Or drunk, which is in many cases much worse. Fear or anger, they are possibly aiming in the general direction of someone specific, drunk and the bullets could go just about anywhere.
I don’t think you overreacted, expecially (god I hate that, a guy I work with says “expecially” all the damn time) if you never hear shots around there. Loading a shotgun “just in case” is nothing. The thing isn’t going to attack anyone, and the worst case you expend some calories.
I don’t get excited about very much, so I possibly under react.
Gunshots and fireworks don’t sound very much alike at all, heck a .45 and 9mm don’t sound at all alike. Black Cats go off at a different speed and the harmonics and echo are different. Sure, there are times when you can’t tell the difference, but the OP said he could tell so I’m going to believe him.
I see your point, but with the collaboration of the neighbors and the pure number of others who called the cops…I’m doubting it was anything other than gunfire. In the neighborhood we are in, people notice EVRYTHING.
We had this happen back in November. I just turned on all the outside lights to give the cops a little help while they searched for the shooter. I hung out on the front porch for awhile, and then my wife and I went back to watching football.
I imagine I’d hit the floor first, crawl to the phone, and call the neighborhood constabulary. They respond in about three to five minutes. I definitely wouldn’t have armed myself. We’ve had people shot here for knocking on the door at the wrong hour; I don’t want to be the shooter in a life-messing-up moment like that.
I live in the city and frequently hear gun shots. There are so many so close to the area in which I live, the city just got some new-fangled listening devices that they’ve installed around a specific area of the city that will track and record gun shots. (This is not in the specific area in which I live, but pretty darn close to it.)
My question has always been just what in the world are the police going to do if I call 911 and say, “Um, I just heard 5 gun shots. No, I don’t know where they came from exactly, and no, I don’t know who it was or what they were shooting at.” So they send a car by…where? It could be in the alley behind my house, or two blocks over and I wouldn’t know where the shots originated from.
I live in the boonie-burbs and I hear shots fairly frequently. We are on the edge of the woods. People aren’t supposed to hunt in there, but kids with bb guns frequently run around in there. Between backfires, guns, BBs, construction, and the weird stuff woods does to sound, I wouldn’t be able to tell a threat from a woodpecker. Or where it was coming from.
Almost the same here, only I was on the third floor. I crept to the window to see what I could see, but the shooter was on his way out. I wouldn’t bother to call the cops; there would be nothing for them to do.
I am a little confused by the OP. I understand the idea of not shooting out of fear or anger, but when you have a gun for home protection, aren’t you assuming a situation of fear would make you act? How long does one give themself to calm down from the fear and shift into level-headed homeprotector mode? Why would you shift, if the whole point of your actions is you are afraid of an attack on you or your wife?
If you hadn’t been able to say this I would have suggested getting rid of your guns, because without resolve you’re simply holding a weapon for someone else to use after you’re dead.
It makes me queasy as well to think that I might one day have to do that, but all I have to do to remind myself that I can live with it is look at my family and think about what I would do without them.
You did the right thing, in pretty much every respect. Don’t feel bad about being human and having a crisis of conscience. I’d be more concerned if you didn’t question yourself about it.
I don’t have a gun so I’d probably call the police and duck.
I wouldn’t know a gunshot from a BB gun car backfire. Apparently my crazy neighbor doesn’t either. My nephew was on the side of the house with his paintball gun and the next thing we see is my neighbor running over with his shotgun because he thought he heard shots.
Edit: I do agree with Airman Doors. I personally don’t have or want a gun but I don’t care if other people do. And as crazy as my neighbor seems sometimes I’m sort of glad he’s there, gun and all.
Ok, when I said I would hate to point a gun at someone out of fear or anger…I mean just that. It would never happen…However, last night was the closest I came to that every situation happening. I would never go out on my front porch stand there with my shotgun intimidating any would be shooter. Nope not me. However, I would do what I did last night. Load the shot gun and if someone were to come bursting through the front door, I’d defend my home and family. Thats about the only way I would weild a gun. Even that had me shaking a bit. Hope it never happens again. Knock on wood.
Same here but we live in a quiet beach community. This type of shit never happens here, that’s why it so so far out of the ordinary I and several other neighbors called the police.
We have the best kind of guns. All locked in a hard-to-access safe that requires a key and combination to open. The bullets are under the bed in an ammo can.
In addendum, my wife is not a gun person, but she knows how to load and pump our shotgun. She has even fired it a few times to get a feel for it. At very least with a shotgun for home defense, you can pretty much close your eyes and fire in the direction of the noise and definitely hit something. With the added benefit of being resonably sure you won’t kill the person in the next house with a shotgun…However, with a 9mm, all bets are off, those go through your sheet rock, into the next room, then the next etc…etc…mayhurt someone a house over.
Only that the officer has an idea of who it may be. It’s a small enough town and I guess one of the neighbors gave a good description of the car…Who knows.
Years ago I lived in a sketchy part of Houston. (How sketchy, you ask? Burnt-out buildings, gay prostitutes, lots of bars.) I used to hear gunshots fairly regularly, particularly on holidays like New Years and the Fourth of July. Typically it was a whole clip being emptied at once: pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Unless it sounded really close I just went about my business.
A few years later I left Houston to go to graduate school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I shared a house with a couple of other grad students. About a month after I moved in I was sitting in the living room reading when I heard a famililar sound: pop-pop-pop. My roommates came bursting out of their rooms:
“That sounded like gunshots!” one of them said.
“Yeah,” I said, casually turning a page, “But they’re not on our block.”
While one of them called the police the other explained to me that whatever I was used to in Houston, gunshots in Chapel Hill were not a usual occurance … .
The only time I heard shots fired other than deer season, I went to my bedroom and grabbed my gun. I found out the next day that the wacko down the road caught the raccoon that had been tearing up his garbage bags.
Exactly what you did. Police aren’t there to protect individuals, and aren’t obligated to by law. They’re there to protect “society”. (At least, in the US.) Your reaction, to protect your family with what you believed to be necessary threat of force, was perfectly reasonable.
Where was the threat of force? “Society” would have been protected by the police if a phone call was made saying they heard gunshots outside. I’m reasonably sure if he said he heard gunshots in his house, the police would consider him part of society and come by to lend a hand.
There was no individual threat that would “force” Phlosphr to arm himself with a loaded weapon. Nor did he believe there was.