The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Police: Woman In Home Kills Intruder
Mother Of 3 Children Opens Fire On Alleged Robber
ORLANDO, Fla. — Investigators said a mother of three children shot and killed an intruder who was trying to get into her home Tuesday night.
Image by Oleg Volk
And I guess she was compensating for something, too?
(h/t to Zendo Deb for this one, again.)
From Across the Pond
I received an interesting email this morning from across the pond (full name redacted):
I believe in the right of the individual to keep and bear arms in defence of themselves. This makes me a significant rarity, given that I am as British as Cornish pasties.
I heard the standard arguments of the pro-banning-guns community while growing up, but I had an analytical enough mind to know that I wouldn’t be able to conscionably form an opinion without investigating the statistical nature of taking guns away from a community in comparison to communities where guns are not taken away. This missing piece was provided by a friend I gained via IRC who runs a gun shop in Pennsylvania, who linked me to gunfacts.info, and I saw the proverbial light. Beyond that, firearms have never played a central part of my life – I’ve never lived in the areas of the country where gang warfare and violent crime are greatest, and nobody in my family had much to do with firearms in a sporting context or hunting.
As such, I have a question which is likely not quite what you normally get. You’ve characterised the sweep of gun control through the legislation of the UK as a slippery slope, which I don’t disagree with; what can I do to try and reverse the process?
Thomas
Here’s what I sent him in reply:
Thank you for your missive. I wish I had a simple answer for your question, or even some words of encouragement, but with regard to that slippery slope I’m personally afraid that the UK has proceeded too far down it to ever climb back out. “Reversing the process,” in my opinion, requires “renormalization” – that is, making guns and gun ownership if not common, at least not uncommon again. One of my favorite quotes regarding the “normalization” of gun ownership comes from Teresa Nielson Hayden: “Basically, I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” Unfortunately, the disarmament of your nation has proceeded well past the point where that can occur – thus guns and gun ownership will remain (in the eyes of the majority of your fellow subjects) abnormal, anti-social and frightening. It’s a cultural change that took over eighty years to accomplish, and the inertia of that effort will preclude the necessary reversal of your gun control laws that will allow renormalization. The British psyche no longer recognizes two “gun cultures” – one of sportsmen and protectors and one of criminals – it only recognizes one – the criminal. Note that many in your culture still object to the arming of police forces even in the face of skyrocketing violent crime. As you yourself noted, your belief in the right of armed self-defense makes you a “significant rarity” in your own culture.
The only way to “reverse the process” is to convince the voting public that guns are not the cause of crime, that gun owners are not violent psychopaths or petty criminals just waiting for the opportunity to criminally misuse their guns, and that they themselves are responsible enough to own one and use it in defense of themselves, their families, and their property. That option has been stripped from you in death-by-a-thousand-cuts legislation dating back to 1920. I think the final step over the brink was the 1996/97 handgun ban.
In Scotland in 2007 there were 26,056 firearm certificates on issue to a total population of 5,062,000. In other words, about 0.5% of the population is licensed to own a centerfire rifle or a shotgun that can hold more than two shells. In England and Wales there were 128,528 firearm certificates on issue to a population of about 54 million, or less than 0.25% of the population there. That’s nowhere near enough to make firearms ownership anything approaching “normal,” and the laws make it extremely unlikely that firearm ownership levels in UK will ever again approach even 5%.
It’s cold of me, I know, but the UK for me now serves as an example of what can happen here if we don’t fight tooth and nail to prevent it.
I wish you luck in your endeavors, though. I’d love to be proven wrong.
Actually, I repeat my entreaty: Get out. Get out NOW.
Another 80 Year-Old Man With Compensation Issues
No charges for man, 80, who shot, killed burglar
GREENSBORO (NC) — An 80-year-old man who shot an intruder inside his apartment will not face criminal charges.
The Guilford County District Attorney’s Office will not charge Charles Haithcock , who fatally shot Michael Lamont Medley Jr. on Oct. 14 .
Haithcock was inside his apartment on 1125 Walnut St. before dawn that morning when Medley, 19, broke in through a window carrying a weapon. Haithcock shot Medley with a handgun while Medley was inside the residence. Medley later died at Moses Cone Hospital.
““The law says that Mr. Haithcock had the right to use deadly force against an intruder that’s in his home when he believes that his own life is in risk, which that belief is pretty reasonable,” said Assistant District Attorney Howard Neumann .
Even if Haithcock hadn’t seen a weapon in the suspect’s hand, Neumann said, Haithcock could have used deadly force if he believed that the intruder was about to commit a felony. In this case, Medley was suspected of attempting to commit burglary.
Neumann gathered from evidence that Haithcock was in his bedroom when Medley removed an air conditioning unit from a window and broke into the home. Haithcock heard a noise inside the home near his bedroom. Armed with a .25-caliber handgun, he opened the bedroom door and saw a man holding a weapon. Neumann said Medley had a BB gun.
The elderly man tried to slam the door to his bedroom as the intruder tried to open it. Haithcock blindly fired three times through the door. Medley was shot twice in the torso and once in the head, Neumann said.
No more jokes about .25’s, OK? As with real-estate, defensive shooting is all about location, location, location. Even a .25 to the noggin tends to take the fight out of your opponent.
Thanks to Zendo Deb for the pointer.
He Was Compensating for the Size of His Penis . . .
…with a .25?
As others have said, another mugger suffers from a severe failure in the victim selection process when he chose Caleb as his intended target.
I hope the coffee gave him a good burn.
Another Sign We’re Winning
Another incident that makes Paul Helmke a Sad Panda. Verbatim from Instapundit:
SCENES FROM A NEW AMERICA: So I dropped the girls off at a movie, and — since the Insta-wife was lunching with her mom — stopped at a Sonny’s Barbecue for lunch. A man — late 40s, big, with a wife and a daughter — came in with an empty holster on his belt. As he sat down at the booth next to mine, the manager came by and asked him if he’d left his gun in the car. Yes, said the man, who had a permit but thought he wasn’t allowed to carry in restaurants in Tennessee.. Well, they’ve changed the law, said the manager, and if you want to go get it that’s fine with us. It’s legal now, and I’m happy to have you carrying — if somebody tries to rob me, it’s two against one.
The man stepped outside and returned with a Springfield XD in the holster, chatted with the manager for a bit about guns, and then sat down and had lunch with his family.
Note that no children, homeless persons, nor other innocents were harmed by this customer.
Immortal Quote of the Day
“In actual shootings, citizens do far better than law enforcement on hit potential,” said (Cole County, Missouri Sheriff Greg) White. “They hit their targets and they don’t hit other people. I wish I could say the same for cops. We train more, they do better.”
h/t to Robb at Sharp as a Marble for that shocker. We’ve known it for a long time. Nice to see a Law Enforcement official admit it in a public forum, and the media repeat it.
Obvious Penis Compensation Issues
(To steal a meme from SayUncle)
Harlem Store Owner Shoots 4 Robbers, Killing 2
They strode into the restaurant supply store in Harlem shortly after 3 p.m. on Thursday, four young men intent on robbery, one with a Glock 9-millimeter pistol, the police said. The place may have looked like an easy mark, a high-cash business with an owner in his 70s, known as a gentle, soft-spoken man.
But Charles Augusto Jr., the 72-year-old proprietor of the Kaplan Brothers Blue Flame Corporation, at 523 West 125th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue, had been robbed several times before, despite the fact that his shop is around the corner from the 26th Precinct station house on West 126th Street.
There were no customers in the store, only Mr. Augusto and two employees, a man and a woman. The police said the invaders announced a holdup, approached the two employees and tried to place plastic handcuffs on them. The male employee, a 35-year-old known in the community as J. B., struggled with the gunman, who then hit him on the head with the pistol.
Watching it happen, Mr. Augusto, whom neighborhood friends call Gus, rose from a chair 20 to 30 feet away and took out a loaded Winchester 12-gauge pump-action shotgun with a pistol-grip handle.
This would be an “evil assault weapon” in New Jersey, a weapon “manufactured for no other reason than to hunt man” that, according to Jersey City Police Chief Thomas Comey, should be banned.
The police said he bought it after a robbery 30 years ago.
Apparently they’re pretty effective for defending against criminals.
Mr. Augusto, who has never been in trouble with the law, fired three blasts in rapid succession, the police said,
Well of course. It’s a rapid-fire assault weapon after all!
although Vernon McKenzie, working at an Internet company next door, heard only two booms, loud enough to send him rushing to a window, where he heard someone shout: “You’re dead! You’re dead!”
The first shot took down the gunman at the front. He died almost immediately, according to the police, who said he was 29 and had been arrested for gun possession in Queens last year and was the nephew of a police officer.
I wonder if he had any problems acquiring the firearms he used in crime?
Mr. Augusto’s other two blasts hit all three accomplices, who stumbled out the door, bleeding.
One of them, a 21-year-old, staggered across 125th Street and collapsed in front of the General Grant Houses, a nine-building complex with 4,500 residents, one of the city’s biggest housing projects. Someone called 911, and an ambulance rushed him to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, where he was dead on arrival. The police said he had a record of arrests for weapons possession and robbery.
Another criminal with a long rap sheet. And Mr. Augusto? Clean as a whistle. But I do wonder if he jumped through all the hoops necessary to acquire and maintain a premises permit for his 12-gauge.
A law enforcement official said that the district attorney was considering a possible misdemeanor weapons charge against Mr. Augusto, indicating that he did not have a permit for the shotgun.
Apparently not.
Read the whole thing. As Instapundit said, “Surprisingly sympathetic treatment from the NYT.”
Back in May of 2007 I wrote Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0, the story of a defensive gun use by a Cape Coral, Florida man who was accosted in his own front yard by two young men, one armed with a revolver. He resisted and managed to disarm one opponent, who he then shot. That assailant died as a result of his wound. His accomplices, the other young man involved in the assault and a young woman who was acting as the getaway driver, were later caught. They were charged, per Florida’s law, with murder, since a death occurred during the commission of a felony.
One murder trial began yesterday:
The trial of a Fort Myers man charged with murder started this morning with opening statements and the case’s first witness.
Damion Shearod, 22, faces up to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm, attempted armed robbery with a firearm and burglary with a firearm.
Shearod is charged in the killing of John Patrick Moore, who was shot to death by Cape Coral homeowner Jacob Selack at 2125 N.E. 1st Ave. on May 16, 2007, during a botched robbery.
According to police, Shearod, Moore and Jazzmyne Rahshel Carrol-Love drove from Fort Myers to the house occupied by Selack and his fiancee Elizabeth Kachnic.
Moore, who was carrying a weapon, and Shearod walked up to Selack, who was mowing his yard, according to Cape Coral police. They put a gun to his head and demanded he take them into the house. Selack resisted and when Moore dropped the gun, Selack fired it at him, killing him in the driveway. Shearod ran away. Carrol-Love remained in the car during the alleged robbery attempt.
Shearod was convicted of murder in 2005 and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but a judge overturned the conviction because he determined the jury didn’t have enough evidence to convict.
They should now.
Read the original post, it’s pretty interesting. Note that, once again, the media has no qualms about printing the street address of the actual victim here, Jacob Selack. You can look it up on Google Maps and get a damned street view of the place.
But do we get the home addresses of the perps?
(*crickets*)
Holy Moly, There Really WAS a ‘Wild West Shootout’!
From various sources, Curt of Captain of a Crew of One relates the story of a real-live Virginia-City Wild West Shootout!
Of course, it’s not exactly the kind that meets the requirements for Ravenwood’s Law.
UPDATE: More detailed information on the incident at the Penn. Firearms Owner’s Association message board. Just . . . damn.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Remember Ms. Margaret Johnson? The disabled lady who shot a mugger outside her apartment building in Harlem a couple of years ago? Ms. Johnson had a NYC premises permit that allowed her to have a gun in her apartment, but did not allow her to carry a loaded gun on the streets of New York. Jeff at Alphecca recently linked to a story that reported that Chicago police often “look the other way” when someone uses a handgun in self-defense, as the NYC police did in Ms. Johnson’s case.
In Jeff’s comments I wondered if Ms. Johnson’s premises permit had been pulled after her incident. Another commenter, “Harvey,” reported that Ms. Johnson is being sued by her attacker. I found the story:
‘THUG’ TAKES $HOT AT GUN GRANNY
This pistol-packing granny, who shot a man she accused of mugging her in her wheelchair, wishes she had finished the job — because now, he’s suing her for millions.
“I’m a peaceful person. I wish that I had killed him,” said Margaret Johnson, 59, whose grandfather, Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, once ruled Harlem’s underworld and was immortalized in several hit movies.
“I didn’t think you had to pay to get mugged in New York City,” she added.
Johnson and her landlord, the Lenox Terrace apartment complex, are being sued for $5 million by Deron Johnson, 48, a man with a lengthy rap sheet.
Margaret Johnson, a retired city bus driver who has a dislocated hip and a ruptured disc, said that in September 2006, she was sitting in her motorized wheelchair at Lenox Avenue and 133rd Street when Johnson tried to snatch her purse and gold chain.
She pulled out her licensed .357 Magnum and fired a round into his left elbow. Cops grabbed him moments later.
At trial, Deron Johnson, who has nine previous arrests, denied being a mugger.
He said he kicked the woman’s Shih Tzu, Malika, after it attacked him, and the gun-loving granny shot him.
He was acquitted.
Reading the rest of the story I still don’t know if they pulled her premises permit. Oh, and she’s not getting a lawyer to defend herself in the suit. Hopefully the landlord is. Deron Johnson’s lawyer is quoted as asking, “What’s grandma doing walking the streets with a loaded gun?” That’s easy – defending herself from people like your client. It worked, too.