No Shots Fired: Home Intruders Decide Not to Stick Around After Seeing Their 'Victim' Holding an AR-15

Two home intruders, one holding a handgun, broke into a New York apartment on Tuesday and waited at the bottom of the stairs for a potential "victim" to come down. While their intentions are unknown, it is clear they were criminals up to no good.

After hearing some noise coming from the basement, Christopher Boise, a student at Rochester Institute of Technology, went to check it out.

"They were waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs," Boise told WHAM-TV. When they saw him, the man with the gun pointed the barrel towards him.

Relying on pure instinct, Boise let out a blood-curdling scream in order to alert his roommate, Raymond, who is also a RIT student.

"It wasn't like a, 'I stepped by stepped on a piece of glass' kind of scream," Raymond said.  "So, I instinctively went to my gun bag."

In that bag was a AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, one of the very guns at the center of the current gun control debate.

AR-15 rifle. (shutterstock.com)

About five seconds after he retrieved his gun, one of the intruders began opening the door to the room where he was waiting. But he was ready.

"By the time I had it out and ready, one of the men came at my door, slowly opened it, saw that there was a barrel on the other side and from there backed out," Raymond recalled.

After seeing the barrel of an AR-15 staring them in the face, the two men fled from the apartment. No shots were fired and no one was injured. In fact, the rifle wasn't even loaded at the time of the incident, Raymond said.

It's not the kind of story that always makes national headlines as bullets never went flying, but it certainly shows why so many Americans are adamant about protecting the Second Amendment as it is written in the U.S. Constitution. It also shows that, in some cases, a gun doesn't even have to be used in order for it to protect its owner and others.

Watch WHAM-TV's report below:

"I'm happy he saved my life. I was very thankful he had his (gun)," Boise said of his roommate.

Rochester Police Chief James Sheppard said Raymond's gun was legal and effectively protected his property.

"We're thankful that no one was injured," he said.

Police reportedly found BB rounds near a broken glass window. It's unclear if the handgun used in the home invasion was a BB gun.

Featured image via shutterstock.com