Another Responsible Gun Owner Stands His Ground

[ponderingturtle]

I do not know all the details, but if this man went outside and did not have cover, or at least concealment from the imagined threat then he already made tactical errors.

After that the subtle errors are almost unimportant. If he was heading outside already when he discovered the imagined threat then he should have retreated to cover or concealment.

If he had time to parley, he had time to find cover/ concealment, or start to retreat.

Standing ones ground may be an option, but it does not eliminate options, and the totality of circumstances still matters.

From what I read this man is not going to enjoy the scrutiny his actions have afforded him.

He doesn't seem to be substantively different from Joe Horn who did nothing legally wrong. Hell this guy wasn't on the phone to 911 so you cab argue he did less wrong.

Horn just shot people that many here are fine with being shot.

 

[remirol]

You admit that you have no evidence, no experience, and no clue. Admission noted.

Military and law enforcement actually train to operate as efficiently and quickly as you describe.

Why would you take joy in someone's misfortune?

I see you've deliberately misrepresented two of my statements instead of attempting to support your case at all. Plonk.

 

[seycyrus]

???

Really? You don't understand the point? Alarms and better locks buy you time. You can use that time to do a couple things. Wait for the police to come and save you, or defend yourself.

 

[Nessie]

I agree with this. For one thing statistics on violent home invasions are spotty. If you're going to use this phenomenon as a major factor in justifying use of firearms for "self defense" then it would be a good idea to know how prevalent the problem is. The issue is that statistically the crimes are sorted out into separate categories. A violent home invasion resulting in robbery, rape and murder is recorded to be as many as six separate crimes - unlawfully in dwelling, murder, robbery, aggravated assault, forcible confinement and sexual assault. There is no separate category for a violent crime committed following the entry to a dwelling through force or subterfuge, and I think that statistic is the one most needed.

What seems clear is that most break and enter/burglary type crimes do not involve violence. I'd say that because the total rate of violent crime is only a little over half the rate of all burglaries, all violent crime (including homicide, forcible rape, aggravated assault and robbery) being at a rate of 386 per 100,000 while just burglary on its own is listed by the FBI at a rate of 702 per 100,000.

An important thing to remember is that most criminals don't become criminals because they are ruthless, deviant and intelligent. They become criminals because it's easy. Which is why if you want to make your house secure the first step you should take is to make it slightly more difficult to break into than your neighbour's house. If your house has new windows and better lighting and your neighbour's house has a rickety looking door they'll try the neighbour's house unless there is a particular reason to find your house attractive. And usually the reason your house is more attractive is because you are known by the criminals to have drugs or cash inside.

This doesn't count the fact that there are some criminals who plan crimes against individual homes in order to steal, say, cars or jewellery. But those criminals are statistical outliers. Almost all burglaries are through the front door which is kicked open and any valuables that are easy to carry are taken away.

There is a clear gap in what the pro-gun side claim as reasons for a gun and what there are statistics for. The fear of home invasion, claim for self defence and protection against tyranny are all lacking in definitive statistics.

I think that makes it easier to continue to make those claims. But it has to be recognised those claims are not substantiate either way by plain facts.

Since DGUs are the subject here, I think that because so many criminals are armed, guns are justified for self defence in the USA. But I also think that it is open to doubt that DGUs save more lives than they unnecessarily take.

 

[NoahFence]

You admit that you have no evidence, no experience, and no clue. Admission noted.



Military and law enforcement actually train to operate as efficiently and quickly as you describe.


Why would you take joy in someone's misfortune?

Unless you're on a 24/7/365 heightened state of alert, the person breaking in with a gun will have the upper hand.

PERIOD.

You frickin John McClains are a hoot.

 

[seycyrus]

I see you've deliberately misrepresented two of my statements instead of attempting to support your case at all. Plonk.

Not at all. Your points are so infantile that presenting them in the light just illustrates their utter ridiculousness.

Tell me once again about the elite bad guys who tactically break into a residence in seconds, before anyone has a chance to respond.

Tell me again how much enjoyment you will take when people realize that they can't do anything to protect themselves against the elite bad guys.

 

[seycyrus]

Unless you're on a 24/7/365 heightened state of alert, the person breaking in with a gun will have the upper hand.

PERIOD.

You frickin John McClains are a hoot.

Will their advantage be less, if I do or don't have a gun?

 

[Polaris]

Many of the gun lovers on this forum would run shooting and screaming at someone backing out of their driveways? Keep stroking that bigotry of yours, but the rest of us will chalk that statement up to the usual ********.

No I am serious. The hard line self defense supporters need to know what a small minor error in perception this was. If the only issue is that he shot when the car was in reverse it seems pretty unreasonable to class that minor understandable error in perception in an old man. You have to take issue with confronting people in your crime ridden neighborhood with a gun to make it a serious error and that seems to have broad support.

No I am saying that if the main issue someone harps on is what gear the car was in then it isn't murder. You need to take issue with grabing your gun and going to confront them. But that is a behavior that has a lot of support.

How in the blue **** did you get any of that from my post? The only one harping on the gear the car was in is you.

Is anybody here actually arguing this shouldn't be treated as an unjustified homicide?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I dont know about anyone else, but I would love to see threads that are clearly baiting, with sarcastic titles be deleted.

"Another Responsible Gun Owner Stands His Ground"

From all reports this man was not responsible and does not represent me or any other gun owner. This thread is nothing more than a way to lash out against other forum members.

He was a responsible gun owner. Until he wasn't.

 

[Kilaak Kommander]

Hrm, please explained what was depicted as happening in the scenes prior to what you describe. Did the mugger ninja-materialize right behind the victim?

It was a single-panel comic, so there was no set up. Do you find it implausible that the mugger would have been walking behind the victim? Or is ninja-materializing the more likely scenario? Although if the victim had been armed, he could have spun around with his gun drawn every time somebody was walking behind him on the street.

 

[Cainkane1]

Well, they were in his driveway, and they looked brown suspicious. So he feared they were there to hurt them.

Makes perfect sense.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/01/just_horrific.php?ref=fpblg



These harmless, inanimate objects sure do pack a wallop, though.

The old man should be arrested for shooting the boy. He didn't stand his ground he shot a kid who wasn't even in his house. I'm 66 and unless I'm in grave physical danger as in a home invasion or a car jacking etc I wouldn't use a gun.

Hopefully the old fool will spend many years behind bars and hopefully die there.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I work in technology. Often someone will explain that the problem never existed before it did.

I always wonder what prompts such a statement as if it was anything but trivially true.

Can you explain?

I hate to speak for others, but it seems like you are in agreement without noticing it.

Many see this event as the predictable outcome of very laxed gun ownership laws that require no training or certification combined with an atmosphere of unwarranted fear, wherever that fear may come from.

Others are claiming this was unpredictable and can't be blamed on anything other than the man behind the trigger: there is no systemic reason for this to occur.

Which of these approaches most closely matches with your experience in technology?

In my limited experience there is typically one guy at the back of the room scratching his chin who is willing to admit that this is something they could have caught during beta testing, but either it didn't come up or it didn't rise to the top of the bug board. It is rare that an error is completely avoidable, but not all bugs are worth avoiding. That is easy to explain to a client who set the budget and therefore knows they have to live with a few bugs.

It is harder to explain to a family when their kid is shot for pulling into the wrong driveway. And I think that is why it is easier to say this isn't predictable, that this in unavoidable in a free society. Despite the fact that we know of other free societies where this is far less likely to happen.

 

[NoahFence]

Tell me once again about the elite bad guys who tactically break into a residence in seconds, before anyone has a chance to respond.

You seriously think you need elite spec-ops training to kick down a door and scream "get on the floor" or shoot someone?

Wow.

 

[Polaris]

I predict AAH in this thread's future.

 

[remirol]

I agree that under a stressful situation that such mistakes can occur, however I am firmly on the side of being skeptical of this mans actions being reasonable.

His mistake may be reasonable, but I do not believe his actions leading to the mistake are necessarily.

I think that's the point being made, however. I don't know enough about the shooter's background in this case to know how much experience he had in the past with live-fire situations or confrontations such as this one, or how much training he had as to what to do in the events he encountered, so I'm not going to say what a reasonable expectation of what he _would_ do is.

However, it probably seems perfectly reasonable to someone brought up on a steady diet of gun culture with no training to come outside and shout at the strange car full of people in your driveway, and to take your gun with you for "emphasis" or "in case you need it". From a tactical perspective, as others have pointed out, it's completely wrong; if you think someone's going to kick your front door in, you _should_ sit behind the door and wait to surprise them. But clearly he was either untrained in such things or was caught up in the adrenalin of the moment, which is extremely common for people in their first live-fire encounter.

Whether it was this guy's first? Dunno. But it unfortunately illustrates the problems quite adequately: there are too damn many people out there with guns who, for whatever reason, shouldn't have them.

 

[squealpiggy]

Correct.

But the gun homicide rate in the USA is way above other Western countries at 2.97 per 100,000. That is nearly six times worse than Canada and forty two times worse than the UK. That means if the USA got its act together and removed guns from criminals, nuts and youths it could save just over 9,000 lives a year by achieving what Canada has done and 10,800 lives by achieving what the UK has done.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2012/jul/22/gun-ownership-homicides-map

The affect on suicide with guns is way smaller, studies show that increased access, ease of use and effectiveness of a gun enhances the suicide rate to higher than it would be without guns.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/

Accidents are rare, the USA has a rate of 0.2 per 100,000 which is slightly better than Canada with 0.28 and way worse than the UK with 0.01.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

But that still means between six and eight hundred people a year die in accidents with guns.

Well precisely. What I mean is that although the homicide rate is high in the US compared to other places, your risk of dying as a result of gunfire increases if you own guns, whereas conventional gun-culture wisdom is that owning guns makes you safer.

This is not borne out by statistics.

No I am looking at it from the shooters point of view. And there are plenty here who support grabing your gun and confronting tresspassers.

Those people do not have a realistic perception of crime. They have a perception warped by vested interests who want you to think that every passing car could be full of rapey gangbangers just looking to fill you full of holes and only being Clint Eastwood in the first half of Gran Torino will hold them at bay.

In Gran Torino Clint Eastwood comes out of the house with a gun to save a young kid from gangbangers. In this tragic event the old guy comes out of the house and shoots an innocent teenager in the face for the crime of pulling up into his driveway.

So how does one differentiate a car full of teens from a car full of gang members in an initual glance anyway? For safeties sake he needed to presume they were gang members.

For safety's sake he needed to presume they had pulled into the wrong driveway and wait in his house to see what they did. If it made him feel better he could pick up his phone and his gun and wait in the basement or something to see if they meant him harm.

What he did was walk out of the house with a gun, fired a shot off without even so much as finding out if, I don't know, this carload of teenagers had the wrong house, and then shot one of them in the face as he attempted to get away.

Guns in the US are marketed in two ways:

1. The country is filled with angry armed gangs who want to kill whitey in his bed and steal his wimmins
2. If you have a gun you are a badass

Both of these things are wrong. The irony is that in his fear of criminals he has now put himself in a situation where he is guaranteed to be surrounded by criminals 24/7 and he won't have even a sniff of a gun for protection.

 

[NoahFence]

Will their advantage be less, if I do or don't have a gun?

Yippy kai ay!

In order to properly answer, you have to tell the class who you percieve you are.
Are you in a constant state of alert? Are you a robot who requires no sleep?
Are you the responsible owner with his or her firearms locked?
Are you the irresponsible owner with a loaded gun in every room?

Depends.

 

[ponderingturtle]

How in the blue **** did you get any of that from my post? The only one harping on the gear the car was in is you.

Is anybody here actually arguing this shouldn't be treated as an unjustified homicide?

So if the car was in drive and he was in danger of being run over it would still be murder? After all running over a maniac threatening you with a gun would be self defense too.

 

[seycyrus]

You seriously think you need elite spec-ops training to kick down a door and scream "get on the floor" or shoot someone?

Wow.

The scenario as it was unrealistically presented is that of bad guys knocking down the door and securing the entire residence before the good guys have time to grab a gun.

 

[seycyrus]

Yippy kai ay!

In order to properly answer, ...

No, you are lying to yourself and to everyone else on this forum.

In EVERY SINGLE ONE of the instances you bring up, the bad guys "upper hand" is reduced if I have a gun.

Next time, try answering the question.