A Red Lake Falls, Minnesota shop keeper gave a burglar the surprise of his young life:

Just after 2 a.m. Sunday, Kert and VeAnn Wright heard someone in their consignment store, where they live in the basement. Kert confronted the burglar.

Kert Wright: “Yeah, he turned around, came up over my arm and hit me with a… I didn’t know what at the time. Later I found out it was a flashlight.”

What that would be burglar didn’t count on when he went prowling around Kert Wright’s store, is that Kert Wright had much more than a flashlight in his hand.

Kert Wright: “That’s a 22 semi-automatic Luger. As fast as you pull the trigger it will shoot 10 shots. I grabbed him and threw him down here on the floor. I got on top of him and said don’t you move and I said a few other choice words I shouldn’t repeat.”

Reporter: “He started listening to you then?”

Kert Wright: “Yeah, he definitely was listening to me.”

Wright says that he never put his finger on the trigger, and that he felt in control of the situation the entire time.

This is a very typical defensive gun use, of the kind that doesn’t often make the local news because it simply isn’t exciting enough for ratings-hungry local news channels. Firearms are used in self defense between 500,000-3.2 million times a year in self-defense in the United States, and in most instances, the mere display of the firearm is enough to end the threat.