Posted on 11/17/2007 7:33:50 AM PST by Dubya
Yes, I think mostly used by the Marine Corps. They use the Wingmaster, the Winchester 1200 (which I never liked) and the Mossberg 500 and 590 I think.
So you have a picture of the house , where's the link.
That's exactly what the article on a local (Houston) TV station's website said. He went to the garage and retrieved it out of the truck. An aerial photo of the neighborhood shows attached garages, along with pools in many yards, and moderately large lots. The houses on one side of the street back up to a creek or bayou.
For the most part, the law only covers stopping a crime in progress. You can use less than deadly force to recover your property once the crime is no longer in progress, and of course you can defend yourself at any time.
But as far as a kid doing something stupid, yea that does happen. A few years ago, not long after I moved to San Antonio, which was in 1999, a kid, 14 IIRC, got himself killed while trying to steal some chickens. It was part of a gang initiation deal. Not that it matters to the law, but these weren't just any old chickens, but rather competition birds. The chicken owner felt bad about it, but the grand jury still returned a "no bill", because it was "theft during the nighttime". The kids sister held no ill will towards the defender either, she knew it was her little brother's fault that he ended up dead over "property".
It also appears that what the two men were doing, was not only absolutely unlawful, it was wrong too. Don't want to get killed over property? Then don't go stealing it, especially not in Texas.
He lives with his daughter and granddaughter, with no mention of a wife. But if he has one, she likely knew about the shotgun. It's probably the daughter that doesn't approve of them in the house, but she too probably knew about the shotgun in the truck in the garage.
If you were following along, you know he racked the slide while still inside the house, you could hear it on the audio recording. He racked the slide, told the dispatcher he'd done that (or confirmed that the sound was indeed that of a shotgun) and then went outside. After a short interval, you hear, "Move and you're dead", followed shortly by the "boom" click-clack "boom" click-clack, and a short interval of nothing followed by the third "boom" click-clack. Being as it was the middle of the day, the perps had sufficient opportunity to see that 3/4 inch hole in the end of the barrel, and decide not to move, instead they apparently rushed the guy.
By the time the police got there, he had talked to the dispatcher again, and was sitting on the ground, presumably not holding his shotgun. Why would the PPD shoot him?
Besides, up to this point we have only his story.
That and the audio tape, the white bag full of cash, and the broken glass of the break in and break out. They don't mention what condition the inside of the neighbors' house was, but I suspect the burglars were not neat about their business.
Yes, I was following, if we heard him work the action outside, then they could have as well. I know at least one of them heard the action the second time. The third discharge is the one that would indicate at least one of them was running.
If they were rushing him, one of them would have likely got to him. 15 feet can be closed very quickly. He said, “I am not going to let them get away” and he didn’t. As I said before, a sane and sober man is not going to rush a riot gun. If there are more than one, they are going to get you at 15 feet. But, it’s roulette, neither of them knows which one will catch the blast and I am thinking neither is going to be eager to find out.
I've shot at quail and missed at slightly longer distances. Of course quail are small, fly pretty fast, and scare the snot out of you if you happen to flush an entire covey. (And I've shot at those at an appropriate range, and missed every one of 'em).
The thing about a shotgun is that at really close range, it makes one big hole, a little farther it makes a not quite so big hole surrounded by a bunch of little holes, still pretty close together. At much longer ranges there's lots of space between the pellets, enough for a quail to, and with larger shot, a pheasant or a duck, to fly through. I did shoot one pheasant, one of the last ones I ever shot with my Dad along, IIRC, that I hit with just one #6 pellet. In the head. Pure dumb luck that was, but he was still just as tasty. I've also seen people hit with shot at around 100 yards, and it didn't even penetrate their skin. Not that it didn't smart. Another time it didn't even chip the paint on the truck that my father in law, and a cousin in law were sitting in. (I was not the shooter, don't recall which of the cousin-in-law's sons or nephew was the shooter. The nephew grew up to do a tour in the Navy, and now is a member of a federal law enforcement agency, serving mostly overseas until recently.
So a shotgun makes a great home defense weapon, because it's deadly at close range, but unless you are really close to a wall, won't penetrate many layers of sheet rock, and won't go through brick or stone veneer exterior walls. Outside it's deadly range is quite short, especially if the gun has a very open choke, which most shotguns intended for defensive use, or police use, have. Of course the police are allowed to have 12 or 14 inch barrels but we peons have to settle for 18 and a smidgen.
So to answer your question, I find 15 entirely believable as within the deadly range of a shotgun, no matter what the load, even dove and quail loads. 45 feet, maybe. 100 feet, depends on the load, 100 yards, only if one is very unlucky and the shot is large. Much beyond that even large pellets don't travel.
At 15 feet the type of load hardly matters, but you have point fairly accurately, or you'll miss even a human sized target.
Army uses some of those as well. Plus they have thing they call the "master key", it's a 12 gauge pump, mounted in the manner of the M209 40mm grenade launcher. Very short barrel. Used more for breaching (taking out the lock or hinges), than room clearing, but will work in both roles, with different ammunition types.
Saw it on Fox national news. Look at the aerial photo I linked to above. Or use your favorite mapping site. Address was in the 7400 block of Timberline in Pasadena Texas.
See video link at MyFoxHouston or direct to the . You'll see all the houses have attached garages, some or all with the openings onto the front of the houses.
His truck may have been in the house. Have you ever heard of an attached garage. We have them in Texas, ya know.
I don't know what I would do in the same situation. Around here, we never go out of town that we don't ask a neighbor to keep and eye on the house. Of course we are a smaller town and the police would be here within minutes of a 911 call. It was taking police an awful long time to respond to his 911 call, IMHO. One of the many reasons I don't live in Houston.
His truck may have been in the house. Have you ever heard of an attached garage. We have them in Texas, ya know.
I don't know what I would do in the same situation. Around here, we never go out of town that we don't ask a neighbor to keep and eye on the house. Of course we are a smaller town and the police would be here within minutes of a 911 call. It was taking police an awful long time to respond to his 911 call, IMHO. One of the many reasons I don't live in Houston.
Which is why I referred to scaring quail, not hitting them.
You can check the school schedules on the internet. I did.
Reports are, however, that he's in jail waiting on his buddies to bring him his bail money.
They're not coming.
I didn’t quite understand who you were talking about in that reply. Is there more to the story that you’re aware of?
Thanks to the power of the internet there are a number of neighborhood stories on the net. Just a matter of looking them up. No sense tieing yourself down to just the MSM ~ not enough of them to cover everything.
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