How do you prevent this from happening?

L

LASur5r

Moderator
This happened for real...we'll just put you in it.

You're sleeping in your room. You're visiting your relatives and you have brought your favorite handgun into the bedroom and put it on the nightstand. The door is locked. You have also taken your glasses off and put them on the nightstand.
There is a nightlight on in the corner of the room.

All of a sudden, there is a crashing sound. Then another crash and the door flies open. Someone is shouting and is moving towards you.

What do you do?

In this real case, the uncle (who is sleeping) grabs his .357 revolver and puts one COM, hits the threat one inch from the heart, perforating the lungs, but the nephew who was playing around with his uncle, survives. By the way, the nephew was carrying a play sawed off shotgun.

For those of you with glasses or could wake up out of a dead sleep in this kind of situation and you would have less than blurred vision....what would you do? and what could you have done to prevent shooting your own nephew?
 
That scenario looks to me like a perfect setup. An unfortunate but unvoidable set of events. I don't know how he could have handled it any different other than maybe having a better-educated nephew? The nephew is a shoe-in for a Darwin 'honorable mention'.

- Gabe
 
Damn thats rough but I dont think I would react any differently.
What kind of legal trouble is the uncle in?
 
Sounds like the nephew nearly stupided himself right out of the gene pool.

I wouldn't have done anything different in that situation. The only thing that could have prevented this would have to have been done before he went to bed. The nephew should have known you don't fake violent acts and break down locked doors in the middle of the night
 
"what could you have done to prevent shooting your own nephew?"

My Rottweiler would have known the difference between a family member and an unwelcome intruder.
 
I would've done exactly as the shooter did and shot him. How was I supposed to know "it was a joke", and who says family can't go on a rampage and try to kill you? Most of the murders in the news recently were family killing family.
 
C.R.Sam suggested he was a poor shot. My first reaction was to figure why he didn't continue firing until empty.

Well, you are always supposed to know your target and in that case, he really did.

Let's face it, not everything works perfectly. Had it not been his nephew and he waited to verify identity, he would be dead. The Uncle would feel bad for what he did, but he had NO reason to believe it was anything but a horrible event such as a home invasion.

The Uncle had taken reasonable precautions which is indicated by locking the door. People aren't supposed to come through locked doors unless they are bad guys. If some idiot (family member or not) comes through a locked door in the middle of the night with a (play, how would you know?) shotgun, then it just sucks to be them, in this case, what sounded like it would be a sucking chest wound.
 
That was a very bad joke to begin with, and the nephew should have known that the uncle was packin'.

I like a joke as much as the next guy, but that was just plain stupid on the nephews part. If you woke me from a sound sleep, no glasses, running in like a maniac with a shotgun, then you'd get all 7 rounds of mr. 1911 COM. Might feel bad after the dust clears, but family should never put you in a situation like that.

What's this world coming too... :(
 
i would have also had a flashlight beside the gun. if not, when he comes bashing into the room, i get behind the bed with the gun, and command him to drop his weapon and slowly face flat on the floor and tell him if he makes sudden moves, i blow him out of this world. that should scare the crap outta him. ;)
 
Didn't the nephew KNOW that his bad shot uncle had a gun on his nightstand?
Although I'm not surprised about his reaction..without classes and in the dark it's hard to get a good visual ID on the fella, so you'd have to rely on your hearing. I totally agree with Mr. Stalker--If he's going to sleep in a dark room (...), he should have thought about having a flashlight on the stand as well.
Anyway, the nephew's joke was stupid.

PS. I'd just hide under the bed :p

Regards,
 
To answer your headline question, "How do you prevent this from happening?", the first answer that comes to my mind is to warn the nephew (plus anyone else in the house) that you are sleeping with a gun. But this pre-supposes that you know that the nephew is prone to stupid practical jokes.

Another option is to barricade the door so that it cannot be broken down faster than you can wake up, get your glasses, and get in a position from where you can positively identify the threat before responding.

I wish I knew the correct answer to how you can protect yourself from making a reasonable self-defense response to a practical joke that looks like an actual attack. If this is a true story, then I feel sorry for the uncle. He has to live with the results of someone else's stupidity.
 
This could have easily been avoided if the uncle had made the rest of the family aware that he was keeping a loaded firearm for self defense. Everyone that spends the night in my house is aware that I have defensive firearms and not to come running in my room or make excessive noise late at night without identifying themselves first.
 
I use a cheap rubber doorstop wedge under the door whenever I travel. If I am a guest in another home I inform my host that I carry a handgun and am trained in it's use. I would think that both of these measures, along with the bedside surefire P2, would have provided the warning, time, and light needed to prevent such an inadvertant shooting.
 
As I've posted before. On the rare occasions someone stays at my house(split-level), they sleep on 1 floor, myself on the other.
Full bath on each floor, kitchen on the guest floor.
The last thing I alawys tell them: If you absolutely have to come downstairs in the middle of the night, yell down the stairs and make d*** sure I'm awake before you come down.

They all know I have an "always" gun and being single, 96% of the time, if there is anyone else in the house at night, they shouldn't be there.(The other 4% she's in bed with me.)

Bottom line: Darwin wins again
 
I retract my comment :"POOR SHOT":

Played with door crashing and bed charging. Uncle possibly got the gun off the night stand and drilled incoming COM.....

Between 0.5 and 1.5 seconds from door to bed on several runs. Good sized bedroom.

Uncle should go on the road doin demos.

OR....Uncle was ready between the first crash and the door through crashing of the nephew. In which case he maby could have alerted the nephew that he was getting real stupid rapidly.

As 00Spy noted, if gonna shoot him, shoulda shot him more.

Sam
 
Personally, I think all the prevention stuff is BS. There is no need to announce to everyone in the house that you have a gun. For some, this could equal problems. (Certain anti family members, or members who just don't want loaded guns in the house, etc.) You simply cannot prepare for EVERY single situation that could happen. I think that crashing into a bedroom where someone is sleeping late at night, carrying a toy gun isn't something someone should have to be told NOT to do... :rolleyes:

I think it is 100% the kids fault. WHERE, oh where do kids get such STUPID ideas??? He's lucky he isn't dead. BUT, are WE lucky he isn't dead? He better get smart quick...
 
Know the feeling.
My brother came by late in the evening a few weeks ago.
I had fallen asleep, and he claims to have been ringing the doorbell for a long time.
I wake up from the sound of someone fiddeling with the locks.
I know that those in the family that have a key knows how to use them... :rolleyes:
So my first thought is that someone is breaking in!
I almost grab the shotgun, but leave it 5 meters away and then go to the door to look out the peep hole.
I see him and open the dor for him.
Guess he'd be surprized to come through the door and find a 12ga shotgun. :eek:

K.:)
 
I don't like peepholes.

For anyone that is serious and determined on the other side, a peephole will provide a guarunteed headshot...
 
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