What not to do:

"The 34-year-old Carver man fired the gun after he saw what he thought was a stranger or strangers on the roof of his shed at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Carver County Sheriff’s Office.

The roof climber was a 16-year-old boy trying to retrieve his hat from the roof."

"Jensen told authorities he got his 9-millimeter Ruger handgun and went outside, the news release continued. He “called out to the strangers, then fired three shots into the ground.” No one was hurt.

Jensen appeared in Carver County District Court on Thursday and was charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful discharge of a firearm in city limits without justification."

Carver man faces charges after teens climbing on shed faced gunfire - StarTribune.com

I'd like to know whether the trespasser was charged with trespassing.

And just how did the 16 year olds hat end up on the roof of someones storage shed which must have been in at least the side yard if not the back yard.

Warning shots are, by definition, almost always the discharge of a weapon when there is no imminent threat. That is, generally speaking, both illegal and ill-advised. They also have the bad habit of injuring or killing people and damaging property.

Warning shots are also a way of ending a situation without anyone getting killed.

Never let your gun do your thinking for you. Trespass does not justify an armed response, even just to fire warning shots. Perhaps this boy's friends forcibly took the hat and threw it onto the shed roof as a prank but even if he was trying to break into the shed, the shed is not your home and an armed response will almost always lead to a bad outcome.

Could very easily be what Federali said.

As a kid I trespassed A LOT. in the summer we'd be out playing baseball and quite often the ball would end up in someone's yard. Only way to retrieve was to jump the fence

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My father had 10-20 pieces of #7 1/2 lead shot in his back that were a warning from an old farmer who didn't like kids messing around in his orchard.Pop claimed the old guy was just trying to scare them off.

Did it work?

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You're shy a few manners.

Dunno,he was a pretty stubborn guy

We were trained to never fire warning shots, and to never fire at a moving vehicle. There are good reasons for both.

"POTENTIALLY"

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Stay protected my friends.

16 y/o climbing around on the roof of a shed trying to find his hat at midnight while the owner of the shed is firing rounds into ground? Uh hu....

And this is somehow a lesson on gun handling? Sounds like more a gene pool issue for all involved.

It's easy for us to arm chair quarterback. We don't know the lay of the land, what the sounds were, or much other than it was around midnight. We do know what the newspaper wants us to believe. Sledding at 11;30 at night, uh huh.

Trespassing at midnight qualifies as doing stupid things at stupid times, in stupid places.

As a homeowner, how vulnerable did he feel? He shot into the ground? Hard dirt, grass?

As it stands, I think he should just plead no contest and take his lickins'. I do not condone his behavior but feel empathy for his plight.

I still think that the trespassers should be charged.

What was done to make him feel threatened. He is an adult-there should be some ability to make rational decisions.

And yes, sledding at midnight, followed by warm cocoa and a warmer girl. Don't knock it until you have tried it.

When a reasonable person is inside their home and saw someone on their shed,would they feel their life was in danger?I think not.call police for this one

Does the shed adjoin the side of the house, below a second story window? Too much to speculate on.

I wasn't there.......


Chuck

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They hold no Quarter

could also get you shot !! And of the 3 or 4 cases I've heard of this occurring the usual charge was unlawful discharge of a firearm in city limits ..

The question was asked during my Illinois conceal carry class .. are warning shots allowed and the Deputy Sherriff giving the class said no warning shots are not allowed !! You would be arrested for disorderly and for unlawful discharge ..

I held a similar opinion- that warning shots are a bad idea- until I was driving home and my path got blocked by a street fight. Second or third punch knocked one participant out cold, guy who came out on top starts trying to stomp the losers head in. There's three girls trying to pull the stomper off of the victim and failing miserably. So I don't have anything resembling a clear shot. I hadn't planned for this situation so I froze. Thank God the guy backed off before he crushed the victim's skull. In hindsight, I wish I would have put one in the dirt.

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Just the opinion of a kid

Well, I can tell you with intimate knowledge that people and wild dogs scatter like ants in the sun when they hear a warning shot. They do freeze for a couple seconds first though, and no the cops never showed up, if the police prevented crime I would have no business firing warning shots in the first place.

As far as we can ascertain from the limited information, the householder acted correctly up to the point he fired his weapon. Make an appearance, checkout the disturbance, hold the weapon at "port arms"; correct, likely legal.

Fire a weapon three times without a target? Incorrect, illegal in his city & IMO over-reaction.

I live in a pretty permissive city but two Fourth Of July's back a sitting County Commissioner -- a close neighbor & backer of the county shooting complex -- was arrested and charged with firing a large bore revolver at a tree stump on his own property. 'Drunk as a skunk', no doubt; but a reminder to think before firing.

...people seem to have just one way to resolve a 'problem.'

A gun should be the last resort...never the first. And NEVER A WARNING SHOT(S)...EVER.

Be safe.

I agree with those who hold off on making a judgment.


Too much is unknown. There are some 16 year old boys who are about the size of an NFL linebacker. The homeowner could have had a disability. Were the other miscreants circling around in the darkness, perhaps surrounding the homeowner? Of course the boys all say they were engaged in innocent horseplay. But if they really were up to no good, would they be honest about it?


It would make a lot of sense to just stay inside in such a situation, but I wasn't there.

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You're shy a few manners.

In the late 60's and early 70's, I was that kid running around the tiny town of Carver. We did all the normal kid stuff. Lucky for us some stupid A** adult didn't irresponsibly fire a weapon b/c we were on his/her property.
Did he identify his target? Was that target a threat of great bodily harm or death to him or his family? Did he know what was beyond the target?
MN law states that to be charged with trespassing you first have to be asked by the land/home owner to leave and then refuse to leave.
Thank God no one was hurt. And maybe the kids had a little something extra in their underwear that night.

Good point:

609.605 TRESPASS

(3) trespasses on the premises of another and, without claim of right, refuses to depart from the premises on demand of the lawful possessor;

We had a case, in a canyon outside of city limits. A cowboy (real) arrived back to his campsite, to find a group of delinquents vandalizing/stealing his property. He discharged his weapon into the ground to scare them off. They high-tailed it back to town, where the cops stopped them for driving crazy. The "innocent" kids told the officer how the mean old cowboy threatened them. The cowboy had called the cops himself in the meantime. They were arrested.

I'll repeat my statement about the news story the OP provided. We read what the newspaper wanted us to believe.

Seriously? If someone fired a warning shot at me, how am I to know if it was in fact a warning shot? I'd return fire, with full intention to stop the perceived threat, immediately!

Agreed, unfortunately it's in MN and the police, courts and even most of the Fudds up here are hostile to any kind of defensive firearm use. So it wasn't a smart idea to actually fire unless he was in immediate danger and even in that case he'd have had a court case and a major headache.

In Texas, "trespassing" is a dastardly act and often times the trespasser "feels" the wind pass by him, and then the report of the firearm.
My advice is to NEVER trespass in Texas. Texas is different.

Talking to a man who has a chicken coop in his back yard. The night before our conversation he caught someone stealing a chicken from his coop, running away from the place. He emptied the magazine of his 9mm at the thief!! No one called the cops so far.

I told him it was a stupid move and asked him if a chicken was worth a man or kid's life? Discussed consequences and he told me to go to hell!

I marvel at how some folks think!

I appreciate how this forum and others like it give us an opportunity to mull over potential situations. In this instance, the guy obviously will be facing serious consequences. I wonder if he will end up thinking it was worth it.

Some goof here in Denver was having trouble with pot plants being stolen from his back yard at night (it's legal to grow a small amount,but only indoors)He ended up shooting a couple of 14 year olds with a 22 one night.One of them died.A few weeks later another kid came forward who had been shot earlier in the summer.I can't imagine the shooter has much of a life to look forward to.

you're lucky he didn't shoot you

It's black letter law in MN. Unless your life is threatened and you have no way to safely leave the area, you do not use the gun. You own a gun, it is your duty to know the law concerning it, and it is a lot cheaper to learn by reading a book or taking a class than to have a judge explain it to you after the fact.

Neighboring rancher told me this story, claimed it occurred during his "younger days":

He'd been having a lot of trouble with trespassers and poachers. One night he saw a light going across one of his pastures and fired a 30-06 off over their heads. Light went out...

A few days later, the county sheriff asked him to stop by his office. There on his desk was a miners helmet with a .30 cal groove cut across the top of it. The sheriff asked him did he know anything about it, he allowed as how he knew nothing of the matter, nothing more was said.

He said on the one hand he learned a lesson from it, but on the other he didn't have any more trespassing issues after that.

For the most part I AGREE with the fact that warning shots are not a good idea, most of the time illegal and can (and have) resulted in some bad outcomes like innocent people being hit however in the case of the cowboy returning to camp I can rationalize a justification. Reason is I live in a rural area where shooting is common in the woods outside of my property. Therefore a warning shot most likely is not going to necessarily illegal if not fired AT the intruders. Also in a scenario such as this (and depending on how far he was from the closest Law Enforcement) the situation could be more imminent and acute considering the trespassers ALSO know this and a rural or remote mindset is very different from that in a city. In a city environment a trespass might be an impulsive decision whereas in the remote area it could be planned and calculated - again by those knowing all parties are far from any Law Enforcement. Also it is much more likely if this WAS planned the trespassers/thieves are much more likely to be armed themselves. I have spent most of my life hunting, camping etc. in very remote areas and other than a few raised eyebrows and keeping an eye on a few people I have never experienced anything like this - but then a sidearm is with me at all times regardless and if I were confronted with something like this I no doubt would have also fired a warning shot.

WOW - Just plain WOW! Everybody was lucky on that one. Good Sheriff!

A couple of years ago, shortly after my truck had been broken into,I had parked way up in the mtns on an old jeep road and hiked a 1/4 mile when I heard a couple of dirt bikes.They stopped where my truck was parked and started messing around.I fired a round into a stump a few feet from me and they left in a hurry

In my opinion, you don't pull the trigger unless there is an immediate threat to life. If you think someone is up to no good outside your home, you call the police. If you think someone is trying to enter your home, you call the police.

If someone enters your home, it's game on.

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"I'm your huckleberry."

If it's a miss then it's a warning shot...

digiroc

The law on that is not the same in all states. Larry

Pretty sure it's the same everywhere that you have to be in immediate fear of death or serious physical injury . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Well a couple of things, first of all, you don't fire warning shots at someone, secondly, if you were armed and up to no good, you probably wouldn't be getting the courtesy of a warning shot.

"Deputies interviewed several witnesses and learned that a group of juvenile males, ages 15
- 16 had been sleding in the area when one of the boys threw the hat of another onto
the shed roof. A 16 year old boy climbed over a fence and onto the roof to retrieve
the hat when suddenly the shots were heard." -Carver County Sheriffs Office

Sounds like he took Joe Biden's advice. Oh wait, he didn't use a shotgun, so maybe Joe wouldn't approve.

776.013 Home protection; use or threatened use of deadly force; presumption of fear of death or great bodily harm.—
(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using or threatening to use defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:
(a) The person against whom the defensive force was used or threatened was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person’s will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; and
(b) The person who uses or threatens to use defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.

Not necessarily. FL law.

From Chapter 9 of the Texas Penal Code:

Sec. 9.41. PROTECTION OF ONE'S OWN PROPERTY. (a) A person in lawful possession of land or tangible, movable property is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to prevent or terminate the other's trespass on the land or unlawful interference with the property.

Continued

Sec. 9.42. DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property:

(1) if he would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.41; and

(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:

(A) to prevent the other's imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or

(B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property; and

(3) he reasonably believes that:

(A) the land or property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means; or

(B) the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.

Personal Observation: The statues obviously allow for the use of deadly force in situations where some people might think it should not. It's your right to think whatever you so choose. In some shape, form or fashion the current statues have been part of Texas law for a long long long time. Attempt to steal a persons horse, car or dog at night and be prepared for that to be your last act.

Example 1: If some social degenerate is window peeping in your bedroom at night.

Example 2: If some misguided soul is spray painting graffiti on the side of your vehicle at night while standing in your front yard.
Are these examples extreme and simplistic? YES and I fully admit they are hypothetical but according to Texas Statue the use of deadly force is justified.

In Texas the Castle Doctrine also extends to ones vehicle. In short, if you can legally own a handgun it's not illegal to have it in your vehicle so long as it is concealed.

hardcase60

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You want me to do what?

Like I said, you have be in fear of immediate death or serious injury (imminent peril of death or great bodily harm). My point is there is not a state that lets you shoot somebody without being in fear of the aforementioned. Florida helps out and defines it for you, to a degree, but those terms are terms of art, with specific meanings. All the other states do the same. The standard is what I stated. How you get there is sometimes a moving target, but for the most part pretty similar stuff.

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

The final line in your code states that deadly force is not allowable UNLESS (B) the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury. .

That final clause qualifies all the preceding lines.

Mitigating case law, if existing, notwithstanding, I'd think it ill advised to shoot a peeper, or a kid spray painting your car.