Statistics show that having a light on at each entrance cuts down on 99% of night break-ins.

Doesn't have to be anything brighter than 25 watts... the fact that you're lit causes the perps to move past your house to one that doesn't have a light.

If these guys thought your house belonged to someone else and they were too drunk to care, that might not matter, but lighting the entrances is worth a coupla dollars a month, IMO. We have a 25W in the front that comes on at dusk and motion detector floods in the rear.

Sammy, you sleepin' in the front room tonight? I would.

Also, why not just tap the barrel of your hurtin' stick on the inside of the glass if it happens again? Just to show 'em you mean bidness.

Lots of punks like this come back in daylight when nobody's home. Most home robberies occur during the day.

Security doors? Yes, a great idea.

Fingerprints. Did you (or the police) think of that?

You did very well, Sammy. As did your wife.

Sounds like some of the boyz in da hood were having a little Pre-Prop 19 festivities this weekend.

Something very similar happened to me back in '08 with an 8 1/2 month pregnant wife sleeping on the couch 10 feet away. The thing that really freaked me out was the fact that it happened at 3:30am. Oddly, I never thought to grab my gun.

I won't try to argue with you when it comes to guns, so let me ask...

The pattern may be tight, but how much penetration are you going to get with birdshot? And if you do get deep penetration, what size wound channel are we talking about? We use hollow points in handguns because the wound channel from a non-expanding bullet is insufficient, even when dealing with a .45

So does that mean we can expect the majority of the shot to penetrate to vital organs and/or major arteries? I have no doubt that bird shot would deliver a horrific injury, but would it cause sufficient trauma for immediate incapacitation of a perpetrator? Especially if on [insert drug of choice] and temporarily oblivious to pain?

00 buck will also stay in a tight pattern, and the penetration is unquestioned. Is there a reason why this would not be reliable for disabling an intruder?

Sammy,

I'm glad you and your wife are OK. Get a shotgun...make a plan, practice it and stick to the plan...

airy-zoney ACTUALLY has a law on the books regarding INTENTIONALLY WOUNDING SOMEONE!


it is very very very VERY BAD JU JU for the GUN OFFENDI!


if you have to have to no way out defend you or your family and you have to have to USE DEADLY FORCE.......................

you empty your gun, reload, and empty again until threat IS OVER!


that is directly from my AZCCW instructor who is presently on duty as court security, and is EX MCSO sheriff. that is the way and the ONLY WAY!


and the reason why you reload and empty 2nd mag is that SHOWS THE JURY OF YOUR PEERS YOU WERE IN FEAR OF YOUR LIFE!


also use exact same rounds as cops do. that shows your not a "GUN NUT" loading up super secret late night lab experimental super duper vaporizer 5000grain bullets with CURARE TIPPED BULLETS! that will get you certified as a "PYSCHO GUN NUT" also.



and ya better have a STOCK OEM SPOON not some damn race spoon with triple lazer beams and night sites and infra red hanging off of it cuz the plantiffs liar(lawyer) will portray YOU AS A PYSCHO GUN NUT! which all of us are here. sssshhhh dont tell anyone.


nothing more traditional than defending your home with a simple 12 ga, lever action anything.


yep halloween night mr marlin had to stand duty. it was gonna be a traditional southwestern late night greeting from mr marlin if any poo went down.


howdy mr bad guy...................."WELCOME TO MARLIN COUNTRY!"

"bunch of drunk guys acting stupid and out of control"
It sounds a lot worse than that.

Update:
The officer let them all go.

WHY??????

He didn't see any of them driving and they said the guy who was driving had already left so no DUI.
They said they were just having some fun, like playing ding-dong-ditch. BS.

Evidently the officer said something like "homeowner is a big guy who looks like he can take care of himself" and "I didn't see them as being a threat to the homeowner."
Oh, and they have their names and addresses if they cause any more trouble.

Charles Bronson had it right.

That's why it's scary. This is worse than a normal breaking in.

1- empty your gun
2- empty your mag
what if more are comming in?

I am no pro or smart, but will it help if Sammy put some shots in the air. If they hear shots and still comming back, they are not there for ding dong ditch.

Sammy's police dept had the perps, so ID is not an issue.

If the officer let them go, fingerprints are going to be of no interest to the police. My wife's boss and his wife were both shot in the head in their home in Corona 2.5 years ago. They both lived, she with no damage as the small caliber round entered under her skin, but traveled outside the skull to the exit. The husband was shot more in the face/jaw and lost some teeth and bone.

There was evidence everywhere and no one has been arrested to this day. They no longer live in CA.

How old? Isn't there a curfew for those under 18? Perhaps to acquire the ID's Sam should ask for a restraining order against each. If anyone of them lived close by, I'd really want to know about that. And know about their parents....everything.

Cops aren't looking too good on this group of forums today.

No shots in the air. That's totally irresponsible. Bullets come down and kill, even through roofs. We don't live in the country here.

Damn. 4 more Barbara Boxer/Jerry Brown voters on the street, and the day before the election.

bad bad BAD idea discharging a firearm. yer pee pee WILL BE WHACKED! and if the round kills some kid sleeping in his crib after the round comes down thru his roof or wall you will be in the joint so fast yer head will swim!


the above actually happened here. guy lit off spoon and round came thru roof and hit kid in crib.


if the POO goes down you have ONLY (3) choices:

1) display firearm(legal here) and state to bad guy YOU WILL USE IT!

2) SHOOT THE BAD GUY IF YOU ARE IN FEAR OF YER LIFE. NOT to wound..........SHOOT TO KILL! double tap to chest, double tap to head, repeat until empty and then reload and empty the mag until threat is GONE!

if bad guy does not go down after doing the above, automatically think body armor and shoot for femoral artery groin area or head if yer damn good like ME!

3) run like a MOFO and call 911 and hope to buddah bad guy doesnt continue with attack.

I think I will get one. I think I'll I'll get a savage model 79 pump action, wood pump, wood stock, with an 18" barrel and the plug removed. ;) :cool:

From what I can remember, that was the first time in my life I called the cops. For anything.

In hindsight I shoulda opened the door and beat the living crap out of em, but I didn't know how much threat they were and without that info it woulda been a stupid move.
Plus in kalifornia I'd end up being the bad guy if I did that.
I'm still gonna talk to the assistant DA.

good ideas

since you had already yelled to the guy something to the effect of "im a gonna blow yer freeking head off".....................and had the bad guy continued with his attack and entered your home it would have been a justifiable homicide.


the entire key here................is "WHERE YOU IN FEAR OF YOUR LIFE!"


and thats what the jury of yer peers and the judge will look at.



this is really cut and dry and no grey area to it.


YOU MUST BE IN FEAR OF YOUR LIFE!


someone on property and you confront them....................i would really just call 911. bad guy comes in house......................KABOOM! no 911.

Wounding... you cannot shoot to wound. Here's why: If you shoot to wound, then you are saying with your actions that lethal force was not necessary. Well, if lethal force isn't necessary, what the hell are you doing shooting a gun at somebody?!

Same goes for "warning shots". If killing isn't justified, you have no right to be firing.

NEVER fire a single shot after the threat has stopped. As soon as the attacker stops, your right to self defense is over. If you continue to shoot YOU are now the attacker and can be convicted of murder. If you have time to reload while they lay there on the ground, the attack is over. Reload and be ready, but don't shoot anymore unless they attack again.

I didn't spend the night at a holiday express but I've been told in that kalifornia just saying you were fearin for your life aint good enough.
You have to prove that fear was justifiable and reasonable, as in there was an actual physical threat to your life and not just one you imagined or "might have been there" or it aint self defense.
Basically if the bad guy hasn't cut you or shot you or hurt you bad yet, you can't shoot him.
Is that true?

Anyone? Bueller?

1. You have to be in a situation in which a reasonable person would be in fear of imminent death or great bodily harm
2. You have to in fact have such fear

So you have to be scared for your life in the moment, and somebody else would have to agree that they would feel the same way. You do not have to let them get started on you first.

well since you live in the rupublic of kalifornia..............all bets are off.


here.................if bad guy comes in my house...............hes dead.


if bad guy 3 ft tall midget states "im gonna kick yer azz, im gonna kill you etc" -BANG HES DEAD!

if 6ft 9 POS states "im gonna kick yer azz, i'm gonna kill you etc" BANG HES DEAD!


if 72# pound meth chick comes at me with screwdriver..............BANG!


if 98 year old lady comes at me with a screwdriver................BANG SHES DEAD!


and this crap you only shoot once????????????? WTF? yeah maybe in the movies.



if you are in fear of your life. period. you MAY USE DEADLY FORCE


if someone points their car at me and trys to run me over............as i step out of the way to avoid being hit..............BANG THERE DEAD!



but WTF this is airy-zoney. home of happy gun owners and very very afeared criminals!



read ARS(ariz revised statute) 14-305. will spell it out.

I'm sorry, I went back and re-read that, and it doesn't quite say what I wanted to say. My apologies.

You are right on as far as 00 buck being a great defensive load. Probably the best, and a first choice for a dedicated gun. What I meant to focus in on was what appears to be a rather common misunderstanding concerning the lighter bird shot loads. Let me try to clear that up.

Any bird shot load will fully penetrate a man at any sort of indoor self defense range. The wound channel it leaves behind is the nastiest I have ever personally seen on anything short of a ground squirrel hit with a .220 Swift. A man with nothing else in the house is still quite well armed. That's what I was trying to say.

While I have never shot a man (and pray to God I never will), I've had occasion to shoot a coyote or several while out hunting high desert ducks in eastern Washington. Stupid bastards sometimes like to put the sneak on duck decoys, particularly if you lay some in the grass next to the rest of your spread. I've killed these dumb ones with #4 or #6 lead (when it was still legal) - that was our standard load for over decoys. I'll tell you what - it's pretty darn ugly. Full penetration with chunks of coyote clockwork literally sprayed out the other side. If they are more than 10-15 yards away, though, forget it. I'm sure it kills them, eventually, but that's not the kind of immediate stop we would want in a defensive situation.

Yes, you do have to be close. Inside the house close - 10 to 20 feet close. Beyond that, buckshot's greater individual pellet energy starts to weigh in, as the charge spreads. The smaller bird shot is absolutely dependent upon sticking together in effectively one solid mass. Once the pattern starts to open at all, forget it. This does make it pretty good for apartment or condo dwellers, though.

Sam, I think I've heard it stated as a like-for-like situation. And I'm sure that's open to a wide interpretation. So it might not be good idea to kill someone who has a stick unless you are being beaten to the point the you could die.

As I said, wide interpretation and no 2 circumstances alike. I would never want to use a lethal weapon at my home unless there was no other alternative. One reason for this is the aforementioned shooting at my wife's boss's home. The mess had to be cleaned up by a private hazmat company. The house has been listed as having a shooting. That's like saying it has/had mold. It won't sell to anyone with the disclosure laws. They tried. They live out of state and still have this house. The real estate market has only compounded the problem.

They rent it out on the cheap.

But but but, I had the candy. On Sunday night. Lots of it, more than I could give out. Still have a bunch left.

Onliest problem is, these punks showed up about 16 hours early!

Allright then it was mischief night. You got mischiefed, no big deal. My neighbor got toilet paper on his front yard.

I heard that too. What I never can understand about this law is that... you have to wait until they come in the house, kill you before you can use your weapon? :lol:

Glad you're alright Sammy, and it didn't end in something more "complicated".


After brownouts, L.A. riots, and the aftermath of a couple earthquakes in the Bay Area, I never saw a single marked vehicle on the streets when driving around.
No attempt to display order.

I was once in Sacramento at 2:15a.m. with a buddy and across the street about 15 cars pulled into a HopIn, stereos blaring, clogging the whole corner of the block. Must have been 30-40 people. Homeys got out and started chasing each other across car hoods. Instant block party.
After 10 minutes of this, four squad cars pulled up in an unobtrusive way and began trying to get them to leave.

Things get out of hand quickly in Kowleefornia. Cops are either undermanned or just won't lift a finger. I suppose that's what insurance is for :rolleyes:

Holy crap, I'm pretty sure you just experienced everyone's worst nightmare, especially those of us with a family. Kudos on keeping your cool.

Sammy,

The reason you got so many responding officers and they got there so fast is because you said you had a gun. The call-taker said what they said to get you to put the gun away, they were (likely) already on the way when she said this.

Every dept is different but there are a few magic words that can be said most places to jump your call to the head-o-the-class and "gun" is one of em.

I bet if you call and ask them on the record if they delay response because a homeowner is armed they will tell you the truth (no). The calltaker/dispatcher was just trying to get you to put it away before they got there (given the suspects were gone) so there was no risk of deadly confusion for the responding officers or you.

Untrue. You have no obligation to sustain injury as a way of "justifying" lethal force. The bad guy does not even have to be armed. Hell, he can be half your size and twice your age, and there is still no legal requirement to suffer injury or even to allow him to approach. Any such notions of "fair play" go right out the window under these circumstances. Self defense is not a sporting event.

WTF indeed. As stated before, the police have no obligation to protect you. Those words right there (on the recorded call with the dispatcher even) should have been your queue to tell the lady "well send the fuch'n coroner" and take the kid's leg.

Most every state has "castle doctrine". Any attempt of another to forcibly enter and you are legally understood to be in fear for your life - deadly force allowed. That does not mean you have to kill the person.

For all you know that guy's friends may have known the police won't respond -- and were relying on that fact. Definitely a situation where after you tell 'em once (that's the warning) and they don't run, you tell them a second time, very loudly.

Wow, that is some scary sheet and I'm glad it worked-out reasonably OK other than the punks not getting any more serious trouble from the Police. About a year ago we had a situation where our alarm went off at 3:30-4:00 one morning. I gingerly patrolled a bit and didn't see anything but let the alarm keep sounding to hopefully scare-off any intruder and also to cause the alarm company to send a response - the Sheriff deputies did respond within a few minutes. It would have been too late if someone had been persistently trying to get inside. They did a quick search of the area but there were no obvious clues. It was a window sensor on a downstairs side window, so I think it is fairly unlikely that it was a false alarm (this system has never falsed before or since.) That sort of thing sure gets your heart jump started!

Please consult an attorney before any of this type of situation occurs again. That way, you are armed w/ knowledge before a day goes from bad to worse. I can recommend Donald Kilmer (http://www.dklawoffice.com/) who's in the SF bay area.

Those who have seen the elephant in more violent situations will say you did everything correct because you and your family are fine. Find peace in that.

Best deterrent for this situation IMHO (and I stress opinion) is a good dog. I had a somewhat similar but subdued situation, where a large non-peaceful man looking for Rick James wouldn't leave late one night. Well he left when my rottweiler decided it was time for him to leave. Couple of growls and barks and the smell and spittle of hell unleashed was all that was needed. I am thankful the man was smart enough to depart and not continue. If he did, life would of gotten pretty crappy after that; whether the rest of my life was 5 minutes or 50 years...

Sammy, I am happy that you and your family are safe. That is the most important thing. To get some resolution, I would call the Watch Commander and ask to meet with the officers who handled the call. You can talk to them face-to-face and get some additional information regarding how the officers handled the call.

Not having any first-hand info, here is my interpretation from the police. If you told the 9-1-1 operator that someone was trying to break down your front door, they most likely entered the call as a "Burglary Now" call, which would warrant a strong police presence, 4-5 police cars. When you told them you were armed, the police would still respond as quickly, but would be very hesitant to approach your home for obvious reasons. They want to make sure you are not going to mistakenly shoot an officer.

I would ask why the bad guys were not arrested for "Attempted Burglary" and you did not do a field show-up after the police stopped the car. Because they are named, even if the driver has not been identified, charges may still apply.

Contact the Watch Commander and politely, but firmly request a meeting. If you need anything, you PM me, David

Sammy, we don't agree on much.

But I'm (literally) raising my glass in salute to you. Thank god there are some men left that have the guts to defend themselves.

A "normal" B&E in progress gets 2 cars around here, others may jump it but to be honest if there's nothing unique about it and the guys ran without making entry....well you'll not get more than that most times. Now...a B&E in progress with weapons involved...everyone wants some of that, you'll get more cars (cause they'll jump the call). They will indeed approach in a different manner but when it's the homeowner and the dispatcher advises the gun has been put away...not nearly as big a deal. These things are I'm sure handled differently everywhere but I dispatch probably 4-8 "active" B&E's on a Friday/Saturday night, most are 2-3 cars but if I put out "The homeowner is armed" then everyone wants it and SGT's go in the event of a problem. Around here anyway.

as i said...................if a 3ft tall midget advances on you threatening to "kick yer azz and im a gonna kill you".....................you are justified in using deadly force.


if they have a stick, a beer can, a bottle, nothing at all, you are justified in using deadly force.



justified shooting laws are about the same as dee-vorce laws across ALL 50 states. they are all about the same.



what gets law abiding citizens in trouble is a shooting over property. heres where ya better be dead nutz correct on the laws and it does vary state to state.



but the final word is "YOU HAVE TO BE IN FEAR OF YER LIFE!"



yeah you may be scared poo-less by somebody pounding on your day at 3am. but that doesnt give you the right to shoot thru the damn door. hell it could be somebody seeking help from an attacker/mugger etc.



now if they enter your house.......................well thats when I AM IN FEAR OF MY LIFE and its not gonna be good for mr. bad guy at ALL!