Pacific Mo man confronts armed buglars in garage, on video

MK said:

Who knows, maybe the homeowner went out there with an unloaded gun as well. He could have been a little panicked and not taken a safety off or missed racking a round. Who knows if he tried to squeeze that trigger or not.

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There are a lot of what ifs and needless to say if he did forget to rack the slide than he needs to get back to the basics and thank whatever God he believes in that he and his family were not killed. If anyone here beside me who has been in incidents like this knows you resort back to your training first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4lDJziTP1Y

Wow. Dumbness abounds.

I don't have anything in my garage worth dying or killing for. I would only risk my life for a life, never for stuff. I have a wife and four little kids who are irreplacable. I can buy more stuff but I cannot replace myself if I am injured, killed or wrongfully jailed.

On the other hand, threats to my wonderful and irreplacable items noted above or myself will get you a nice .45ACP accupuncture treatment.

Freedom First said:

I don't have anything in my garage worth dying or killing for. I would only risk my life for a life, never for stuff. I have a wife and four little kids who are irreplaceable. I can buy more stuff but I cannot replace myself if I am injured, killed or wrongfully jailed.

On the other hand, threats to my wonderful and irreplaceable items noted above or myself will get you a nice .45ACP acupuncture treatment.

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The simple fact of you “a bad guy “that has made the horrible choice to enter my home is enough for me to take action, I don't know what your intentions are that is true. I don't know if your here to rob me, rape my wife, or worst. Yet I damn well know I am not going to ask you 20 questions to find out. If you enter my home for whatever reason I will shoot you down that very inch that you cross that imaginary line. People who play the question games are fools; the simple truth that they have entered your home to begin with is enough to say they want to roll the dice with their life and cause you harm.

The homeowner's approach was dumb! :banghead:

Safest legal procedure:

Step 1: Always assume the suspect is armed.

Step 2: Call police while directing your family to take cover.

Step 3: You already have video footage, so grab a license-plate number, if you can, provided you won't be risking yourself beyond cover should the perps exit the garage.

Step 4: Take cover with your family inside the house.

Step 5: Blow the perps away if they step inside the house.

Seriously: Law enforcement is paid good money to confront criminals, they're well-trained to do so, and they volunteered for the duty. Let them chase down and take down the suspects.

If the criminal's gun had been loaded, I seriously believe you'd have had one dead homeowner, one widow, and two or more orphans. There's nothing worse than being a dead hero, when you could have been a live husband and father, and hero to your wife and kids for using sound judgement and protecting them.

My garage full of stuff...

I draw a very distinct line between a threat to my stuff and a threat to my family or other humans. With a criminal in garage I would follow along with since9's plan outlined above. Criminal in the house I agree with Zack991 and he goes down.

Situational Dependent

In a suburban neighborhood where cops have a halfway decent response time

Perfect world:
-See badguys on camera in garage
- Lock down house and inform family to stay inside
-Telephone police
-Monitor activity in garage via camera
-Have a cup of coffee and watch as PD enter the garage, subdues the bad guys, and carts them away
- Give police statement and copy of surveilance tape for the trial.
- Post the video on youtube, slow motion any part where the BG gets whupped by police
-Donate $ to policemans fund at next opprotunity

In a more rural environment where police are HOURS away

-See badguys on camera in garage
- Arm self with shotgun
- Position self outside garage
- Have cup of coffee while awaiting Badguys to emerge
- Badguys emerge (hopefully with arms full of my stuff and without a free hand)
- Order bad guys to ground and subdue them until police can pick 'em up

OR

-badguys emerge from garage with any sort of weapon even remotely threatening me or mine
- trigger squeeze
- Send flowers to mourners and a hymn book to the preacher.

In Nevada had the owner shot the intruder I believe if not shot or killed he would have gone to jail for some form of a homicide. I believe it would have been seen as a sign of an aggressor leaving a safe area arming himself and moving to an area know to be occupied by unwanted intruders. I agree with since9. Call 911, arm yourself, safe the family, and if possible monitor the intruders. If they try to make their way into your safe area, they are the aggressor and time for a site picture.

KansasScout said:

Me? Shotgun and waited outside for the PD. Going in the garage was nearly a suicidal move. He was just lucky.

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I know this is a handgun forum, but in this case, a shotgun would be the only practical choice in this situation. I like my pistols for outside of the home, but inside of the home is where the shotgun dwells.

in the state of missouri we have the castle doctrine.
as of aug 28th a new amendment was added to the statue that expands the castle doctrine to the boundaries of your property line; not just inside your home.

i would have shot him if i seen the gun. the homeowner would have been justified.

Gad, again with the whatifs. I see an armed intruder on my property, it's bang bang bang. No stop or I'll fire no warning shots, just nullify the threat. sheesh. The point is CYA, can you articulate. What did you see, what did it make you feel, and what did you do in response to the threat.

KansasMustang said:

Gad, again with the whatifs.

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I didn't mean to open up a can of worms with my relatively simple scenario. I think it's good for people to play things out, both because the laws in states are different with respect to what we cannot do, and we humans are different with respect to either what we're willing to do, or what we can do.

If someone has a cut and dried solution that works for them and in their neck of the woods, that's ok, and they should stick to it. If you don't, now's the time to develop your strategy, and that's what we're doing here.

Taking the story in the OP, for example, if I had a detached garage, I'd certainly not want to get caught out in the open by a perp coming out of the garage with a shotgun. I can easily hit a stationary man-sized target at 50 feet, but if they start dodging or can take cover, it changes the odds in a hurry.

MMQB here. I would have shot that sonofabitch.

Not trying to act tough, having a REVOLVER pointed at me in my own garage would simply provoke that reaction.

we got the make my day law here, i would still only shoot the guy if he had a weapon or made a move that implied he was arming himself.

otherwise he can run like hell out the door and I'll let the cops handle it. i don't want to kill someone over a TV.