Man shoots, kills intruder who broke into his home

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

An intruder is dead and the resident who shot him is still shaken after a home invasion in the central valley early Tuesday morning.

The resident, a man in his 60s who uses a cane to walk, was visibly upset as he emptied the trash outside his home in the 700 block of Clarkway Drive, near Bonanza Road and Rancho Drive, at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

“I took a human life,” said the resident, who declined to give his name. “I’m still dealing with that.”

The resident said he awoke about midnight to a sound at his front door. As he investigated, he saw a man kick open the door, breaking the chain lock, he said.

The suspect took two steps inside the house, where the resident waited in the living room with a .45- caliber handgun at his waist. “I said, ‘Get the hell out of my house,’ and he stood there laughing,” he said. “He said, ‘I’m going to beat your ass and then I’m gonna kill you,’ and he took one more step. Then I shot him.”



http://www.lvrj.com/news/breaking_news/Homeowner-shoots-kills-intruder-82052612.html

[LearnedHand]

1. Wow. Exact same thing happened in Albuquerque today

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S1377145.shtml?cat=500

[oneshooter]

2. DO NOT, piss off old men with 45's!! I tends to get you dead. n/t

[Glassunion]

7. Indeed...

Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.

[proteus_lives]

8. Yep. That's what my 62 year-old dad said.

"I'm too old for fist-fights. I'd just use my gun."

[GMA]

3. I can't even imagine what I'd do in a situation like this,

especially since I don't own a gun. My former husband collected guns, reloaded his own bullets, all for target practice. He took me shooting once, just after we got married (that would be almost 40 years ago), and I loved it. Never thought about it before, but I wonder if that's why I never picked up a gun again. Kind of like smoking for the first time (at age SEVEN) and loving it at that moment. Thank heavens I lived in a non-smoking home, or I think I'd have been a chain smoker.

A chain smoker with guns. wow.

[GreenStormCloud]

4. You would likely be killed.

People who kick in doors aren't kind to residents.

[cowman]

5. Can't wait for

Can't wait for the anti's to chime in and say he had no right to kill a misguided soul who only wanted to ask for some food.

[GreenStormCloud]

6. Suppose the resident has used a fake gun to bluff the invader with.

There is a certain poster who is adamant in suggesting that we should forego real guns and use replica guns to scare criminals away. I hope that poster notices this thread. A replica would have gotten the resident killed. Having a real gun saved his life.

[RealityInSeattle]

9. More Gun Cheerleading

To quote you whiners whenever a post you disagree with is posted...

"What's your point?"

[The Doctor.]

11. Yours is not a post people simply 'disagree' with...

It's just asinine.

It is a fact that law-abiding people use guns to defend themselves daily in this country.

People like yourself, just like the anti-choice folks, have to demonize their adversaries by suggesting that pro-2nd equals pro-murder. If you people bothered to understand the facts, you'd know that nothing could be farther from the truth.

At over 1 million defensive gun uses by law-abiding citizens per year, the world you likely want would see far more innocent people robbed, beaten, raped, and murdered than less.

The OP is an exact example of how disarming the populace would have left an innocent man dead.

[rd_kent]

12. The fucking POINT is that a man is alive that might not be if you had YOUR way.

[SteveM]

15. Glad you asked "What's the point?" Here's the point...

The intruder was a hyper-punk, part of that 27% of break-in/home-invasion-types who suffer from a brain deficiency which keeps them from running away. He'd rather get a thrill out of confronting and doing-in some poor old guy; the more so since the intended victim had a gun.

The "poor old guy" was armed with a proper weapon and used it appropriately. He exercised that most fundamental of all human rights: self-defense.

And there is little meaningful argument which can be made against his actions, though some will try.

That's the point.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

23. Here are 5 points.

1. Criminals don't need a firearm to pose a threat of serious injury or death to a victim.
2. Gun owners aren't savages who get a thrill out of killing people.
3. People who kick in your door usually do not have your best interests in mind.
4. Firearms are great equalizers for those who are physically unable to defend themselves.
5. Lastly, the founders of our great country were very wise when they recognized the right of honest citizens to possess privately owned firearms.

[cabluedem]

28. The only point the goons have is how one of them has blood on his hands....

..if only Obama comes through with a new national gun control plan he will have made america a safer place to live.

[east texas lib]

30. Safer for home invaders, perhaps...

Maybe when you grow up and move out of mommy's house you'll get a clue.

[rd_kent]

33. Ignorance...It's whats for dinner!

I see you have had seconds already.....

[GreenStormCloud]

35. So you think it would be morally superior if the resident had...

...allowed the home invader to kill him? I don't agree with your morals.

If I am ever confronted by a violent felon had have to choose between

A. My blood unlawfully on his hands

or

B. His blood lawfully on my hands

I shall choose B every time. You may choose A for yourself if you wish. I will respect your right to such a choice.

[east texas lib]

29. Silly Rabbit, the point is to survive the encounter with such an individual.

You can eat your carrot now.

[Euromutt]

38. The point is that privately owned firearms can be, and are, used effectively in self-defense

It's what the graduates of the College of It Stands To Reason in the anti-RKBA camp tell us can't happen, because "the attacker will just take the gun away and use it against you."

What's your definition of "whiner"? Someone who doesn't agree with you? Funny how people like you descend into abuse when your faith-based, evidence-free "arguments" get undercut.

[The Doctor.]

10. FBI doesn't keep stats on these instances.

Too bad.

At around 2 million defensive uses of guns per year, the anti folks are crazy to want to strip law-abiding people of their protection.

[cabluedem]

13. Prove there are 2M "defensive" gun uses per year. You cant. We dont even know if the gun nut was....

telling the truth about what the intruder supposedly said about killing him. Yeah, right! Its all hearsay, by the same people who love watching the eastwood dirty harry and bronson death wish movies. These goons defended the gun nut in TX who gunned down two people who entered his neighbors home while he told 911 what he was going to do even though they were no threat to him at all.

[Glassunion]

14. Factual Frank here...

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf

Page 9 of the National Criminal Justice report.

[SteveM]

18. Good find! I wonder about one of the findings...

Paraphrasing, the study indicated a "negative" finding where a large number of people kept unlocked and loaded handguns in their homes, implicitly not following the recommendations of gun-training courses. Did the survey take into account the circumstances of the "unlocked & loaded" findings? Right now, I have an "unlocked and loaded" revolver near by. Is this a negative thing? Did the survey whittle out those folks who answered "yes" if the gun-owner (upon leaving the residence) then locked up the firearm? Did they ask the question to delineate the actions of the owner?

Because of its age (1997), the survey did not pick up on the strong decline in accidental gun-related death rate of children which has taken place over the last 10+ years. This might indicate that indeed, safe storage procedure of firearms (esp. handguns) is better nuanced than the survey indicates.

[Glassunion]

19. Don't know...

I cannot speak for the compilers of the report. I doubt that we will see another report done anytime soon. They cost a lot of money to do, and frankly the results are probably not what those that approved funding for the report wanted to see. If you don't like what you see, ignore it and it will go away.

[spin]

34. Great link with lots of factual data. Thanks (n/t)

[Glassunion]

37. Those stupid

facts keep getting in the way of agendas. Sooner or later we will all smarten up and start ignoring them.

[SteveM]

16. I sometimes wonder...

if you are not one of those people that gun-control advocates in these threads complain about: so over the top and obnoxious that you are an NRA "shill," planted here to make their side look worse than it already is.

What a miserable outlook you have on your fellow humans: "We dont even know if the gun nut was telling the truth about what the intruder supposedly said about killing him." The would-be victim is ALREADY cast as a "gun nut." And you go beyond hearsay to spill out your deeply-ingrained prejudice to immediately go after someone who was defending his life against a hyper-punk.

[friendly_iconoclast]

32. Naaah, they seem to be entirely sincere

But the NRA owes them a nice thank-you note, nonetheless

[The Doctor.]

17. Right... the guy barged in to borrow a cup of sugar.

:eyes:

Multiple surveys have established that there are between 800,000 and 3,000,000 DGU's per year in the US.

The most methodologically sound survey, by Gertz+Kleck, found that there were as many as 3 million DGU's per year.

Here's what Marvin Wolfgang had to say about that study;

I am as strong a gun-control advocate as can be found among the criminologists in this country. If I were Mustapha Mond of Brave New World, I would eliminate all guns from the civilian population and maybe even from the police. I hate guns--ugly, nasty instruments designed to kill people. ...

What troubles me is the article by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. The reason I am troubled is that they have provided an almost clear-cut case of methodologically sound research in support of something I have theoretically opposed for years, namely, the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator... I have to admit my admiration for the care and caution expressed in this article and this research. ...

Can it be true that about two million instances occur each year in which a gun was used as a defensive measure against crime? It is hard to believe. Yet, it is hard to challenge the data collected. We do not have contrary evidence. The National Crime Victim Survey does not directly contravene this latest survey, nor do the Mauser and Hart studies. ...

Nevertheless, the methodological soundness of the current Kleck and Gertz study is clear. I cannot further debate it. ...

The Kleck and Gertz study impresses me for the caution the authors exercise and the elaborate nuances they examine methodologically. I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology. They have tried earnestly to meet all objections in advance and have done exceedingly well.
--- Marvin E. Wofgang, "A Tribute to a View I Have Opposed," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 1995, Vol. 86 No. 1.)

http://www.guncite.com/gcwhoGK.html


Here's a comment by Gary Kleck on the study;

Since as many as 400,000 people a year use guns in situations where the defenders claim that they "almost certainly" saved a life by doing so, this result cannot be dismissed as trivial. If even one-tenth of these people are accurate in their stated perceptions, the number of lives saved by victim use of guns would still exceed the total number of lives taken with guns. It is not possible to know how many lives are actually saved this way, for the simple reason that no one can be certain how crime incidents would have turned out had the participants acted differently than they actually did. But surely this is too serious a matter to simply assume that practically everyone who says he believes he saved a life by using a gun was wrong.

http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz1.htm

Now here you are, stating that you believe the man is just 'making shit up'. Bullshit. People are murdered in their homes far too many times per year for some schmuck on the internet spouting off about veracity to be taken seriously.

[Glassunion]

20. Actually, he was from Amway. Their new tactics are not working out so well.

[The Doctor.]

25. ...

[eqfan592]

21. Great stuff!

I love www.guncite.com and reference it regularly.

I have to wonder if cabluedem will bother to come back and reply to any of this stuff...

[GreenStormCloud]

27. That poster rarely does.

Mostly he/she is a drive-by poster.

[brendan120678]

26. Even if the dialog didn't go down as reported...

the shooting would have been justifiable, as the police can easily prove if the man's house was broken into or not.

If the now-dead punk did kick in the door, the shooting was justifiable no matter what he may have said.

[slackmaster]

22. The sight of the homeowner's gun clearly emboldened the unfortunate soul

“He said, ‘I’m going to beat your ass and then I’m gonna kill you,’ and he took one more step. Then I shot him.”

If not for the presence of that gun, the poor burglar would simply have apologized and walked out of the house.

Ban them now. For the Children.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

24. Where is she? She needs to be awarding some points here I believe.

[Hoopla Phil]

31. "If not for the presence of that gun, the poor burglar would simply have apologized and walked out"

LMFAO!!! GREAT stuff!!!!

[spin]

36. I keep seeing those home alarm commercials ...

in which the intruder breaks through the door, the alarm sounds and he runs away. The innocent female victim runs to her bedroom and answers the phone call from the alarm company.

I like the idea of an alarm. But in case the intruder keeps coming, I like the ability to quickly grab a loaded firearm. I keep mine in a quick access gun box.

[GreenStormCloud]

39. I hate that commercial, and it's message.

The message is that she is helpless. She can't even call 911 for herself, but she needs the alarm company to do that. And valuable time is being wasted talking on the phone to the alarm company.

I agree with you. The alarm is a great thing to have. She can gather the kids together in a safe room like in the commercial, but instead of hugging the kids, put the kids behind her, call 911 herself on the cell phone with one hand, and have a loaded gun in the other. That is more effective and much cheaper than an alarm company.

For the price of the alarm company she can buy quality alarms that are plenty loud, AND she can have the doors and windows reinforced to make them very hard to break.

Self-reliance. It is what is happening.