AR15 Clone Used to Rescue Treed Teen Girl from Big Alligator

Gun Watch ^ | 13 July, 2018 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

Image of 11 foot Alligator from Victoria Advocate, 2009

On Friday afternoon, 29 June, 2018, a 15 year old girl, Jordan Broderick, was floating on a raft in Freek creek in the Ocala National Forest. That section of the creek is in Lake County Florida.

Alligators chased her up a tree. Her mother called 911 and reported that alligators had treed her daughter, and were aggressive. From foxnews.com:

"My daughter's stuck in a frickin' tree and there's gators surrounding her!" Broderick's mother reportedly told a 911 dispatcher. "Oh my God! Please hurry! Please hurry!"

Deputy Mitch Blackmon responded to the scene, where he found the teen — who had been swimming in a creek in Ocala National Forest — yelling that she was tired from hanging onto a tree branch for so long.

Blackmon wrote in his report that his "presence failed to scare the alligator away, and it began encroaching on my area at which time I fired one single 223 round from my Bushmaster AR15 killing the alligator."

The AR15 style rifle was wielded by a competent deputy who went into harms way to rescue the teenage girl.

Many of those who want a disarmed population claim there is no useful purpose for AR15 style rifles. This incident shows that claim is foolish. Modern Sporting Rifles, or Sport Utility Rifles, or the vague, derogatory, and inaccurate term "assault weapons" are all used to describe these versatile semi-automatic rifles.

They are designed to be easy to use, accurate, and adequately powerful, without excessive recoil. They work equally well for deputies, police, or armed citizens. The rifle offers more accuracy, range, and magazine capacity than the commonly available shotgun, with less recoil. From  orlandosentinal.com:

With a single shot from his AR-15 rifle, a Lake County deputy sheriff quickly put an end to a large alligator that had a teenage girl trapped in a tree for nearly an hour, authorities said Monday.

Jordan Broderick, 15, was eventually able to climb safely down from the tree, according to a sheriff’s report.

A shotgun might have worked in this case. But the rifle showed how versatile a tool it is.

The picture shows how big an 11 foot alligator is. One that size is 800 pounds of potent predator. Their diet consists of animals they can catch and kill. To a big alligator, a human is just another meal.

This video shows a large alligator attacking a wild pig. It illustrates the speed and ferocity of an alligator attack.  Warning: extremely graphic.

Link to video

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

[marktwain]

Who says the AR15 is not enough gun?

[eartick]

A shotgun might have worked in this case. But the rifle showed how versatile a tool it is.

effin idiots that write this just floor me.

[Fightin Whitey]

Freeper Mark Twain is Dean Weingarten.

[riverrunner]

Shot placement and penetration is key on alligators.

Hit the brain and they are dead, miss and one well get results you do not want.

[Vaquero]

Yes a head shot a close range. Troy Landry and company use .22 rim fire on 14 foot gators in Louisiana. What’s your point?

5.56 is a good military weapon for open territory at relatively close ranges…plus you can carry a lot of rounds. As long as your not behind dense cover or many hundreds of yards out 7.62x51 is better for that. And their are even better rounds than that for long range some new some very old. Like the .50 BMG.

[eartick]

So, the writing is so far out there. Doesn't the writer realize that the shotgun was being considered a banned weapon in conduction of war. The "AR variant" has never been considered for this.

Now do we want to throw out there to the liberals that a shotgun, even though it would have done the job, was once considered more lethal than a Maxim machine gun in trench warfare. I do not think so.

[wmileo]

"The AR15 style rifle was wielded by a competent deputy who went into harms way to rescue the teenage girl."

This deputy and others like him should have been in Broward County on February 14, 2018.

[FLT-bird]

Saw this posted elsewhere about a week ago. Had it been near me, the call to the cops would’ve been to report a dead alligator with several bullet holes in him floating down the creek.....

[Ann Archy]

Jordan’s mother should have told her that there are Alligators in EVERY body of water in Florida!! Floating in a creek on a raft!! She is lucky to be alive and in one piece!

[exnavy]

Any number of rifles in any number of calibre would have done just as well. A new research report shows 400,000,000 firearms in the hands of civilians in the good old USA today, thank God for that.

[yarddog]

That is one big swamp lizard.

[reg45]

How many alligator bags will that one yield?

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Great video...Where can I get a ride on that boat...That boat operator knows how to have a good time.

Then I think that’s exactly what happened to that little boy at Disney World last year.

[Tennessee Conservative]

Times must have changed. I grew up in the swamp of The Everglades in the 60’s and encountered gators all the time while playing and swimming. They were never aggressive toward us. The little ones were more dangerous than the big ones. The little guys liked to hang out near the bank of the swamp hidden in tall grass and shallow water waiting for something to walk by. They snapped at us but the big ones just ignored us.

[DJ Taylor]

I once had a face-to-face encounter with a large crocodile during a stream crossing in Vietnam and saw that if the croc had used the same blinding speed he had used in getting away to attack me, he would have easily had me. That thing was, hands down, the fastest moving animal I had ever seen. And, yes, I was carrying an M-16 rifle at the time.

[Popman]

Remember guns kill people and (gators)...that's why they should be banned.

I wonder how the deadly military style assault rifle knew the difference between the girl and the gator ? / S

[central_va]

Did the croc don a pith helmet and black PJ’s? Or was he ARVN?

[DJ Taylor]

"Did the croc don a pith helmet and black PJ’s? Or was he ARVN?"

That comment just shows how little you know about the Vietnam War. Probably because you spent the war back in the States with your fellow Democrats burning the American flag.

[nonsporting]

effin idiots that write this just floor me.

You are too censorious.

Libs (like Biden) sing the praises of the shotgun, while he and other anti-gunners condemn the AR15 as "useless for anything other than killing people." Weingarten points out the absurdity of such arguments.

As a hunter Weingarten understands proper firearm and cartridge selection. An AR15 wouldn't be my first choice, when going after dangeous game. But the choice between shotgun and AR15 is clear: adequate penetration, precision and quick followup shots make the AR15 superior to a 12-gauge with shot.

[al_c]

Good thing that evil gun didn’t shoot the girl instead.