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good for her. old lady shoots punk kid

So let me get this straight, if someone with ill intentions comes on your property and even if they aren't armed, it is better to kill them so as to avoid a legal hassle and possibly prison? Something seems terribly wrong about that but then again, if they live, it's your word against theirs.

Kewl, I love a man in uniform. I concede you are definitely the expert in this discussion.

But in the same token, by not giving a warning shot, aren't you endangering the bystanders just as much if they have no warning and and get caught in the crossfire? And as is often the case, public opinion turns against the police when they shoot and kill unarmed civilians, especially when it is witnessed by bystanders that the officers could have just wounded them.

I would think as a "peace" officer you would be obligated to give the person the chance to back down. The public puts their trust in the police to not only protect them, but to not kill them as well. Either way, it's gotta be a tough job to be a policeman.

That sounds just like the movies. Seriously, I'm glad you lived to tell the tale. In Utah, it is legal for anyone to open carry, so who needs a concealed weapon permit? But ironically, it is illegal to carry an open beer. But here again, if it is legal to openly carry a firearm then why is that any different than waving the gun to deter a perp as opposed to actually shooting him?

I agree. But if you know that is a possiblity then why not the pull the gun out sooner to use as a deterent instead of waiting for the perp to show his gun or is at arms length?

Things are not always black and white in the real world.
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This is so true. And I don't think any "civilian" can honestly say they know how they would react in a hostile situation until it is upon them.

But I want to reiterate the reason I bought my gun was to protect my property and as far as I know, that right is protected by the constitution. I remember how it was during the LA riots and the police were no where to be found for days. It was a mad house. On the news there were some Korean business owners whose businesses were getting looted and destroyed by their own neighbors. So they went and bought guns, came back and started shooting at the looters. When you see the video below, it's amazing nobody was killed, but it did stop the looting of their businesses and public opinion was on their side. Days later, after the dust settled and things returned to normal, most of the looters returned the goods they stole. I must say, that kind of renewed my faith and hope for humanity somewhat, because if they had been killed they wouldn't have had that chance to redeam themselves. But my point is, if the Korean business owners had guns to use as a deterent from the very start, no one would have tried or have gotten into their businesses to do the damage they did and they probably wouldn't have needed to go on a shooting spree after the fact.

LA riots – Looters and Korean business owners defending their stores | Newsnet 14
 

A lot of this is going to depend on the details, specifically what your state laws say about how you are legally allowed to handle an intruder. Some state laws are very reasonable; some are ridiculous.
If you own a gun and intend to use it for defense, you need to know what the law says. It's probably online at your state.gov website.




Not really. A warning shot is by definition a shot that is not aimed at someone that needs to be shot. Consequently, its point of impact is more uncertain. If I take my point of aim off the perp, I'm giving him a moment in time to do something that might endanger me, other officers, or bystanders. If I fire a shot that isn't aimed at the perp, bystanders might not be expecting me to fire somewhere other than along that line and one of them might be standing in the way or running into the line of fire. It is considered an avoidable risk.
Shots actually aimed AT the perp are supposed to HIT the perp. Yeah, I know, they don't always. But at least anybody in his right mind ought to be trying to get out of that line of fire between or behind the perp and the cops.


"Obligated?" No. Not if there is an immenent threat to an innocent person, and that is mostly when we're supposed to shoot. If a perp is pointing a gun at me, or at an innocent person, a warning shot might cause him to shoot. If we're talking about a guy standing twenty yards away with a knife, and not charging anyone just now, then normally yeah he gets a chance to surrender.



If you read my other posts, I said that yes, there are certain circumstances when using a gun for a deterrent, without necessarily shooting, is a reasonable action. If the threat is less than imminent, like a man at a distance with a knife.



I agree. But if you know that is a possiblity then why not the pull the gun out sooner to use as a deterent instead of waiting for the perp to show his gun or is at arms length?
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If you'll re-read my story about what happened to me, you'll notice that is exactly what I was doing, or rather about to do. They saw me grip my weapon, and that alone was enough to cause them to break off.

This is so true. And I don't think any "civilian" can honestly say they know how they would react in a hostile situation until it is upon them.
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Disagree. Generally you will react according to how you have been trained, how you have practiced, and how you have mentally prepared yourself to handle a given situation.
I had a shift-mate named I'll call "H". "H" was not exactly John Wayne, but he was a good cop. He found himself in a fight with a perp, who was able to get his weapon out of his holster and attempt to shoot him with it. H remembered his training and used a technique to take the gun away from the perp. He was scared, but he reacted according to his training, practice, and temperament.
Cops are not supermen. There is nothing cops do that "civilians" can't, with suitable training.




Again, you need to check your state laws, regardless of what you think the constitution guarantees. In some states defending property is looked on leniently, in others you can easily go to prison in many scenarios. You want to know where you stand with the law if you're going to use deadly force in any capacity. It isn't hard, just look it up and read it.
 
OscarB63 said:
Cops still haven't charged this dangerous criminal...I guess she didn't break the law. :lamo
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The fact that this woman hasn't been charged does NOT mean that she chose the best possible method of handling this situation. Sometimes people who have access to a firearm, but are not trained, in a moment of anger/fear, will see that weapon as a means of handling a conflict that would be better settled without the use of weapons.

It is my personal experience that a gun should be used as a last resort when you are in fear of imminent harm and have no other recourse. That is my personal philosophy about violence. A gun is not a prop that you use to frighten neighborhood kids, it is a tool for killing someone who means you immediate--and serious--harm.

This woman reacted emotionally, and in my opinion, that was a mistake. Many people escalate when they feel frustrated or angry, without realizing the ramifications of that escalation. I've seen gang members do it a hundred times, and I will never be a fan of vigilanteism (and that's what this was, without question).

I find it troubling that a gun advocate would EVER take gun use lightly and applaud people who use a firearm without proper preparation and/or thought.

I never carried a gun when I did intervention with gang members. I've never yet found myself in a situation that I couldn't resolve without the use of a weapon. I strongly suspect that this woman had ongoing problems with these kids because of behaviors that she engaged in personally, beyond the fact that they were little thugs.

I've known hundreds of little thugs. There is a reason that some people have difficulties with them. There are a lot of older people in some communities who expect to be shown a certain degree of deference by teenagers, without realizing that this generation is different, and that they aren't going to show you respect just for being old. You get what you give. I've seen several senior citizens actually CREATE conflicts in their neighborhoods because of the rude and hostile way that they dealt with the kids. I strongly suspect that this woman played an active role in the ongoing feud.
 
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Catz Part Deux said:
The fact that this woman hasn't been charged does NOT mean that she chose the best possible method of handling this situation.
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but it does mean that in the eyes of the law, her action was justified.
 
one of the risks of being an asswipe is getting wasted by someone you screw with

I am a big advocate of laws that hold that those who engage in felonious attacks on others cannot be heard to complain in either civil or criminal court against their intended victims.

In other words if you rob, burglarize or attack another person and they blow your nuts off with a 12 bore shotgun you are outta luck

no if you were not engaged in felonious behavior or behavior that a reasonable person would see as felonious, then you probably shouldn't have your nuts shot off, maybe just a load of rock salt in your ass
 

Will you still say this when the "little brat" comes back and sets her house on fire? If it happens in a couple of years, I'll remember, and I'll ask you...
 
FederalRepublic said:
Will you still say this when the "little brat" comes back and sets her house on fire? If it happens in a couple of years, I'll remember, and I'll ask you...
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Which begs the question of whether or not it is, or will remain that out of hand. :roll: Lets just focus on the "what has happened" and not base what has occurred on what COULD POSSIBLE in the future HAPPEN or NOT happen.
 
In my formerly-professional opinion, she definately overreacted to some degree, and was fortunate not to be charged.

Do I sympathize with the untenable situation she found herself in? Of course. Absolutely.

Her solution however, was less than ideal.
 
I would be curious to know how you would have handled the situation if you were her? Keep in mind it was almost a years worth of harrassment (setting fires, throwing bricks, distruction of property, etc) and calling the police and the boys parents was futile.
 


I regret to say that sometimes the system does not work very well. There are lazy cops sometimes, and even the good cops often find their hands tied by proceedure and the courts. Anything involving juveniles is especially difficult, because they are often treated with kid gloves to the point of ridiculousity.

I would naturally have begun by attempting to get the law to handle it. To facilitate this, security cameras hooked up to recorders would be placed to catch his actions on film. Nothing says "prosecutable" like video evidence.

I would confer with his parents in a very serious manner, explaining that they were susceptible to lawsuit for damages for their offsprings' misbehavior.

I would document everything, and keep copies of police reports, and establish a "paper trail" that the harassment was ongoing.

If there was no resolution through the law, I'd take everything to a journalist for the local news. They often love scandals and headlines saying "Police not doing their job, local widow terrorized," and that sort of thing.

One of the problems with this sort of situation is that they DO tend to escalate until something drastic eventually happens. There's a good chance, if this old lady hadn't been armed, that one day or another we would have read how she'd been murdered by this juvenile, or very gravely injured. If things had gone on without any resolution, there's a good chance that either the old lady or the bad kid would have ended up dead at some point. The circumstances under which this DID happen were less than ideal, as they left room for someone to ask whether it was really a legitimate shooting or not. There are ways to manage these situations better, but nothing I'm going to talk about online.
 
I doubt she had the means to install cameras. The police had already failed her.
 
This woman had been terrorized by these punks for an extended period of time They set fire to her property. They put a brick through her window, which hit her in the chest. They came back with more bricks. During all this the police were ineffective at best at defending this woman from these little monsters. I have absolutely no problem with her response. Could she have responded differently? Sure. But everyone has a breaking point and after constantly being harrassed by these thugs, she apparently reached hers.
 
why you shoot first and ask questions later. keep in mind, this guy was a professional who had been trained in disarming an opponent. this is why cops shoot guys with knives. and why I have no problem with this lady shooting this punk who was assaulting her with bricks.

 

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Maybe you should consider changing your avatar.
 
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