** come to Florida, just remember this Mr Pierce Morgan you’re in the United States of America home of the free and the brave. We are civilians not subjects and we’re not ruled by a king or a tyrant no matter how bad Obama is! The people of America are sick of you and want you gone, go back to the UK man! I’ll by you at no class ticket back to the UK on my tab!

    • A 15 round mag is available from Hi-Point. Also, the stock can be replaced with an after market one. The replacement stock looks a little less assault rifelish.

      • Hmm. I know ProMag makes one, but Hi-Point called it out as violating the warranty. Hi-Point only sells 10 rounders. I have 3 for my 995TS, which is decidedly not rusty.

  17. Detroit has long taken a positive approach to DGU. What else can you do in a city in which the state has seriously failed in its primary duty of protecting property rights and personal safety.

  18. I love how video is becoming more and more available all the time. Reading about a DGU is one thing, seeing it in action is another. I never want to be the guy who wishes for someone to get shot, but gawd help me, I was hoping one of these pukes would take lead in a hip. I just don’t trust the courts to keep them away from the family down the street.

  20. I love it when mothers defend their families. First, it’s great news in and of itself, for a host of reasons. Second, it reveals just how anti-family, anti-child, and anti-woman the gungrabbers’ policies are.

    • +1

      I’ve been saying for a while that gun grabbers are pro-criminal. I tend to label gun grabbers as racists and homophobes too since many of the people who need self-protection the most are inner city dwellers or fringe/counter culture people who may be targeted by hate groups.

  21. I have a Hi-Point 9mm carbine. The gun is seriously fun to shoot. A pain to clean and it rusts like non-other, but a blast to shoot.

  24. well done. I vote the next contest this Mom get a spanking new gun. This one seems more like a club than a gun.

  26. Mom says, “I give them [the police] a lot of credit, because they handled it the same night.”

    Tells you a little bit (as if you didn’t already know) about what residents of Detroit have come to expect from the cops there. It’s not really the cops’ fault, either. This is just a comment on the state of things there in Detroit.

    • True.

      Now can you imagine the plight of good people in Detroit if everyone (not including criminals of course) were forcibly disarmed as in London?

      This lady and mother shows us firsthand why we truly NEED our right to keep and bear arms.

  27. I have a Hi Point carbine in .40. If it just had better feeding magazines, it would be my wife’s go to home defense weapon. As it is, she’ll grab her .40 M&P instead. She really likes the way the Hi Point shoots. I can get her to practice more with the Hi Point than with the M&P. Excellent home defense weapon, IMO, for somebody who is recoil sensitive.

  30. It’s always a wise idea to place your warning shot through center body mass. That generally serves as an effective warning to any other malefactors who might be watching, helping them understand that they picked the wrong line of work.

  31. The HiPoint carbine is absolutely one of the all time most fun sub $300 dollar guns EVER! The two I’ve had in 9mm have been dead nuts reliable and very accurate to 75 yds.

    Also it looks like it makes great teenager repellant.

  32. So, for those of you who follow the legislative details better than I, tell me how many states that gun would be illegal in?

    • I know it is illegal in kali without a bullet button, probably illegal in NY and I’m sure a few other slave states

      • Correct, illegal in NY. A pistol with the same amount of ammunition in the mag in the same caliber? Fine.

  33. I maintain that all a warning shot does (besides expose you to financial risk) is convince the goblin that for all you posturing, you are not serious about shooting them.

  37. Warning shot? She just cleared the rust out of the barrel of that hi-point. I’m damn glad she had that gun and didn’t wind up the guest of honor at a gang rape.

    My prayer is that we hear about these stories more often and not stories like the Petits.

  40. there is nothing wrong with an ugly HiPoint, but i would not like my life to depend on a gun that beat up. (anything from Mikhail Kalashnikov is exempt) i guess a gun beat to a pulp is better than no gun.

  41. This story warms my heart. Not the part about the poor mother getting broken into – that’s no fun. But the part where she busts caps in thugs’ asses, now that part warms my heart.

  42. This story warms my heart. Not the part about the poor mother getting broken into – that’s no fun. But the part where she busts caps in thugs’ azzes, now that part warms my heart.

  43. Momma almost fixed the 3rd robber’s stupidity problem when he tried going back in AFTER being shot at.

    Good for mom. Now can Detroit PD shake down the trio of “misguided” youths’ parents to pay for the damage their little angels caused to her door and door frame? Pawn their TVs, cell phones, chains, and Xboxs if they have to…make this woman whole.

    • According to article: She gave a verbal warning “I have a gun” then fired when they did not leave.
      Real deal, no warning shot.

  47. Hi-Point carbines shoot great, are NOT assault weapons of any kind, and are guaranteed for life at a very reasonable price. I’ve shot them, and they flat-out work. I don’t own any Hi-Points, but the carbines are great. I may just buy one now. I do have a Mech-Tech Carbine Conversion Unit for 1911’s, and it’s approximately the same thing. These carbines will get more accuracy and are easier to be accurate with than pistols for those who don’t shoot on a regular basis.

  48. Just noticed the video is on CNN, with the police chief saying she did nothing wrong but did defend her home and family. The Detroit TV station that reported it said people in the neighborhood will also be happy since this crew has been causing a lot of trouble.

  50. A lot of the good people living in this city are the most in need of a defensive firearm. The shootings of home invaders is very common in the Detroit media.

    The video shows some good points: the mere threat of a gun isn’t always a deterrent to an attacker, nor is actually firing said weapon. The “kid”-I use this term because we often see violent attackers portrayed in the national news as somehow harmless due to their age- drops his handgun after the first shots while retreating. He then picks it up, and attempts to enter the home, knowing full well it’s occupied by someone shooting at him. He finally changes his mind after another barrage. This goes to show that simply racking a shotgun, or even a “warning” shot will dissuade an attacker.

    We are a shall issue state, and Wayne County has been pretty good in my experience with issuing CPLs. Michigan has also streamlined the purchasing process, making it easier to buy a handgun.

    The fact that the DPD responded, and made arrests in a prompt manner is great, as there are really dedicated officers working in that department. There are currently under 2,500 sworn officers. They are facing major obstacles. Detroit was the first city to have radios in their squad cars, the current system works so poorly, that officers are sometimes forced to use their cell phones to contact dispatch. Their vehicles are a combination of barely functioning old crown vic’s, and new cars that were donated. Many don’t have MDT’s, and officers are looking at losing their retirements, health care (retirees and survivors of officers killed on the job already have) along with other morale destroyers. If you think being a cop in that city is some overpaid cake union job, you’re crazy. Their healthcare and retirement helps working for a lousy salary bearable. Yet still there are some men and women in blue doing the job for the right reasons. Hearing they caught the scum in this attack is a rare positive headline for those folks. Even so, in the best case the police are minutes away.

    At least in this city, citizens can obtain and use firearms to defend themselves against the animals that are trying to take over. From the news stories I’ve seen, it appears the home owner was allowed to keep possession of her firearm.

  51. Kudos to the mom. She did everything right. The lesson learned is A) a defensive gun can be a good idea and B) it’s how you handle the situation that makes the difference.

    I would like to know if she called 911 before she discharged the weapon. If she did, then it was a textbook DGU. Period. Plus the video was a clincher. Curiously, she has surveillance video going? – can’t be that poor a household. This should sell a lot of surveillance cameras.

    These are the things she did right:
    1) She recognized the danger and took action immediately – executed the battle drill.
    2) She had positive control of her weapon.
    3) Put the bad guys in a kill box (the door frame) – however a door frame that leads to the neighborhood is not the best because of stray bullets flying around – but let’s not be picky.
    4) Declared to the bad guys that she had a gun – and had it recorded – best done with a 911 call. BTW, you call 911 to make sure that they record you telling the bad guy you have a gun before you shoot them, not to talk to a 911 operator. You dial 911 and then put the phone down and take aim.
    5) As they declared hostile intent, she USED the weapon in an unambiguously legal manner. Aggressive – yes – but she is literally fighting for her life and her childrens lives. It’s a fight she cannot lose. Period.
    6) Stayed in the house and let the cops do their job.

    She became her own militia in the split second it took her to rise up and defend herself, her children and her property. This IS the 2nd Amendment. If she wasn’t trained to do this, then she’s just plain smart. This video is a lesson in HOW. The gun was only a small, but critical part of the overall LEGAL defense battle drill.

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