Home Invasion Question

[FLSTFI]

I was helping my daughter move from one apartment into another. Going down 4 flights of stairs over two building and up 3 flights of stairs. Well, I am old and forgetful and walked into the new apartment and got confused.
1. Where are all the boxes I brought up?
2. Why is there furniture set up already?

Yep, my brain light finally came on and told me YOUR IN THE WRONG APARTMENT!!
I quickly back tracked quietly out of the apartment closing the unlocked door and went up one more flight of stairs to the right one.
After a rest and cold beer I got back to work and saw the other apartment resident carrying up a basket of clothes from the laundry. She did not think it was unusual at all to leave her door unlocked.

Guess what I am trying to say, identify the threat before dropping the hammer, God knows what would of happened if she had been there when I mistakenly walked in!!

What you say makes sense in the middle of the day, but if it is middle of the night that changes a lot. I am not saying you would deserve to be shot, and if you just walked in an unlocked door and then walked right back out the likelihood would be very low, but in the heat of the moment YOUR "mistake" is not my biggest concern. My safety is my number one concern.

 

[Delos]

Unlocked doors

What you say makes sense in the middle of the day, but if it is middle of the night that changes a lot. I am not saying you would deserve to be shot, and if you just walked in an unlocked door and then walked right back out the likelihood would be very low, but in the heat of the moment YOUR "mistake" is not my biggest concern. My safety is my number one concern.

In a high crime area, in the middle of the night, your doors really should be locked. Shooting someone for walking in a door by accident is not what you want on your conscience the rest of your life.

Everyone leaves doors unlocked when kids are outside playing, or expected home soon. No one wants kids to feel locked out.

One of our North Dakota farmers was explaining the old days in North Dakota when they would never dream of locking doors. You might have gone to the city and your neighbor has an emergency. You want your neighbor to be able to get any help he needs.

Now with cell phones in most places, and crime escalating, times have changed. Areas with no cell phone cover probably have neighbors carrying extra keys? (my guess).

 

[cmort666]

For the consideration of those who aver they will always shoot...

Very recently a teenager in a Virginia suburb was grounded...but learned his friends were having a party.

He snuck out of his own home, went to the party, illegally consumed alcohol, and was delivered "home" whilst drunk. His pals helped him climb in a window of "his" house...but it wasn't his. It was two doors away.

Homeowner heard the entry, found him on the staircase, and allegedly confronted him. Teen ignored him and proceeded toward a bedroom according to the accounts.

Homeowner shot him dead.

Food for thought, one would hope.

Be safe.

1. Did the homeowner tell the kid to sneak out?
2. Did the homeowner tell the kid to get drunk?
3. Did the homeowner provide the kid with alcohol?
4. Did the homeowner entice the kid into entering his home?

If the answer to all of these is "no", as I strongly suspect it is, it sucks to be the kid.

Choices have consequences for the chooser. They don't impose any duty on the part of uninvolved third parties whatever to assume risk as a result of those choices which they did not make.

If liquor makes you do stupid things, don't drink.

If you don't want to get shot, don't break into other people's homes, then ignore their lawful commands.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

 

[scooter123]

There is so much wrong with the original post it could boggle the mind, except that a lot of it is simply re-stated drivel that is promoted by the anti gun community. However, one aspect stands out in it's rather appalling concept.

That is asking if it is OK to shoot a warning shot through the door before that Home Invader has even broken in. In BARE FACT, if you were to hit this person with Fatal Effect you could, most likely would, and certainly SHOULD be charged with Murder. Think about it, perhaps that person beating loudly on your front door is doing it because he has seen that the attic of your home is ON FIRE? What if it's a stupid teenage prank involving a flaming bag of dog poop? What if it's simply some stupid drunk who thinks he's trying to wake up his wife because his key won't fit the lock on his/your front door?

Rule One no matter where you live is that you don't shoot someone unless you can clearly see that they present a clear and eminent threat. This means that you don't shoot at someone you cannot SEE, NOT EVER. Unfortunately there are way too many examples of shooting involving family members because the shooter made assumptions based on sound without visually identifying who they were shooting at.

Rule Two should be no Warning Shots. The simple fact is that bullet is going to end up somewhere and it's far better it end up in a criminal than a neighbor across the street or across town. If this doesn't make sense, spend a bit of time looking into Policy at various Police Agencies concerning Warning Shots. You will find that they are universally banned today due to prior experience with unintended consequences.

Rule Three is that guns are NOT pointers. If you feel that you have to draw your gun to defend yourself you need to understand that pulling the trigger may be your best and most viable action to take in order to save your life. If someone is coming at you intending harm or murder you are under no obligation at all to provide them with any warning that you are going to shoot and attempting some type of warning may give them the opportunity to kill you. Take a stop watch and time how long it takes to clearly issue the warning "stop or I will shoot" and consider that a running person with a large knife can cover 20 feet in about 1.3 seconds and it will only take another 0.3 second to slice you open from groin to neck.

Making the decision to shoot in order to defend yourself is not an easy decision and it shouldn't be easy. We are after all talking about the potential for taking someone else's life. However, by doing a bit of pre-planning and thought experimenting we can develop a set of guidelines that will allow that decision to be made quickly and without hesitation. I've done this and the following are my personal criteria and decision paths.

1) If a deadly weapon is in the possession of an assailant I will shoot until they do not have the means or will to assault me with that weapon. It doesn't matter if the weapon is a gun, knife, bat, or stick, if it's a lethal weapon I will shoot as soon as my gun is on target.

I'll also point out that in some situations, such as a raging individual, I consider bare hands to be lethal weapons. However, it the case of bare hands I'll attempt to use a visible firearm to act as a deterrent before pulling the trigger. Probably not good policy if applied to a raging Meth Addict but I consider bare hands to be Less Lethal enough to give someone about 1/2 second to re-think their actions.

2) If the threats are simply verbal I will attempt to leave or sequester myself behind a barrier and call 911. Depending on the assailants reaction to my doing this I may or, may not draw my weapon and allow it to be seen. If that assailant escalates to a pitch I consider lethally threatening I will then shoot to stop if that person comes at me.

3) If I come home and there is a burglary in progress I will take down license numbers of suspect vehicles, move away from the immediate area but maintain visibility, and then call the Police. Walking into a home that is being burglarized can get you killed, so it's far far wiser to allow a team of trained police officers clear the house.

4) If an unarmed person kicks in my door and doesn't seem threatening and are more alarmed at my presence than myself I'll treat it as a simple B & E attempt and give them the opportunity to call the police to come and arrest them. If they do that I will then have them lay down face down with fingers interlaced behind the neck and legs crossed while I keep them covered and wait for the police. I'll also allow them to run like heck if they wish to but don't intend to tell them that. I might also shout out "honey bring me the AK" while they are running to provide some encouragement.

 

[The Big D]

Hardly surprising.

Hardly surprising you find the idea of shooting an unarmed person somehow pleasing.

1. Did the homeowner tell the kid to sneak out?
2. Did the homeowner tell the kid to get drunk?
3. Did the homeowner provide the kid with alcohol?
4. Did the homeowner entice the kid into entering his home?

If the answer to all of these is "no", as I strongly suspect it is, it sucks to be the kid.

Choices have consequences for the chooser. They don't impose any duty on the part of uninvolved third parties whatever to assume risk as a result of those choices which they did not make.

If liquor makes you do stupid things, don't drink.

If you don't want to get shot, don't break into other people's homes, then ignore their lawful commands.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

 

[Delos]

While I can appreciate this example as something to think about, I still lean towards the teenager's irresponsibility not being my problem. If someone breaks into my home and is headed for my son's bedroom I am not going to let him make it into the room. Even a "small" teenager could be armed. I may feel bad about it afterwards, but people need to take responsibility for their actions. Even if they are a drunken teenager.

The post did not say if the bedroom the drunk teen was walking toward had anyone inside sleeping.

A state like California or New York might use these kinds of examples to require gun owners to have bars on their windows.

In my small town lots of friends and relatives turn out for funerals. I could not go to a funeral of a teen whose death I caused. I would move out of town.

I am now convinced. My house gun will now be a .22 rimfire. A can or bag of sand might be positioned where a warning shot could be fired. Someone walking from me will never be shot. But If our crime rate goes up from the oil boom, and if situations warrant someone might get shot in the leg. I do not much care what the law says on this issue of warning shots or shooting to wound. That is a fact God.

My kids are raised. My male line going back several generations do not have anyone living past 76. That gives me 4 more years. I would like to be the first to live past 76 but not making any long range plans. I would never shoot a kid when my life is not as important as a possible good young person.

I will take extreme measures, to never shoot anyone, who might not be a criminal.

 

[cmort666]

Hardly surprising you find the idea of shooting an unarmed person somehow pleasing.

I don't know you from Duncan Idaho, but it's hardly surprising that there are people who believe that people's irresponsible use of alcohol imposes on total strangers a "duty" to incur risk of great bodily harm or death in order to protect them from the consequences of their actions.

No doubt, if the young drunk had been high on "bath salts" and slaughtered the homeowner and his family, you'd just shrug it off. At least the victims wouldn't have "escalated the violence" by defending themselves.

Of course being "unarmed" is largely irrelevant... unless you believe that a 110lb. woman would somehow be in the wrong for shooting a 210lb. "unarmed" rapist.

But then there are always people who profess more concern for the welfare of the stupid, the irresponsible, and indeed the malicious and evil, than for the common man or woman merely trying to go about their lives without harming anyone.

 

[cmort666]

A state like California or New York might use these kinds of examples to require gun owners to have bars on their windows.

It's far more likely that they'd prohibit bars on windows in order to make forced entry by police easier.

My house gun will now be a .22 rimfire. A can or bag of sand might be positioned where a warning shot could be fired. Someone walking from me will never be shot. But If our crime rate goes up from the oil boom, and if situations warrant someone might get shot in the leg. I do not much care what the law says on this issue of warning shots or shooting to wound. That is a fact God.

If you want to ensure that you don't shoot an "innocent" drunken home invader, there is no better way than to simply not own a firearm at all. You can't shoot somebody with the gun you don't have.

Of course you might be slaughtered by the next Hays and Komisarjevsky, but hey, at least you won't have "escalated the violence"...

 

[Kanewpadle]

The post did not say if the bedroom the drunk teen was walking toward had anyone inside sleeping.

A state like California or New York might use these kinds of examples to require gun owners to have bars on their windows.

In my small town lots of friends and relatives turn out for funerals. I could not go to a funeral of a teen whose death I caused. I would move out of town.

I am now convinced. My house gun will now be a .22 rimfire. A can or bag of sand might be positioned where a warning shot could be fired. Someone walking from me will never be shot. But If our crime rate goes up from the oil boom, and if situations warrant someone might get shot in the leg. I do not much care what the law says on this issue of warning shots or shooting to wound. That is a fact God.

My kids are raised. My male line going back several generations do not have anyone living past 76. That gives me 4 more years. I would like to be the first to live past 76 but not making any long range plans. I would never shoot a kid when my life is not as important as a possible good young person.

I will take extreme measures, to never shoot anyone, who might not be a criminal.

I recommend you get rid of your firearms and buy some pepper spray.

 

[cmort666]

I recommend you get rid of your firearms and buy some pepper spray.

Haven't people died from pepper spray?

Better to trust to the "better nature" of drunk or drug addled home invaders...

 

[Kanewpadle]

Haven't people died from pepper spray?

Better to trust to the "better nature" of drunk or drug addled home invaders...

Not me. I've seen firsthand what drunk or drugged up people can do. There's absolutely no reasoning with them. And I'm getting to old to get physical with someone like that without some sort of "tool".

 

[MaximumLawman]

Some people seem to think the cops have a duty to let someone fire at them first before the cops can shoot someone. Others seem to think it's reasonable for a person to shoot through doors to hit someone they can't even see. I wonder if they're the same people?

 

[Delos]

An interesting post

It's far more likely that they'd prohibit bars on windows in order to make forced entry by police easier.


If you want to ensure that you don't shoot an "innocent" drunken home invader, there is no better way than to simply not own a firearm at all. You can't shoot somebody with the gun you don't have.

Of course you might be slaughtered by the next Hays and Komisarjevsky, but hey, at least you won't have "escalated the violence"...

Hello cmort from Ohio. A few branches of my family farmed in Ohio in early 1800's. We always had guns and fishing poles.

I have walked through many crowds of inmates who sometimes wanted to do violence to each other on a daily basis. I have worked on sides of town at night where most logical people remain indoors. For your information most drunks on only alcohol are not often a problem. Unless they crash driving home. If the police had the ability to test for more than alcohol there would be better statistics on drunk driving incidents and road rage.

The number of killings by guns is very small compared to population. The worst is probably the west side of Chicago right now, and only a few drug gangsters kill each other each night. You could drive around the bad side of any big city every night for years and never see anyone shooting at anyone. Police only see them when called by victims. Lots of violence, robberies, drug deals and such, but few shootings that a casual observer might see. I have only seen one and the guy being shot at ran from six or eight shots, apparently not having been hit. Pistol sights are not very good at night.

I do not consider a staggering drunk walking away a threat until I see his actions and expressions from the front. The guys on meth and other drugs can be a handful. Some are really violent when sober. The violent ones generally do not often sneak in houses. They fight or rob on the streets, bars or wherever violences goes unwatched. In our society if someone punches another in a bank at noontime there will be witnesses and he will go jail and court. At a bar at midnight when all wittnesses are drunk and bartender not willing to admit seeing anything, some areas have trouble nightly.

Working in California prisons I have been hit, kicked, bit, and had many items thrown at me. I have broken up many fights. I really do understand most types of violent behavior. I knew the guys that could get knocked down and always got back up to swing again. Most inmates losing a fight change to defensive wrestling and clinching. One inmate in for homicide, was one that could not be kept down. Two of us had to hold him down in armlocks as his hands were bleeding from knocking out the door window walking out of a disciplinary hearing. In the hospital the nice gently nurse told us to let go of him so she could clean his cuts. when she left the room he decided to grab the hospital arm board to use as a club. Fortunately my partner had a football scholarship some years back, and great reflexes. A week or two later he was back walking around the yard, because he talked nice to some therapist. He and perhaps a couple hundred others caused maximum security prisons to be built.

I will not list here the killings of inmates and officers.

Gang members doing required hits never started out tough, but got really mean. There is a difference between tough and mean. People who are dangerous in gangs are another subject.

If someone ask me to push the gas button on an entire death row it would be no problem.

But I do have the gonads to check before I shoot. I know the odds. And the idea of shooting an innocent young person before he has had a chance to continue his family line is really repulsive. No children or grandchildren because someone did not check on the person he was shooting.

The truth seems to me that in many situations homeowners could be trained how to shoot a warning shot. A staggering almost asleep drunk, who hears almost nothing, often wakes up fast with a really loud noise. Most get real polite when things get serious.

Policemen get called to every kind of problem during or after the fact. Probably most have seen a person crying because they shot or hurt someone they wish they had not. You need to talk to them.
If all the incidents were in the big city papers every day it would be to big to carry and too much to read. They pick and choose stories That someone might read. The fact that some police in big cities go from bar fight to bar fight to domestic fight is not news.

The number that might climb in your window in the low crime side of town is small.

 

[Jeffersonwasright]

There is so much wrong with the original post it could boggle the mind, except that a lot of it is simply re-stated drivel that is promoted by the anti gun community. However, one aspect stands out in it's rather appalling concept.

That is asking if it is OK to shoot a warning shot through the door...

The original post did NOT ask about shooting a warning shot. I wish I knew why so many members misread this. I thought it was very clear.

 

[mc5aw]

I'm too tired to scan through all the posts to find where the "warning shot through the door" came from, but suffice it to say that putting a round through a door will:

1) Ruin a perfectly good door.

2) Injure or kill whoever is on the other side, thus making the "warning" shot something a bit more serious, and a rather moot point.

 

[cmort666]

I do not consider a staggering drunk walking away a threat until I see his actions and expressions from the front.

If you're drunk (or otherwise intoxicated) and "staggering away" FARTHER into my home, and toward a family member, sleeping or otherwise, and ignore my commands, you're going to have a VERY bad day/night.

I don't know how I can say it any more clearly:

1. Your substance abuse problems are YOURS, not MINE. If I didn't provide you with the alcohol or drugs, I have ZERO responsibility for your condition. I have ZERO duty to incur risk of harm to myself because of YOUR bad choices.
2. I don't do alcohol, drug or mental health testing in my home, nor do I have the capability of doing so, which in any case would likely involve physically restraining an intruder, again at great risk to myself. I have NO duty to take chances with my own safety in order to be your GRATIS psychiatrist or drug and alcohol counselor in MY home at 2:00am.
3. My primary goal is NOT to avoid shooting a home invader. It's to not BE shot... or choked, or stabbed, bitten or have any other harm come to me or those in my care. If I can accomplish that goal with ZERO additional risk without shooting you, I will. If there's ANY risk to me or somebody in my care from not shooting you, you're going to get shot.

If you get intoxicated and break into other people's homes, you should expect negative consequences, possibly of an irreversible nature.

 

[cmort666]

Not me. I've seen firsthand what drunk or drugged up people can do. There's absolutely no reasoning with them. And I'm getting to old to get physical with someone like that without some sort of "tool".

Hey, what's the worst thing that could happen? Isn't having your whole family raped and burned to death by a couple of drugged up monsters, or having your face eaten by some imbecile high on "bath salts" just a "normal" part of life these days? Why make things worse by introducing a gun into an "already volatile situation"?

If you'd defend yourself with a gun, you're probably "compensating" for something... like a disparity of 100lb.s in weight or thirty years in age between you and your "innocent" assailant...

 

[Delos]

Reasons for identifying what you are about to shoot

Let me rephrase things a little and start with the basics.

Anyone walking to my front door is under my protection.

Anyone visiting is under my protection.

Even stupid teenagers struggling with puberty and drugs are under my protection in the vast number of situations.

Most home burglaries are done by teenagers who have been hooked on drugs by their "new friend". My feelings on this issue is that our schools, like our prisons, are under-policed and cause more crime. I have chose to try to protect people and property for most of my life.

Therefore and whereas. The word home invader is a new word that is overused. When I was young the word "cat burglar" was common. Back then a cat burglar might tiptoe in your unlocked back door while everyone clustered around the radio. Later when TV became available same issue.

Most burglars you talk with in the prisons consider interring any house in the nighttime to now be very foolish. They burgle in daytime when both adults are generally working.

So yes a person in your house at night has the potential to be very dangerous. Particularly to children. Not hard to find stories of such.

Someone walking away from me in my house will be ordered to the floor and if no response I may shoot a warning shot or shoot to wound. I have only worked day shift a few years since about 1970. The dark is my friend. I probably shoot better than most Olympians in very dark conditions.

When ever possible I want to see a persons eyes and how he or she responds to verbal commands as an uninvited stranger in my house. Criminals understand "lay on the floor".

Pin head (very small) eye pupils indicate stimulants. Not what you want to see. One big eye and one small eye indicate a stroke (or some migraines, or a glass eye). Really big eye pupils indicate more than just adaptation to darkness, usually downers. Unfortunately some of today's young drug addicts use a combination of uppers and downers. Very old people can be on any number of drugs.

Anyone in my house after dark that bolts for the door on verbal warning will be allowed to run away. Any senior citizen wandering in wrong door will be identified and help called. If my kids were still young anyone wandering into their door at night, larger than another kid will get a few bullets in his butt really fast.

Once I had a suspicious noise outside. My dogs tail was wagging and she really wanted out. I followed my dog to the suspect. A poorly supervised delinquent kid a block away was quietly calling up to my kids trying to get them to come out and do another midnight walk in the park.

Naturally it never happened again.

 

[cmort666]

Someone walking away from me in my house will be ordered to the floor and if no response I may shoot a warning shot or shoot to wound.

That is recklessness beyond belief.

1. Bullets don't go into a black hole when you fire them. If that "warning shot" goes through a window or some other aperture and kills somebody, you OWN that. It seems the very height of folly to me to risk killing or maiming a totally uninvolved innocent third party in order to protect a CRIMINAL actively engaged in committing one or more crimes.
2. Shooting someone is DEADLY FORCE, whether you shoot them in the heart or the earlobe. It risks substantial likelihood of permanent maiming or death. If somebody's not dangerous enough to KILL, they're not dangerous enough to SHOOT. Stating that you "shot to wound" is prima facie evidence that you were not in sufficient fear of life and limb to do what was necessary to REALLY eliminate an immediate and credible threat of great bodily harm or death.

Your words indicate to me that you do not take the use of deadly force nearly serious enough.

That lack of seriousness may well cost you your finances, your freedom, or indeed your life.

 

[Doug M.]

The idea that anyone would consider it acceptable to have a door unlocked at any time other than to pass through it is mind boggling. Irresponsible beyond belief. If there is a child in your home who is not responsible enough to have a key and keep it on their person and secured at all times, they are not yet capable of being outside without adult supervision. This is not about convenience - it is about the well being of those who belong in your home.

Warning shots are clownshoes at best, criminal at worst. I am all in favor of LE and armed citizens killing more offenders; neither group does so nearly enough by a factor of 50 or so. That said, there is a corresponding responsibility. That bullet has to stop somewhere, and the person who presses the trigger is responsible for it. If you cannot justify putting that round in the most vital area you can see and hit, DON'T PRESS THE TRIGGER.