Positive Gun News of the Day

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1841

The articles that are posted in this thread are hardly the only such stories. From last month:

January 4 in Amarillo, Texas, two men broke into a house. When the homeowner confronted them (he was, after all, in his own home) first one and then both of the invaders began physically attacking him. The homeowner was armed with a handgun, and shot and killed both attackers.

January 15 in Kerrville, Texas, two men were arguing in a restaurant. One of the two pulled a knife and began stabbing the other man. Another customer was able to intervene after he retrieved a handgun, stopping the attack and holding the attacker at gunpoint until police arrive. Local police thanked the man with the gun for “his heroic actions to stop the assault”.

January 22, in Orlando, Florida, a young woman was attacked by her boyfriend, who began physically battering her. When her parents attempted to intervene, the boyfriend then began attacking the mother as well. The young woman’s father fired a “warning shot”*, then fired again, critically injuring the attacker.
*“Warning shots” are often considered to be a bad idea. They are certainly dangerous. You are responsible for any bullets that come out of your gun, regardless of your intention in firing them. In this case the “warning shot” did apparently go into the ground, and did not ricochet and injure any innocent person.

January 25 in Harrison Township, Michigan, a man violently broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home. This happened in the middle of the day, and there doesn’t seem to be any question but that the man was attempting to violently assault the woman who lived there; reportedly this was also not the first time police had been called about this particular ex-couple. Another man shot and killed the attacker with a handgun.

January 27 in Seattle, Washington, a man was walking down the street on a Sunday morning (about 9 a.m.) when another man approached him and began punching him in the head and chest. The victim drew his handgun and shot and wounded the assailant. The attacker was later arrested. It doesn’t appear that the victim and his attacker knew each other.

January 28 in Willard, Missouri, a man broke into a house around 4 a.m. and attacked the homeowner (there were also at least two other people living in at the house at the time). The homeowner shot and killed the intruder. (Note that the article is a little unclear on what happened; the lead sentence says the homeowner “shot and killed a suspect in a home invasion” but a later paragraph says that local sheriff’s deputies “said the homeowner killed the man in a struggle, but have not said how the man was killed”. I don’t know if that’s a contradiction, or just a question of the article having multiple sources.)

You could classify all of these events as stories of “gun violence”–in each case, there was violence, and there was a gun, and the gun was used, and in several of these cases guns were even used to kill people. In each of these cases, though, the “violence” was really being perpetrated by a person or people who didn’t have guns, and the people with the guns were defending themselves against the “violence”.

1842

The Eighty-two-year-old Veteran saved his wife’s life with the butt end of his shotgun. I wonder if it was even loaded?

1843

Doesn’t sound like it from that article, does it? Giving up 20 years on a guy, who has a knife and has already decided he wants you dead or seriously hurt, I’d want something besides pistol-whipping the attacker with a shotgun barrel. I hope the elderly couple wasn’t seriously hurt.

At least the shotgun wasn’t loaded though. That would have really been unsafe.

1844

From four days ago in Orlando, a man at a temp agency attacked and wounded two people with a machete, but dropped the weapon and fled after being shot and wounded by one of his victims, who had a concealed handgun. The attacker was subsequently arrested; both victims survived the attack, but at least one of them may have suffered permanent injury.

1845

From this Monday in Lufkin, Texas, a man–apparently high on PCP–broke into the home of a sleeping couple. The husband held the intruder at gunpoint until police arrived. No one seems to have been seriously injured, although the resident at one point did kick the intruder and then hit him with the butt of the pistol when he tried to get back up off the floor where the homeowner had ordered him to lie down until police arrived.

1846

From a couple of days ago in Columbia, Missouri, a 20-year-old man was shot and killed after he broke into a house (during daylight hours, probably early morning but from the sound of it not “the wee hours”). The report also says the police received a call for a “burglary with a weapon”, but doesn’t say anything about what weapon the intruder had–if he had a firearm of his own, or if he had some other weapon, or even if (perhaps) the “burglary with a weapon” was just a garbled early report of “a burglary, and someone (in this case the homeowner) has a weapon”.

1847

From yesterday in Columbus, Ohio, at around 2:00 A.M. a man reportedly forced his way into an apartment where a man and a woman lived. One of the residents then shot and killed the intruder.

1848

From Union County, N.C., two men (one of whom was armed with a handgun) broke into a home very early Sunday morning. A resident of the home managed to get to a rifle, and opened fire. One of the intruders was injured and has been hospitalized (but is expected to recover, at which point he will be formally charged); the other would-be home invader was arrested at the scene and charged with first-degree burglary.

1849

From Saturday in Mesquite, Nevada, a man was shot multiple times and injured seriously enough to require hospitalization after he forced his way into a home and reportedly threatened one of the residents. Police have filed charges with the district attorney against the man who was shot, including one count of felony home invasion.

1850

From Saturday in Hartford, Kentucky, a man tried to break into a house at about 4 a.m. The homeowner shot the attempted in the intruder with a handgun, hitting him in the knee, in what the police described as “protecting himself and his family”.

1851

From Sunday in San Antonio, a man was shot and killed while climbing through the window of a home at around 10 P.M. Not a lot of detail, but police did report that the shooter was “fully cooperative with police”.

1852

From Tuesday in Lexington, Kentucky, a woman fired a shot at a man who was breaking into her home at around 3:30 in the morning; the intruder then fled. Not long thereafter a man showed up at a near-by hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound; police concluded it was the same man who had broken into the woman’s apartment, and he was arrested.

1853

From yesterday in Alkol, WV, at around 2 a.m. a naked man was attempting to break down the door of a house when the homeowner shot him. The would-be naked intruder is in stable condition at a hospital; so far, no charges have been filed.

1854

From yesterday in Pearland, Texas, a man forced his way into a house at around 10:30 at night and began attacking the residents with a hammer. The homeowner then shot the attacker multiple times. The intruder and two residents were taken to the hospital, but no information on the severity of anyone’s injuries; the attacker was reportedly shot multiple times.

1855

From Friday in Lucerne Valley, California, a different story of a home invasion by someone armed with a hammer. The intruder broke into a woman’s home and threatened to kill her, so she shot him. In this incident, the aggressor was the only one injured; he was hospitalized, but no report on his condition, or on any criminal charges.

1856

From Sunday in Lakehead, California, a man pulled a handgun and shot two people, critically injuring one of them, in an apparent hate crime (the gunman reportedly used a racial slur of some kind before firing). Two bystanders then drew their own guns, and one of them was able to detain the attacker until sheriff’s deputies arrived.

1857

From Monday in Coffee County, Alabama, a man broke into a house during the afternoon and hid in a closet until the couple who lives there returned home. The intruder then came out of his hiding place and began hitting the man who lives in the house (not just with his fists, but with some kind of “unknown object”). The woman who lives there retrieved a firearm and shot the intruder in the leg, after which he fled and was arrested a few hours later hiding in some nearby woods. The injured man was charged with first-degree burglary after he was released from the hospital.

1858

From Sunday in Boston, a man attempted to rob a woman on a golf course, then started choking her. A witness with a concealed carry license intervened, and when the attacker reached towards his waistband (reportedly for a knife) fired a single shot, although no one was injured. The attacker was charged with aggravated assault; thus far, the man with the handgun who intervened to stop the attack has not been charged.

1859

From earlier this month in Fresno, CA, two men were in some kind of confrontation when one of the men pulled a knife and charged at the other man, who attempted to retreat. At that point, the victim’s wife shot the knife-wielding attacker, critically injuring him.

1860

From Tuesday in Frankfort, Kentucky, a man called police to report someone was breaking into his house at around 9:35 in the morning. While the homeowner was still on the phone with the police, he shot and fatally wounded the intruder. As of that report, no charges had been filed.