legality of home defense with firearm

teratos said:

A scenario my kids brought up while watching the riots:

What if someone is outside your house and preparing to throw a molotov cocktail at the home. What now?

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I thought of that too.

It may be a rare time I would consider a warning shot first.

TheOriginalMexicanBob said:

Also...if you have a bathroom with a steel tub it would be a good place for the wife and kids to hunker down low in and have the bathroom door locked. It's not a guarantee of safety but it's better than sheetrock.

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The wife better be slinging lead from her AR!

EastWest said:

Also, the current political climate, it seems you can't even shoot someone if they're pointing a taser at you

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If you ended up in that scenario, SWIM always wondered if it would be better to just flee the scene assuming you left no evidence. The problem is there are so many cameras these days. It sucks that it makes you look guilty but I wonder if there is any real legal ramification for this. Sad world we live in where self defense is illegal.

TheOriginalMexicanBob said:

Also...if you have a bathroom with a steel tub it would be a good place for the wife and kids to hunker down low in and have the bathroom door locked. It's not a guarantee of safety but it's better than sheetrock.

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Terrible idea to put yourself in a place with no escape.

Blaster229 said:

Terrible idea to put yourself in a place with no escape.

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My point was it's a good place for relative safety should projectiles start punching through walls. And I wasn't discussing me but the wife or kids...again...as relative safety compared to being in a potential line of fire.

When defending your home from within there is no good place to be...just places less bad than others.

TheOriginalMexicanBob said:

My point was it's a good place for relative safety should projectiles start punching through walls. And I wasn't discussing me but the wife or kids...again...as relative safety compared to being in a potential line of fire.



When defending your home from within there is no good place to be...just places less bad than others.

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You go stuff yourself and the kids in a small bathroom to await your slaughter.
Mobility is survivability.
Let me ask you, how many rounds do you think your common criminal is carrying?
If you're not with your family defending them, then you're not really defending them.
That bathroom is like shooting fish in a barrel.

I never said stuff myself in the bathroom. I would be in the most advantageous place for defending home and family. I don't like to correct another member of MDS...we all have our own opinions...but you've completely misread what I said.

TheOriginalMexicanBob said:

I never said stuff myself in the bathroom. I would be in the most advantageous place for defending home and family. I don't like to correct another member of MDS...we all have our own opinions...but you've completely misread what I said.

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No. You said put the family in a bathtub while you go out and play room clearer. That's what I took it as anyway.
When "lead starts slinging", the worst thing to do is getting everyone to stand up and try to make it to a bathtub. Unless you were willy nilly saying a bathtub is safe. Hell, running outside would be safe too. Equipping the whole family with ballistic vests is an idea too.
So maybe I misunderstood about the whole bathtub thing.
The safest place is with the defender, all together.

Mark75H said:

Andrew Branca suggests stating that you acted in self defense at the scene to the first responders. If Squire Branca suggests it, I'm doing it. Beyond that, he says have your attorney present when you speak to the investigators.

ETA: 144 posts and no one mentioned Branca, duh

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This ^^ And expressly invoke your 5th and 6th Amendment rights. Has to be express.

TheOriginalMexicanBob said:

My point was it's a good place for relative safety should projectiles start punching through walls. And I wasn't discussing me but the wife or kids...again...as relative safety compared to being in a potential line of fire.

When defending your home from within there is no good place to be...just places less bad than others.

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Go shoot a bathtub and see how will it works.

I have shot 3/8" plate steel at 50 yards with 5.56 and 7.62. CLEAN holes.

Pinecone said:

Go shoot a bathtub and see how will it works.

I have shot 3.8" plate steel at 50 yards with 5.56 and 7.62. CLEAN holes.

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You got clean holes through nearly four inches of steel with 5.56? Pics or it didn’t happen. No, VIDEO or it didn’t happen.

How well does sheetrock interior walls stop bullets compared to a steel bathtub? What's the likelihood of an intruder having a 5.56 or 7.62 rifle compared to handgun? Not saying it can't happen...just wondering probabilities.

I'm also not saying I would be mobile throughout the house...just that I know the layout and rather know my wife is relatively safe where I can move to where the bad guy(s) can enter into a fatal funnel rather than me.

I don't know the layout of your house but I do know mine. You set up your plan...I'll set up mine.

Occam said:

You got clean holes through nearly four inches of steel with 5.56? Pics or it didn’t happen. No, VIDEO or it didn’t happen.

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3/8" and not 3.8" I'm guessing. Or else I wanna buy a case of each caliber!

Jed195 said:

3/8" and not 3.8" I'm guessing. Or else I wanna buy a case of each caliber!

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Yes, 3/8" plate.

The plate is still somewhere in the basement, if I run across it, I will take photos

That's a good question, I hope someone is replying to this one

I tried to email Box O Truth to test this, but email bounced.

I am not sure if they are still active.

wow call 911 then dial your attorney,, Ah,,, I don't have console retained, and have had no fines tickets court in decades. Don't have any attorney, I understand that would be ideal to have one's number. I am reading all the pages here and you really do seem well informed. I assume you are LEO the way that you speak and your experience, thank you very much for all the information that you are providing.
v/r Jeff

Skipjacks said:

What about this thought exercise ...

I see a guy outside my house on the street firing a gun at other people.

So there is imminent mortal danger to others. Not the Molotov cocktail situation where he is preparing to throw it at your house. Actual people will be dead in seconds.

Can I shoot him?

Or does bringing my legal gun outside the house immediately make me in the wrong?

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TheOriginalMexicanBob said:

It's arguable...but a strong case can be made you were coming to the aid of others...Good Samaritan might apply. You can bet many would argue your duty was to call 9-1-1 while others would argue you had the right to defending the life of another...like running into your neighbor's burning house to save lives.

Such things have happened...like in church shootings...armed citizens have saved lives. Every case is different...what if the guy you shot was actually trying to do the same to help someone else?

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Skipjacks, I can see quite a lot of possible answers here, plus some that have already been made. Sadly when it comes to our abilities to " do the right thing" the decisions that should be simple are now muddied to where the water never clears enough to see clearly.

As MexicanBob points out the example of a good Samaritan in a fire, shooter etc situation. The human instinct for some is to forego personal safety, thoughts of legal hassles by making a decision to act/ shoot someone, rescue from fire, car wreck etc, while others will shrivel and let tragedy unfold or wait for professional help etc.

In today's litigious society, there are ramifications for just about anything short of breathing in or out of oxygen to stay alive. So, when I read Bob to mention Good Samaritan reasons for the decision to defend possible defenseless victims, it made me think of a relatively new scenario that gets " Radio/TV airplay and essentially a get out of jail free pass. " This event gets endorsement and press to educate citizens about Narcan. They say that if one finds themselves in a life or death scenario where a fellow drug user is either going to OD and die if you do nothing, or you have a 2nd option, call 911, either apply Narcan somehow yourself, or once EMT's arrive, they do it professionally. If you took Samaritan action, then you get immunity from your own illegal drug use leading up to the emergency for the one in peril. However, here is the sticky part.

" IF you and your buddies are doing illegal drugs like Heroin or whatever causes your fellow drug abuser to cross the threshold into OD'ing territory and you fail to call 911 and that person dies, YOU can face possible criminal charges.

I write the above to ask smarter folks here than I am---- Back to the original question of if you see possible defenseless victims in peril of an attacker, should you shoot the perp to save the lives of others? AND is it legal to do so?
Plus, if you do NOT do so, and they get killed, what does the law say then?

I also like to learn from a fella like Massad Ayoob

My concern would be that I might not be fully aware of what I was seeing. Did I see a bad guy threatening a group of innocents who need me to intervene? Or am I watching a good guy defending himself against the mob of bad guys, and at risk of shooting the wrong person? Another scenario is that I'm watching two groups of bad guys fighting it out. All questions the police deal with every day. I remember hearing of an Air Force member firing in the air to help someone in Baltimore, over a decade ago. A police officer arrived on scene and had to make a quick judgement; the officer shot the Air Force member he saw firing a gun.