Thursday, September 9, 2010

My $0.02...

By now, everyone and their brother has commented on this story:

Long Island Man Arrested For Defending Home With AK-47

Reader's Digest condensed version: Dude sees guys fighting on his lawn. Dude goes into house and retrieves semi-automatic rifle. Dude comes out and tells the five dudes to GTFO. Five dudes call their buds, and now there's a small army on the dude's lawn. Dude freaks and cranks off a few rounds into the dirt, and promptly gets himself arrested.

Now... Let's play "Spot the missteps".

1. First and foremost, warning shots = bad f**king idea. While it might be a great plot device in a movie, a "warning shot" is almost always a trip to the greybar hotel. If you are going to pull the trigger, you pull it because there is grave danger posed to you or yours. You don't pull it to make a point, you don't pull it to scare someone off, you don't pull it to establish cred. You pull it to end a threat, plain and simple.

2. Confronting a gang like MS-13. Without a clear and definite threat to his well-being, getting involved with a group like MS-13 is a horrendously bad idea. Even if this happened in a 2A-friendly state where the cops would show up and tell him not to shoot and then go home, is it really a smart idea to start a pissing contest with one of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty criminal enterprises in the world? I think not.

3. Having only one rifle. It's gone, confiscated by the police as evidence. Dude's now home, after starting a pissing contest with one of the most feared gangs in existence, with no damned gun - and they know it. You couldn't pay me enough to be in this dude's shoes right now - and I hope that he's got the good sense to get the rest of his family the hell out of Dodge.

Other than that, it's a judgment call about the rest. Should he have confronted the guys on his lawn? There are so many factors not known that it's impossible to say either way. Maybe this was the twentieth time it happened this weekend. Maybe one of his kids was sleeping and they woke them up with their yelling. Maybe he was just trying to be a badass along with them.

Personally, I'd have grabbed my rifle, covered the door, and called the cops. Hunker down, don't say a word to the players, and keep the front sight glued to that door. No jury in America would convict him for shooting the first bastard that busted down the door, even in NY. Going BACK outside with a firearm makes it significantly harder to mount a self defense claim - once he was in the house, he was out of immediate danger, at least that's the case the DA is going to make.

In any case, I hope that Mr. Grier gets his gun back and no further action is taken against Mr. Grier or his family by either the characters on his lawn or the NY "justice" system...

That is all.

6 comments:

Bob said...

Meanwhile in Texas, the same scenario ends with the criminals arrested, not the homeowner.

Maybe we could develop a game, call it Red State/Blue State, (name a tribute to red light/green light) in which differences between events in red states (conservative, mostly Republican) are contrasted with events in blue states (liberal, mostly Democrat). For example:

Blue State: Muslims want to build a mosque at Ground Zero, conservatives scream.

Red State: Christians want to burn copies of the Koran, liberals scream.

Bob said...

Seen this, Jay? Found it over at Insty's.

ZerCool said...

You forgot the biggest misstep of all.

Confronting dirtbag gang members with a crappy knockoff of a commie-issue conscript-army weapon, instead of an American Main Battle Rifle.

GET OFF MY LAWN!

8Notch said...

Bob, though as awesome as it would be to channel one's inner Grand Turino, when "20 others guys come rushing around the corner" the Commie 30 round mag is much more reassuring than the Garand's 8 round clip. Yes, I said clip.

wv: nonelong- nonelong for this world after ms13 knows the popo gots yer gat.

Anonymous said...

Fuck that ... I will not fear a gang. Gangs need to start fearing us.

Biggest misstep:

Not pulling out his Whisper 300 AR-15 and dropping each one of those MS-13 bitches like the pigs that they are.

When the cops come just say .... man gang violence take another group of men that were just turning their lives around.

Keep your hood MS(G)ang Free and put one in the grave.

Stuart the Viking said...

Years ago, when I was a young dumb Marine, who also happened to be immortal, we were given a briefing stating that the area gangs were initiating new members and we weren't to flash our headlights at any cars that were driving around without their headlights on. This particular meme was new (at very least to us) back then, and while I understand now that it is an urban legend, back then a few buddies and I amused ourselves by driving around looking for cars driving sans lights specifically for the purpose of flashing our lights at them.

Needless to say, it got old fairly quickly when nobody offered a fight.

s