One warning, 15 deadly

[Tallestsniper]

I'm not sure if this is the proper section, if not, mod kindly put in appropriate thread

Lets face it, the laws of taking a life mean loosing part of yourself. Killing even the most of all evil means hrs of questioning, time spent defending yourself in court, reliving it over and over in your dreams, and the possible need for psychological assistance. In the slightest chance that the courts disagree with my defense, charge me with a felony, take my guns and imprison me with those I am attempting to protect my family from, Ive come up with a solution that has other benefits:

When living alone, chamber a blank round, then insert loaded home defense rounds. This does a few things.
1. If intruder is unarmed, you can scare the biscuits out of him/her by discharging firearm without putting holes in your home or if in apartment, into your downstairs neighbors head or apartment above. Then proceed to hold them until police arrive.

2 If intruder is armed with a knife, club, or non firearm weapon, you can yell for them to stop, kiss the ground and if they take a step towards you fire, they take two steps, fire twice, then continue until gun is empty. If they are armed with a gun, squeeze the trigger very quickly before they put you in their sights. Take no chances.

3. If it is a family member that decides they don't want to wake you or your teenager sneaking back into the house, you avoid an accidental death of a loved one by sounding off a warning shot.

4. If a child is in the home, we want to protect our children without endangering them, so in the event that they find your gun in the clock gun safe while looking for batteries to power their gameboy, they get curious and pick it up, if they accidentally fire off a round, no one gets hurt, but the sound of it will not have them re squeezing the trigger because the ringing of their ears, and immediate attention of any adult. Heck, if you are storing your gun in ANY manner that a child could get their hands on it, shame shame, but even my police officer father couldn't hide all of his guns if he needed to access them quickly. I was trained safety at a young age, but I STILL would occasionally sneak a peek at his home defense weapon.

What is your opinion on all of this? I wrote a paper for school many years back on this idea, but my teacher was pretty anti-gun. (and yes, they are still breeding )

[Untamed1972]

In a semi-auto pistol, generally speaking a blank round will not produce enough pressure to cycle the action when fired without some kind of restricter in the barrel to increase the pressure.

so after you fired that blank round you'd have to manually cycle the action to get a live round chambered.

Secondly, it's just a plain bad idea to go into a gunfight, or potential gunfight with anything less than a gun that is not ready to rock and roll. When you decide you have to shoot likely you will have nanoseconds to decide. Do really want to be in that position and then hafta remember that your defensive weapon is no ready to defend you?

Also from a legal defense standpoint, if you're going to point a gun at someone and pull the trigger it is because you were in fear for your life. It makes your legal defense harder when you have to try and justify why you pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger KNOWING it was not capable of stopping the threat.

On the off chance that I only have time to get off one shot.....I wanna know it's gonna count.

ETA: You must also realize that under the stress of a situation people will often rip off several rounds and not even realize it. So in that situation where you're gonna scare the intruder with a knife and you decide to squeeze the trigger and scare him with that blank round, or it's accidentally you teenager sneaking in, if you're scared enough to pull the trigger the first time, you'll likely pull it more than once negating the whole supposed "safety aspect" anyway.

Most of what you described would require ALOT more critical thinking ability in the midst of a stressful situation, (ie determining threat, determining approrpiate response based on condition of your weapon etc) then most people will be able to muster in the split seconds the decision needs to be made.

Also, do some research on the threat posed by an attacker with an edged weapon (ie the 21ft rule). If you think a guy with a knife standing on the other side of your not so big living room isn't an immediate threat to your life, you are sorely mistaken. The saying goes "dont bring a knife to a gunfight." But you also shouldn't bring a chunk of metal/polymer (ie a non-fuctional gun) to a knife fight. In such an instance you're likely to endup stabbed and the bad guy will be leaving with your gun while you bleed out on the floor.

[Uriah02]

http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/forms/pdf/Cfl2006.pdf

[bohoki]

no good reason comes from a blank


only be sure of your target

[freedomtools]

Reliability is even a problem with revolvers. I loaded some .44 mag blanks once to chase off some bad (but not deserving of death) dogs once. 2 rounds fired but the primer from the second blank bulged out and jammed the cylinder. So much for that plan.

I agree with untamed and wouldn't keep a gun around with blanks anyway. Maybe ratshot? It cycles, it defends, but it doesn't penetrate walls.

[Python2]

The OP's idea is akin to a "shoot to wound mentality" rather than "shoot to stop mentality" No thank you.

[Paul E]

Shoot to disable threat to life.

Identify the threat before you shoot.

Basic rules of self defense with a handgun

[Paul E]

fixed it for ya'

haha, thanks...good point.

[Decoligny]

It is neither shoot to kill or shoot to disable, it is shoot to STOP the threat.

[leelaw]

Would a police officer ever carry with a blank for his first shot? No. I expect nothing less from anyone else who would use their firearm to protect life. If using deadly force is necessary, then don't delay in its use by using a round which is most likely going to induce a malfunction (in a semi-auto pistol) or which would extend the time before lead is put down range to the threat (pistol or revolver).

[Sniper3142]

This is a horrible idea.

If you are at all unsure that you can take a human life to defend yours or your loved ones, then do not own a firearm or any other weapon that could be used in such a manner.

You will likely end up having that weapon used on you and/or your family because of your lack of mental/moral preparation.



Some folks are more sheep than sheepdog. Its not a flaw, its a fact of life. Understand what you can and can't do and adjust accordingly.

[gtturborex]

This is California as well. Title should read One warning, 9 deadly.

[geeknow]

This is California as well. Title should read One warning, 9 deadly.

haha, now that was funny..

OP, I see this as you trying to put another opportunity to decide shoot/no shoot into the equation. That is good. Its an important decision, and one that deserves some serious thought.

Its the timing that's all wrong.

Respectfully, you need to have made the decision of how far you're willing to go in the defense of yourself and others before the guns come out.

stay safe.

[armygunsmith]

Loading a home defense pistol with a blank is really asking for it. You may as well just have a stuffed animal in your hands.

[NightOwl]

1. In a potential life or death situation, you're giving the person breaking into your home an advantage.

2. Having a blank chambered serves no benefit here. Within 21 feet a knife is, statistically, deadlier than a gun. They have enough advantage already if they're in your house with a knife.

3. Warning shots are retarded. It is never advisable to shoot to warn. If you have to shoot, be prepared to stop the threat. Yell if you want to shoot to warn. Incidentally, a gunshot in my home will most likely wake me, so I'm not sure what the whole "doesn't want to wake you" thing was all about. You'll also notice, police and military never "shoot to warn". I'd venture to say that police and military would never shoot to warn when someone has broken into their home and their family is in danger, as well, though I have no direct experience of this outside of interaction with former military family members.

4. If there is a child in the home, they should be taught gun safety from an early age. If they're old enough to be capable of pulling the trigger, they should know quite clearly the consequences of doing so, and that they shouldn't (in most situations). You mentioned you were trained for gun safety, but you'd occasionally sneak a peek. How many times that you would sneak a peek would having a blank round chambered have been of any benefit? Did you find yourself often firing off just one round inside the home, then putting the gun back?

A blank round in a gun that's to be used for home defense is never a good idea. If you need to shoot, your firearm should be ready and able to do it's job-put a bullet out the end of the barrel. That is not play time.

While we all hope that we're never in a situation that requires shooting another person, I think that most people realize that giving the other person threatening your life an additional advantage is a bad idea, even if it's a small advantage.