And this post wins … some kind of perjorative award.
Can you provide any kind of cite, from any firearms training authority (the producers of “TJ Hooker” do not qualify) that backs up your claim that “a disabling shot,” is the best practice in any circumstance?
This is by no means certain. I suppose it’s possible, but the story doesn’t say where the second shot landed. You certainly cannot say with any degree of confidence that the second shot disabled.
Much of this is dependant on the weapon. A Lady Smith Model 36LS is chambered for .38, and can use the .38+P load safely.
We have no idea what load she used. The .38 Special dates all the way back to 1898, when it was introduced to replace the .38 Long Colt, which was having trouble penetrating the wooden shields used by the Moros during the Moro Rebellion.
At one time, the .38 was a standard carry choice for police departments throughout the country, but by the early 1980s, it was a relic. Most departments had replaced their .38 revolvers with 9mm automatic pistols, a change driven by two factors. One was the greater number of shots available before reloading, a factor not relevant here. But the second factor is very relevant: stopping power.
The term “stopping power” is not one of razor-edge precision, I grant, but most analysts agree that one of the best efforts to codify the term was General Julian Hatcher’s. In 1905, he published the Textbook of Pistols and Revolvers, in which he proposed a formula for determining the theoretical stopping power of different cartridges. His formula is still used today.
Police departments switched to the 9mm because a 9 millimeter jacketed hollow point 147 grain load had a stopping power of 39.9, as opposed to the heavier .38 Special full metal jacket 158 grain load’s lesser 26.7. (By way of comparison: “Dirty Harry’s” .44 Mag, firing a .44 Magnum lead wad cutter 240 grain load, has a stopping power of 136.8 – small wonder that Eastwood’s character was comfortable with only one bullet left.)
All of this is to say that a single shot from a .38 Sp full metal jacket has a lower stopping power than many other handgun loads, and while it’s possible to imagine a single shot stopping a fully-grown adult male human being instantly, it’s not anywhere close to certain, or even probable.
Same here.
This one got a little too…uh…bad fanfic for me, so I vote Beef on Weck, which shoots the other two sandwiches dead in the kitchen.
Everybody seems to be in the “shoot the bastard” camp. The daughter here is a teenager, should there really not be any consideration whatsoever given to the possibility that a teenager did something like invite a friend of a friend in for ten minutes to wait for a taxi, or some other perfectly inane reason? Instead its just shoot first and ask questions later?
The mother is not the only occupant, so its not even hard to think of plausible reasons why somebody could be happily drinking some milk in her kitchen. And if you can easily suggest reasons then perhaps you shouldn’t be jumping for the nuclear option so quickly.
Why not keep the gun raised and back out the door you just entered? You’d still have options and just perhaps you won’t have killed the older brother of your daughters best friend who is currently with your daughter in her room wondering what the loud bang was.
I’ve been invited into peoples houses late at night before, and I’ve been in a few kitchens when a flatmate got home late at night. Thankfully nobody pulled a gun on me.
The creepy weirdo’s own reactions indicate that shooting is the proper response. He is the asshole with a gun pointed at him who is failing to follow some simple instructions that, if followed, would result in his not getting shot. He is moving toward (for?) a weapon. His responses, such as they are, seem to be more of a distraction than any effort to identify himself and explain his presence Most cops, in this exact same scenario, would follow their training and shoot him. I would have in uniform and I would now as a private citizen.
All he has to do to keep his face attached to his ass is put his fucking hands on his fucking head and not fucking move.
I think she was 99% justified, but there’s a wee voice inside me that wants to hear what the guy’s explanation was. If she killed the guy, we’ll never know.
Fully justified. Morally and legally.
Shooting to wound. Shooting knees and ankles. That happens in Hollywood and video games. Which fantasy world are you living in?
Because then you’d have just left a potentially dangerous and armed person alone in the house with your young daughter.
First, there is no such thing as “shooting to wound”. You’re only increasing your chances of missing, increasing your chance of PISSING HIM OFF and increasing your own chance of dying.
It’s a stupid assed idea only put forth by people who don’t know the first thing about guns, people or reality.
I’m Canadian, where we don’t have a big fandom for gun violence, and sorry but this is justified. It is regrettable, but the woman was presented with an intruder in her home and she had reasonable cause to fear for her life and to believe she could not avoid harm via any other reasonable course of action. She could have retreated but not in a way that would have assured her daughter’s safety.
Go ahead and read the opening post again. You should note that the mother did not shoot first and ask questions later. She gave him very clear and precise instructions which he refuses to comply with, tells her to put down the gun, and takes a step towards her. I had the same thought you did, bucketybuck, that maybe this was a friend of her daughter. But based on the information she had at the time combined with the behavior of the man in the kitchen I’d have to agree that the shooting was morally justified.
I’ve lived in Asia for 25 years where people do not have guns, and would magically remove them from the States if I could. But this is as “righteous” of a shooting as I’ve ever seen.
I’ve had a gun pulled on me by a scared teenager. Well, I’m guessing he was a teen, he certainly sounded young, and hyper-alert. My cousins lived on a tiny military base (maybe 800 people) and my aunt cleaned the church chapel. On one overnight visit was I was 16 or 17, my aunt asked me to drive one cousin over to the chapel late on Saturday night to drop off something for the church service early the next morning. Just when we were leaving the building, the MPs happen to drive by. I guess they figured that they were on the scene of a major crime.
We heard the pistols get cocked, and the really young sounding voice telling us to drop what we had in our hands – I had my car keys and Jimmy had the chapel keys. I doubt that the MPs had very much training, and were pretty wound up. The two guys were both yelling conflicting orders.
It never occurred to me to attempt to do anything but drop the keys and get my hands up damn quickly, while staying rooted to the spot and willing myself to look as absolutely the least threatening as I could. I cannot fathom the balls-to-brain ratio required to pull of the stupidity of our dead villain.
For shooting to wound, I have read one account of a guy who successfully did it in a street holdup, but the shooter was a man and the guy he shot was standing about 10 feet away, not moving. The shooter shot the thigh of the man. That said, in 99.99% of the cases, it would be really dumb and in this particular case, there is absolutely nothing which suggests it would be a reasonable option.
With a bigger man who has broken into her house coming at her, with a butcher knife within arm’s reach, she has no choice.
He had three chances to explain that. He also brought his own large knife (why?). And instead of putting his hands up, he goes for the knife.
Here it is.
I’ve never had a gun pulled on me, but in a lot of other experiences I have determined that I’m not the type to go out without a fight so if somebody pulled a gun on me I’m not entirely sure I would do what they say either. Thats putting myself at their control and their mercy, can I really allow that?
I was once threatened with a knife at a party but I didn’t back away and ask him to calm down I just attacked him, grabbed his arms and wrestled the knife away from him. It helps that I’m confident in my strength, but if somebody pulled a gun on me I can totally see me thinking of a way to take action to get that fucking gun pointed somewhere else. I could totally see me glancing at a knife close to hand and wondering if I was quick enough to defend myself.
All hypothetical of course, but I see so much room for doubt and error yet so many people immediately say “shoot now and ask later”.
But the only doubt and error you seem to be able to point to actually adds weight to our side. You’re like “Oh, I wouldn’t back down and would be considering attacking her” and you think that makes it so that she should not be afraid of his attacking her.
ETA: In other words, if you were the guy in the kitchen and able to record your exact chain of thought as here, a jury would be even more likely to let her off.
There’s almost always room for doubt. But the standard by which we usually judge acts of self-defense is whether or not a reasonable person would have been in fear of losing their life or suffering grievous injury.
And to expand on that - if you did actually stab the homeowner for pointing a gun at you, even if it turns you were a guest of the daughter, you’d almost certainly go to prison for assault or murder.
What?
The doubt and error is why he is in the kitchen. Its a surprise to see anybody there and worst case scenarios do spring to mind but that doesn’t change the fact that there very well could be an innocent reason for him being there.
My point in my last post was that an innocent man could indeed glance at the knife, or might not just back away when asked to. He has a gun pointed at him, why is he not allowed to act irrational?
I guess I just believe that it didn’t need to be a choice between shoot now or get murdered yourself.