Protecting your Property

[outkast353]

My dilemma with bringing a gun to investigate a disturbance in my home or outside is that it immediately steps up the situation to a possible life or death. Yes, if I run into a criminal who has a weapon and is threatening then I'm pretty much okay to shoot and glad I brought along a firearm but if I run into a criminal with no weapon I am hoping to god he will not try to rush me because I will not have the choice of fighting him hand to hand I will have to shoot. If I don't and he beats me or wrestles my gun away I've just doomed myself and possibly my family.

[E. Fudd]

1. Fwiw, had a neighbor across the street who had a drunk nut bang on his door screaming late one night. The guy had the wrong house, maybe looking for an ex-girlfriend or something. The homeowner repeatedly told the guy from behind the front door to go away, which he refused. The HO finally opened the door and point a shotgun at the guy, while yelling at his wife to call 911.

The cops show up and see a guy outside of the house in his PJ's pointing a shotgun at an unarmed man. They immediately drawn down on the homeowner, yelling at him to drop the gun. He then says, "It's okay... It's not loaded..."

Fortunately, he did not point or turn his body towards the LEO's. The police approached him with guns drawn, secured the shotgun, and arrested the nutcase (more likely just really drunk)... Returned the shotgun to the owner. And luckily, the HO didn't get shot...

2. Confronting a bad guy alone who is lurking or skulking around in your front yard or backyard seems an extremely risky endeavor to me. There could be more than one. You can not watch 360 degrees around yourself and would be at risk from being attacked from behind. You may not know that the one (or more) intruder is not armed until he draws from concealment and starts firing at you.

Better to stay inside the house, protect yourself, call 911. If you must, verbally challenge the intruder and verbally prone him out on the ground and wait for LE to approach and secure him. If he runs and/or jumps the fence, let LE chase him down outside.

To clear a backyard or front property safely, you really need a trained team, including someone to watch six...

[Mad Jax]

acaligunner, outkast353,E.Fudd, all excellent points..

[superbikearmen]

I've had to pull my weapon (desert eagle 50AE) on someone who came inside my shop threatening to kill me while swinging at me, spitting at me all while holding one hand in his pocket, all this because he allegedly thought I stole "stuff" out of his car while it was parked illegally at my shop! Now this dude was obviously high on crack or lit on something and didn't notice the gun holstered under my shirt (I grabbed my gun and holstered it from my office before it escalated). After he told me he was gonna kill me (several times mind you) while swinging at me, one of my employees pleaded with him to stop and got in between us as a buffer but it got way out of hand and I really thought he had some surprise for me in his pocket (they do this to intimidate you a lot the police told me) so I pushed him back pulled out my gun and told his *** to sit down, he thought it was a paint ball gun until I extracted a round out for him to see, he turned white really quick(originally he was black, no pun intended) He calmed down and realized how bad the situation got and probably got a reality check. This all took place in just 10 minutes, before it escalated and grabbed my gun I called the local police while my employees got the rath of this irate individual, this short time he knocked things down kicked doors, yelled at everyone including 2 customers. To make a long story short it took the police 15 minutes to come. When they showed up they all questioned me while checking if my firearm was even legal, 12-15 squad cars showed up. They were questioning me as if I was the threat, and the idiot was sweet talking to the police, finally the the guy showed his true colors when he wouldn't present his ID, then he went ghetto on them. He kept yelling "its cuz I'm black" and you know the whole deal how "some" of them get, the one black officer that came grabbed his hand before handcuffing him (because he kept taunting them with his finger) said "No, its because you're stupid", at this time I knew he was done and was cracking up inside although still shooken up inside, One of the lady officers had asked me why I pulled my gun out and I shouldn't have, I simply told her that isn't normal for someone if someone is spitting on you, swinging at you, disrupting your business, and to top it off threatening to kill you all while his one hand is in his pocket, I didn't know what was in his pocket you wouldn't hold him at gun point?? I told her hell he'd be dead and you wouldn't even be questioning him now if you were in my shoes. After everything was settled the officer that took my weapon to run the numbers went up to the guy with my gun and told him (while sitting in the back of the squad car) the state of CA is trying to ban guns like this because they can do damage to a bullet proof vest(???) then came back and handed it to me along with the loaded mag I loaded the gun and put it back in my holster. I told the officers I didn't want to press charges because he'll only be sent in for 48 hours or whatever and the whole time he's gonna be thinking how he's gonna get back at me, when you have nothing you have nothing to lose! The reason why I'm telling this story is not just because of the topic but this day I will never forget, yeah I was scared when he was taking over my shop and getting all crazy with me, but I think I was 5 times more scared when I pulled out my gun out! It was very close I almost blew his head off, but I knew at that time my family was more important and this asshat wasn't worth it. The reason why I say this is because there are a lot of gun happy guys on this forum that are itching to pull out their weapon like Dirty Harry, but when SHTF sometimes either may not be a good idea, or might escalate the problem worse. I was lucky their was witnesses (customer was a fireman), the guy was apprehended and I didn't make a mistake and do something stupid in a very intense situation. Just writing about the ordeal reminds me how freaked out I was when I pointed the gun at his head, I wonder who was more freaked out, him or me!

[superbikearmen]

sorry what I wrote was long, I figured I'd share it with my calgun friends. Maybe itchy trigger finger guys can learn something from my experience.