As gun owner and strong supporter of personal defense, I do not think he should have held them at gunpoint. And firing a warning shot? Totally out of line.
I am all about defending your home and others property. But this guy went waaayyy over the top. Yes, the charges are more than fitting, and I hope he is convicted.
No proof? Do you realize how many corpses those kids left behind them? And you think the guy should have just let them walk away …
When I was a teen, we would have big groups of people in cemeteries late at night and we never vandalized anything. A few months ago, several of us in our mid-20’s visited a cemetery to find a new grave of one of our old friend’s that used to walk around with us. This was around 3am. I’d have been pissed if I was held with a gun.
We have a few guys here with concealed carry permits, could we get them to come and advise…
If you were being held in this situation, would you have drawn you weapon?
I’m not a gun owner, but no, I would not have drawn my gun if I had one. The man was brandishing a gun in an unsafe manner and firing wildly into the air. If I were to pull a gun on him, who knows whether he would have felt threatened by me and started to fire more rounds? I would be too concerned about the safety of the other 8 or 9 people in the proximity. I would not want any of them to be hit in an exchange of gunfire.
Way out of line. You pull that shit, and you better know they were committing a crime.
I’d say doing so would be morally justified, but unwise.
I swear they were like that when we got here.
I’m not sure you can kidnap people at gunpoint even if they did commit a (non-violent) crime.
“Personally, I’m much more scared of cars than guns”
I’m calling Bullshit on this statement. So you tremble in fear at the parking lot but don’t bat an eye walking into a 711 behind a guy with a gun? I think not. Hyperbola and nothing more.
This would be a good analogy if people were regularly using their cars to purposely kill their annoying neighbours, evil exes, etc. You can’t really conceal your car then rob a bank, either.
The real problem with gun owners is that, sooner or later, they’re going to perceive a threat and get all heman on someone, prepared to answer questions later. Y’know after someone’s been shot at. Like this case. This man was a teacher, for Christ’s sake, and couldn’t think his way to reason. Blinded by his own perception and armed, even an educated being can get stupid, it seems.
I have no problem with CCW. In most if not nearly all places, getting that permit involves a background check, classroom education on the legal aspect of carrying(including WHEN you can pull that weapon) and range proficiency.
You can buy a firearm without any of that and there lies the problem in this case. This person had no idea of the legal side of using a firearm.
Sure you can, it’s called hiding in plain sight. 
Right. It certainly means shooting at places that people may or may not be standing; to wit: somewhere nearby at random. Anyone who doesn’t understand ballistics shouldn’t have a gun.
Anecdotes:
When I was a kid, a woman was hit in the head while driving on a high suspension bridge; it was eventually determined that the shooter had been shooting at bottles floating in the water a long distance away, and the bullet had ricocheted and eventually passed over the bridge.
Similarly, a person in the front doorway of a Two Guys department store in Baltimore was killed once; police combed the area and found a kid with a rifle squirrel-hunting in the woods across the way. He was shooting up at squirrels in the trees and had no idea he’d hit someone square in the chest in the middle of a doorway like a trained sniper.
I remember reading about this. The weird thing(if my memory is correct) is the victim and the shooter knew each other. Also, her window was down and the bullet .22LR)hit her in the temple where the bone is thinnest. The story said that if her window was up, the bullet was moving so slow it would have bounced off.
Yep, but he darn shore taught those kids somethin’ about the law, now didn’t he?
For me, there’s nothing hyperbolic about it at all. Some basic assumptions: the guy’s not brandishing the gun in a threatening manner. The guy’s not wearing a mask or stockings on his head. It’s not rational to be afraid of lawful carriers of firearms. It is rational to be a defensive driver (although “fear” is hyperbole, I suppose).
If you’re ever in a CCW state, you’ve probably been near lawful carriers of guns with no bad outcome.
I am not a gun owner, but my understanding is that police are trained to fire their weapon only if they intend to “stop” a target. No such thing as a warning shot.
Do you have a link to this article? Just so the rest of us can read it.
I believe I heard somewhere (here, I think) that when you get a gun license you have to state that you will only shoot your gun with the intention of killing (or as you said, stopping). With that, if you aim for someones foot and hit them in the foot it’s still attempted murder. Whether something like that applies to a ‘warning shot’ presumably shot in a direction not anywhere near the people he was looking at, I don’t know.
Holy crap, what a nutjob. I don’t have anything valuable to say that hasn’t already been said, but I wanted to register my “WTF?!” officially by replying to the thread.
I hope the guy is convicted.
Assault rifle? All but one let that slide or agreed with it. =
Totally uninformed on the SDMB… Tsk Tsk…