I guess report cards must have gotten home. Sometime last night someone fired a rifle, (guesstimate .30 cal) into my house. I didn’t notice anything until this afternoon, when while feeding the cats I noticed two holes in the roof of the carport. Closer examination revealed them to be obvious bullet holes, with a matching hole in the wall of the house. A quick look inside showed that the bullet passed through the wall, clipped the corner of another wall (narrowly missing a framed Green Lantern First Day Cover) and then…vanishing. I lined up the holes. It should have either 1) gone straight though the living room window (no broken window), 2) veered left into the TV or right into more of the window (both intact) or 3) dropped lower, impacting the DVD rack (no evidence there either). The police came out and took an incident report. The deputy* was very puzzled by the angle of the shot, as am I. She promised to keep me informed, and gave me her card to call if I ever find the bullet. Luckily(?) my wife is in Boston with a broken foot, so she had to settle for freaking out long-distance.
I’m feeling very vulnerable right now. The least the kid could have done was gotten closer with his shot. This was almost random. If you’re gonna get mad at your teacher, at least make a decent shot of it!
*Deputy - Female, young, 5’7", blonde, in uniform, with handcuffs and Taser and leather. She filled out said uniform quite nicely, too. I wonder if she knows she’s going to feature in a few fantassies until my wife gets home?
You say it came down through the carport cover, then into the wall of the house? And two holes in the carport cover, but one in the house? Do you think this was ‘idot fire’ coming back down, or was someone shooting down from above?
I’m hoping for idiot fire, so that you weren’t a specific target, Silenus.
We’ve had a .38 hole in our back patio cover for quite a while, last summer, under the astroturf, we found the slug.
About a year ago there was a shooting near a co-woker’s boyfriends house. When she got home, she found three bullet holes in her car. Two in the side door (the bullets must have stayed in the door, and one in the rear quarter panel. The one that went through the quarter panel, went through her rear leather seat, bounced off the column between the front and rear door next to the driver seat (it entered on the passenger side) and she found it laying on her dashboard. I think it did something like $3000 worth of damage and finally got her to do a reality check on her boyfriend when she realized that she could have been killed just going to see him.
No such luck. Very direct line. The two holes in the carport are the result of a corrugated roof. Very flat trajectory, making it impossible that it was a shot falling to earth by random chance. No, this was a deliberate shot with a high-powered rifle. All I can hope for is that someone a half-mile away was taking a shot at a coyote and missed.
Well, the obvious explanation is that someone was shot while going through the portal to another dimension that you keep in your living room, taking the bullet with them. As if the deputy didn’t catch that.
I have experienced bullets through the siding on four occasions. None of the shots were deliberate to harm someone. Normally it’s been teens, improperly handling a firearm. The last time was from the neighbor across the road. It went trough the garage door some barrels and other stored items. The cops were like we can’t be sure it came from the neighbors house. Lining up all the holes you see the corner of the neighbors house, where they were shooting guns the day before.
You know the bullet came from where the holes line up and point to most likely. I would use that as the point to start looking.
Use a laser pointer like they do on CSI. Stick it in one of the innermost-holes, line it up with its corresponding hole further out, and see where it points.
Glad no one was hurt, though. I’d be pretty freaked if I came home and saw something like that – I mean, imagine if I’d been home or in the path of one of those things. <shudder>
I was in Vegas once and, as I parked at my hotel, there was this white Corvette next to me w/ a couple of holes in the pass. side door. I took a quick look as I got out of my car, they sure looked like bullet holes. The top was down, but I didn’t see any blood. Always wondered about that.
I can’t stop thinking about how bad this could have been. Is there a friend or neighbor that can safeguard your scotch until this guy is through shooting at you?
Silenus, line up the holes and post one of your range targets with the bullseye knocked out right next to it on a post. Let the perp know just who he’s dealing with. Geez dude, this is pretty darn deplorable.
I have a couple of sisters down in Texas. One was returning home to Sugar Land when one of the side cargo-area windows in her Blazer shattered, scaring the shit out of her. She later found a bullet back there, a .22 I think.
This is a weird concept, any chance the bullet was eaten by one of the cats?
It could have exhausted its momentum on the inside wall and dropped on the ground where a curious kitty either gave it a taste or more likely batted it around and under a sofa.
I am glad you and your wife, (and the cats and the Scotch) are all safe.
I think that “narrowly clipped corner” is probably the culprit. That round would have lost quite a bit of inertia, if indeed it was a long range shot, while passing through the carport and outer wall and could have taken a ricochet off that corner to just about anywhere in that room. It would be interesting and perhaps valuable to know exactly what type of round that was, so maybe you should give the room a thorough exploring. Of course, the Kitty Cat Theory™ is a pretty likely one too.
Also, I’m dying to hear what those holes line up to point at. Maggie Simpson’s bedroom?
That’s the thing…the holes line up and point over the neighbors house. Said house is across a gully, and uphill. My initial thought was someone fired from their balcony, but that’s way too low for the angle of the bullet. Near as I can tell, it came over their house, just missing the roof, and then though my wall.
Still looking for the spent bullet. It doesn’t seem to have hit anything inside. But this place is such a mess sometimes it’s hard to tell. If I scoop up a very heavy cat nugget, I’ll know where it went.
