Home defense question, Shooting through doors???

+1 Tuckerdog.

We have a system in our house (before bedtime). First of all, the door is locked, most of the time. However, 17 year old son, going in and out with friends, does not always do this. Hence the system:

Front door opens. I am in the bedroom or the kitchen or the living room (rooms where I can't visually identify the person entering myself). I call out "HELLO!" I'd better hear Hello, or Hi there, in a voice I know, or else the gun comes out. ONce or twice hubster or son have delayed responding. I call the second time, but the gun is out of my waistband. They answer. Gun is put away. Other family members do the same.

After I'm asleep, I have to rely on the alarm system and the dogs. No police officer is going to be coming in uninvited in the middle of the night unless they are doing a drug bust in the wrong house (and this HAS HAPPENED to people before.) I don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about that, though.

It's my house. Nobody with hostile intent will get past the hallway, one way or another.

Springmom
 
+1 Tucker

Xavier, I lurked on this site for a long time and I respect your opinions, so no disrespect intended...:)

But come on man...why in the hell would a meter reader, fed ex guy or someone that is at the wrong house just walk right in? Who does that? People don't do that here in Texas where I live I assure you, and for good reason (see "King of the castle" law)

Even if it is the "police" or "fire department", there better be a DAMN good reason why they are in my house without my invitation and they BETTER ID themselves before snoopin' around.

I actually caught someone in my garage once at night trying to steal stuff (stupidly left the door open).

I said 3 things...

1. I am armed
2. The police have been called
3. If you don't leave right now or identfy yourself, I will assume you are armed and have no problems using my gun.

The last thing I saw was a flash out my garage door.

Tucker is right, you can NEVER be too careful. BG's think of very original ways to commit their crimes.
 
a flash?

From a gun or from the guy running like mad?

However, all this calls to mind an experience in high school (about a million years ago) :rolleyes: I was in a drum and bugle corps and every year, the senior girls would arrange with the parents of the junior girls to leave their front doors open (this was back when you could actually do that) or be awake and the seniors would "kidnap" the juniors for a middle of the night welcome-to-the-Lassies party. I and another girl "shared" our little sister Lassie, so together we went to pick her up. We went into the house. No lights on. Hm, they said they would leave on a light. We went into EVERY SINGLE BEDROOM before we realized WE WERE IN THE WRONG HOUSE. :eek:

We beat it out of there FAST, and realized we'd missed by a block. Went and picked up Andrea and took her to the party, thanking God that we were still alive!

Obviously, if those people had double checked to ensure their door was locked this would not have happened. But we could have been shot dead (this was in Missouri, but most people had guns when I grew up).

So lock your doors, set your alarm, and if somebody comes in despite all that, they're probably up to no good and they'd better run with one warning.

Springmom :o
 
Remember we are talking about shooting through doors at threatening noises and unidentified targets...........Now here's why..... all of these folks have been known to enter a home under legitimate business if the door is unlocked. In my job, I do the same with my patients, and we have a long history of castle doctrine in Louisiana. I'm careful, I identify myself verbally and loudly about every three seconds, but it's part of the job.

Heck, I had a policeman enter my home one afternoon because my 3 year old daughter had dialed 911 from my phone! It happens. I'm glad I identified that target. He was too. ;) She had heard if she needed help to dial 911. She needed help getting the cookie jar so........... Sometimes corporal punishment is justifiable.

The castle doctrine is fine and good, and you might use it to escape prosecution from an unjust killing. Convincing yourself that you should have identified your target and not taken an innocent life might be more difficult. You may not care whether you take a life now, but ten years after you have done so, it will still bother you. The only feeling worse than taking a life is the feeling you endure when you take a life without justification.
 
About 20 years ago I was dispatched to a welfare check. Most LEOs know these usually mean a medical emergency or coroners case. The caller was not sure of the number but, Mr Jones on Smith Street had not been seen for a few days. I arrived on Smith Street and found a The Jones" sign on a mailbox with my spotlight. I hit the siren at 2 AM figuring I would alert the neighbourhood that a police prowl was there. I left my overheads on too and the spotlight and alley lights on the entry. I banged with my Kel-Lite on the entry door. No answer. I went around the house banging and knocking on the fence and shouting. No answer. I radioed that I was making entry. I kicked the entry door in and stepped inside with my Kel-Lite. A woman screamed and there was Mr. Jones with a Louisville Slugger. He asked what I wanted. I told him. He informed me that I wanted old Mr. Jones, in the next block. I apologized and told him the city would cover the damages. The other Mr. Jones had been dead for two days. The odds of two Jones' on the same street were not high. The younger Mr. Jones got a new entry door. Mistakes just happen.
 
You have to identift your target

But having said that;if they are breaking the door down after a verbal warning;SHOOT,
 
This all depends on the state laws like anything else. In Colorado you can even shoot through the front door if the crook is outside trying to break in and you are reasonably in fear for your life. If they are already in the house you don't have to cook them dinner either. If I felt my life was in danger and I felt that shooting through the door was advantagious to my getting through the situation then I'd shoot through the door ina heartbeat. How do you know they aren't about to start shooting through the door? How do you know they aren't starting to burn your house down, and you, on the other side of that door?
 
Once again, it isn't a question of whether it is legal to shoot through a door. If your life is in jeopardy from a threat on the other side of the door, it is certainly legal in any state. Whether the threat can be considered reasonable is arguable, but that is not the point. This is not a question of whether it is legal to shoot through doors, but whether it is PRUDENT.

Lets suppose you see an escaped convict you have identified from TV, say that guy from Texas that's on the run..........Charles Thompson, outside your front door with a sawed off shotgun, and an axe. You see him from an upstairs window. He rings your doorbell, and then proceeds to chop into your front door.
Suppose you cannot hold your fire, and take up a defensive position. The fear is just to much for you and you have to address it right now before your head explodes.
You run down the stairs.
You shoot at Mr. Thompson through the door.
Unfortunately, Deputy Marsh has just arrived, and is trying to subdue Thompson outside your door. You do not know this because they are banging into your door as they struggle. You shoot through the door with your Uber Home Protector Whiz Bang Get'em Gun. You take the top of Deputy Marsh's skull off. Mr. Thompson gives up the fight and runs away.
Enjoy Deputy Marsh's funeral, he did not deserve it.

That is why you hold your fire and identify your target before pulling the trigger. This is just one possibility, there are many others. Responsible shooters know what they are shooting at.
 
You can come up with countless scenarios, as you even stated, where you mix coincidence and bad luck enough to make any use of deadly force unjustifiably dangerous to potential innocents who happen to end up in the line of fire. The above scenario is about as reasonable as arguing that if you wait until the guy breaks the door in and you get him in your sights then you still better not shoot because you never know if a wayward skydiver might crash through the roof and land immediately between you and the crook just as you pull the trigger. Now you've killed an innocent you dastardly irresponsible gun-nut. How are you going to explain that to the skydiver's family? Why couldn't you wait until the crook was within 12 inches of you and use glasers to reduce the odds of any over-penetration. Hell, better just use a baseball bat or a knife or bad language. And what if you got a home invasion happening and while you stand there waiting for the guy or guys who are kicking in your front door to actually get in before you shoot at them you got half a dozen other guys looking for other entrances into your home too. Maybe while I am sitting there waiting for crook A to finish getting in crook B, who came in the garage entrance, walks up behind me and blows my head off. Sorry Deputy but this is MY HOUSE and you knew I might need to be defending it this evening you came and got into a struggle in front of it. If you can't handle that then don't do that job.

It is a real shame when someone acts on a good faith belief that they are protecting themselves and ends up harming someone else. It is called a tragedy and tragedies happen. Just as the deputy may fire at the crook to protect himself and a stray bullet hits me. If I know you are trying to bust in my house I see no reason to gamble my life on the very slight chance that you may not have bad intentions or that maybe, gee golly just maybe, you got beamed up by the mothership and someone innocent got beamed down in your place. A lot of folks have gambled their lives and lost giving someone else the benefit of the doubt when they should not have. If you are busting my door in and you are legitimate you better damn well make that known or you are going to be dodging bullets and I will feel bad about it later but I will be consoled knowing that I acted to defend my life. This is exactly why search warrants, for example, are typically not served at night when possible - too many people making reasonable claims that they would not expect the cops to come charging in late at night and assumed it was a criminal so they opened fire.

If you are this paranoid about possibly injuring an innocent party perhaps you should refrain from having a gun and use a baseball bat or a knife for home defense. There is ALWAYS a chance, no matter how good a shot you are, that you will miss or the bullet over-penetrate and hit someone innocent. Next someone will ask if it is reasonable to shoot someone who is charging at you threatening to cut your head off and wielding a machete if you have not first gotten a full psychiatric evaluation on them in triplicate to make sure they aren't just foolin' with you.
 
Bedula32.
I will not address your sarcastic remarks except to say that ten years after the fact I still attend a support group for those who have taken human life. Our group is comprised of law enforcement, civilian, men, women, black and white. Our stories are sometimes justified, sometimes not. The one common thread we share is we have been there and do not want to be there again. If we are ever there again, our responses will be different and individual, but we know ahead of time what they will be.

I said in another thread that it is silly to try to teach a pig to sing, and I suppose I should listen to my own advice. If you want to go shooting through doors, go ahead. Take the risk. Waste some ammo on unaimed shooting in a desperate situation. Oh, I forgot, you were aiming weren't you? At the DOOR. After you have peppered the door with your gun, and are slamming in a new magazine and the threat is still there because you are shooting inanimate objects rather than threats, you can start to wonder how many rounds you have left.

I have five 00Buck rounds in the magazine of my shotgun, and 6 in the sidesaddle. In a home invasion I am likely to have three or more threats to deal with. It's a simple question of division. I do not have ammo to waste shooting up the woodwork.

I am not saying to not defend yourself and your family. I am saying to do it intelligently. Argue if you want. Stick a fork in me. I'm done..
 
I'm assuming in your situation, it is hard to say the guy on the other side of the gun is a friendly. You got your family into a bedroom and locked the door, and someone is banging on the door trying to break it in. Definately, this is a bad guy. Legally the guy is tresspasing in your home in an attempt to do you harm. You have all rights to shoot him. Now my thought is what are you shooting and what type of door you got. Prime example, I have a taurus pt92 9mm with a 17 round clip, my interior doors are either the hollow plywood or plastic foam filled, after a verbal warning and making sure the good guys are behind me, I see no problem with shooting off a round or two and hope for the best. Now lets say you have solid wood doors, lets say you only have a .22 or lets say you only have a few rounds. I would wait until he breeches the door.
 
If my family is safely accounted for in our bedroom and there is a threat on the other side of that door that has indicated they plan on coming in, while yelling expletives, I will gladly take a well placed shot thru that door at where I believe the intruder to be.

I keep both a Winchester 1300 Defender and Romanian SAR 1 in the bedroom with plenty of ammo for each, so expending a few rounds will not leave me empty. However, there is a good chance they will either drop dead, be wounded, or run like he!!. Also, I will be fully within my rights here in Washington State with plenty of family 'witnesses' to vouch that we feared for our lives. And really, if they have committed to trying to break down your bedroom door, you should be in fear for your life.
 
I will say the only story the sheriff is going to hear is mine and my wifes and then we will discuss his up coming relection and campain expenses.
 
I'll add my $.02.

It's useful to think through various scenarios in advance of trouble but it's also useful to keep the possibilities simple. We could speculate all kinds of scenarios for 10 pages and still miss something. Keep the 4 basic principals in mind and use them.

Xavier is in general correct. Particularly in his initial posts.

Identify your target and know what's behind it before shooting. This is more than just a good idea. You want your shots to hit what they should and not go flying through the neighbors window or through a sheet rock wall. When you choose a place in advance to take a defensive stand, like a particular bedroom, this ought to be part of the thinking. Where will any shots fired go? This also affects ammo selection.

Have good steel security doors installed. The type that let you keep your front door open on hot days but will take a battering ram to get through and keep them locked.

If you and your rowdy friends are watching a football game or have the music cranked up you may not hear the phone, doorbell, a shout from a cop or a neighbor looking for a runaway cat. Identify your target.

In all 50 states and most countries ,far as I know, one can use what force is necessay to stop an attacker from injuring yourself or another inside your home. Shooting someone is not the only option I have in my home to stop a deadly assault.

"But tipoc what would you do in x,y,z situation?" I'd use the most powerful weapon I have, my poor brain, first to figure out what was up, the relationship of forces, and proceed from there.

tipoc
 
If someone puts a hole in the door and is waving a gun around, I am going to put several more holes in the door. Especially if my family is in there.
 
paranoid

Bedula32 wrote....

"If you are this paranoid about possibly injuring an innocent party perhaps you should refrain from having a gun and use a baseball bat or a knife for home defense. There is ALWAYS a chance, no matter how good a shot you are, that you will miss or the bullet over-penetrate and hit someone innocent. Next someone will ask if it is reasonable to shoot someone who is charging at you threatening to cut your head off and wielding a machete if you have not first gotten a full psychiatric evaluation on them in triplicate to make sure they aren't just foolin' with you. "


You are a breath of fresh air......:) Like someone else mentioned if someone pokes a hole in my door and sticks a gun through it I'm not gonna conduct an INTERVIEW with the perp to discuss his "visit":rolleyes::eek:
 
Once again, we find someone expounding authoritatively in a thread on a subject about which he knows very little and offers shallow, ill-thought-out analogies.

Given the parameters posed by the threadstarter, of course you'd shoot through the door. There's a big difference in shooting through a door because one hears noises on the other side and shooting through a door when somebody's trying to break the door down.

Of course, you shoot, if somebody's beaten the door to the extent that they make a hole in the door. Suggesting that one should always "see a face" in such a situation prior to shooting is childish and simplistic.

Use common sense. Don't live in jurisdictions run by pansies. Protect yourself and your family. Talk to a real lawyer, judge, or district attorney who practices in your jurisdiction.
 
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