Shoot through the door?

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in Iowa the only way to legally shoot someone is first dial 911,
yell to the person on the other side of door, and wait till they
bust the door down,THEN you can shoot IF they have a weapon,
and if you blow their brains out you will get in trouble, try to wound. no self defense here, if someone is actually chasing you,
you can't shoot them till they come inside your home. this is where kids get busted for pointing red water pistols at another
kid and get charged with assault. in my sons junior high they are
not allowed to say gun, kill,murder, and a few other words, these
words can get the kid a 3 day in school suspension. things are getting crazy.
 
I go along with the comments about "be prepared", as to cover and firearm-readiness.

However: There are cases on record of a drunk using his key to his house, and mistakenly opening a door in a similar-appearing house in a tract. One of these actually wound up in bed with the wrong-house owner and his wife! Strange stuff happens at O-Drunk-thirty!

Shifting emphasis a bit, I had a motel clerk give me a key to an already-occupied room. A bit late at night, and the occupant who was already asleep was not at all pleased to seem some strange dude coming through the door. Maybe I was lucky?

I've also had persistent drunks not believe that my motel room was not their motel room. Banging, yelling and cursing. I should have shot?

Trespass and/or terminal stupidity are not capital offenses. Until you have reasonable cause to believe there WILL be harm, you might well have trouble convincing a jury that you shouldn't do some time.

Yes, be prepared for serious trouble. But that Mr. Macho BS can get you a hard time from the DA, and maybe some hard time from a jury.

Art
 
Art, I respect you. A lot.

Let me say this, though:

"Darwin happens." I am not speaking of unloading on some poor sap who obviously means me no harm. I am speaking of aimed fire on the malcontent who is kicking my door in. As Edmund Rowe might say to such a person,

"Doom on you."
 
Most, if not all of the potential tragedies we discuss avoiding on these Boards do not fall into the category of

someone is kicking in the door--especially the interior door of your bedroom.

Can we reasonably believe that the drunk is still harmless when he is breaching the peace and about to breach your security barrier?

Some "mistakes" might not truly deserve to be fatal to the perpetrator, but no one should complain if they turn out to be fatal for the Darwin Award Candidate.
 
Cheapo, you asked, "Can we reasonably believe that the drunk is still harmless when he is breaching the peace and about to breach your security barrier?"

Absent a weapon, probably the answer is yes. Absent a weapon and a verbal threat, a jury *probably* will say "Yes."

Let's say the drunk thinks he's at the right house, and that by the magic of statistical probablity his key fits your door. (I use Master padlocks on my gates. I discovered that a ranch some three miles away uses the same padlock as I; my key fit his lock. I changed my locks...) Anyway, the guy comes home, wants to go to bed, and the door is locked. IN HIS MIND he is in the correct place and is doing with what HE THINKS is his property as he needs in order to get to bed.

So you shoot through the door without having seen him, and his last dying words to the cops and EMS are, "But I was in my own home!"

And I say unto you: You ain't gonna be happy with the consequences. Think of the DA as a steamroller, and you're a bug on the pavement.

Art
 
what if a armed criminal breaks into your house and yells "Police, Search warrant" or something close to that. how would you know what to do then?
uh oh...you might have to think on this one. lol
 
I think you should AT LEAST wait until you find out if they are trying to roust you out of bed 'cuz your house is on FIRE!

Besides, if it IS a crazed Methamphetamines speed freak coming in, I want to witness the look of surprise on his face.
 
Art, if the kicking continues after I've verbally challenged, there's no statetment of "POLICE" and no warrant, and even if the phone line is still live, I cannot reasonably assume that ANY drunk is still harmless.

Even if the response is incoherent drunken babbling, I'm very reluctant to let the kicker reach contact distance. That circumstance would require me to see the door breaking--the ability to harm me becomes apparent, and I will fire once entry appears possible and I can locate my target--like the vicinity of the hand that's reaching through the door.
 
As an aside, people are assuming that if you DO shot through the door, that somehow the police will automatically know and the DA is going to prosecute.

If you lived in the country where I do, the nearest neighbor is more than 1/2 mile away. I don't think they'd hear any shots from inside of my house, or even care if they did.

Afterwards the problem becomes one of getting rid of the miscreants body because I sure the hell am not going to call 911 to have them pick it up.

Obviously a city dweller doesn't have the option of this choice so you'd have to plan on dealing with the police.
 
nbk2000, I thought the object was to stay out of trouble!? Oh, great, now we have Obstruction of Justice, False Informing, and possibly Abuse of a Corpse in addition to the Murder charge the Prosecuting Attorney will file. Gee, how many times when I was a LEO and now in private practice have I heard "there aren't any witnesses" only discover a dozen later?

We train and study so this sort of thing does not happen. I thought we in the Gun Culture were better people than the mall ninja that do this sort of stuff (hide evidence, distort the truth) out in the open?

Are you an FBI agent by any chance?
 
If someone is kicking/breaking down your door calling 911 is out...I mean at best your looking at a 5 to 10 minute response time after 911 operator understands what you need and assumeing that 911 isn't busy.

As to IDing the target [ie where the target is], that is already done for you he/she/it is in a fatal funnel. I personally would take my chances with a jury and the reasonable man defense with shooting thru the door at the point that I felt the goblin was probably going to get thru the door OR if I hear or sense anything to suggest they are going to use fire [as in gasoline and a match]. Assuming it was a house I owned vs a rental.

I don't think as a practical matter that one must always be able to visually ID a threat. This isn't a hotel room it is your BEDROOM. IMHO it is much like the Tueller drill, if you let them thru the door then your going to be behind in the speed reaction curve. If you let them in your still going to have to make a shoot no shoot decesion at near contact range in a big hurry, unless you have a real big bedroom. And one needs to remember that in real life even if you hit the goblin that won't stop them right now so if you wait until they are thru the door so you can confirm that they are a threat before you start shooting....

I don't know about the rest of the people here but most if not all of the bedrooms I have had, didn't have much more than 5 feet between the edge of the bed and the door. And I don't think even on a good day that I could honestly glance at a person and then shoot them fast enough at that range to stop them before it becomes a weapon retention problem, if I had been sound asleep just a minute ago.
 
nbk2000:

And besides disposing of the body, you'll have to dispose of his car, fix the door, and hope no-one saw him going up towards your house, etc.

No thanks.

M1911
 
Let me add one more variable to the mix. My girlfriend is disabled and can not take any blunt-force trauma, and is relatively immobile. If there is someone breaking down my bedroom door, I can't afford to take time-consuming chances...

One thing noone has mentioned is the idea of installing a strong door/jam combo with a good lock. The average bedroom door wouldn't stop any determined attacker for more than a couple of seconds. Slowing down an potential BG is a good thing, right? (Provided there are no children in the house.)
 
Here's an example from Real Life:
A week or two ago, I was getting ready for bed late one night when I heard some commotion outside my apartment. This is not too unusual where I live, but it continued for some time and seemed different than the normal rowdy kids. I finally looked out my window and saw a cop, several EMTs (one with a bullhorn, which I realized was one of the strange noises) and some relatives of a resident (elderly man?) in the second-floor apartment in the building across from mine. I realized they had been trying to contact the resident for several minutes, and receiving no response were now using a ladder to enter the second-floor bedroom window. Once they began entry, they were cautious but more-or-less silent until several of them had entered the apartment.

Now, I thought, what if this had been me? I'm a sound sleeper, so if I was already asleep and they had been entering my apartment, the first moment I probably would have realized it would have been when they came through the window and stepped on me. :eek: Would I be justified in "defending my home with lethal force" upon waking up to a man wearing a dark T-shirt and pants with no obvious markings standing over my bed? In VA, maybe yes. Does that mean it's a good idea? I don't think so.

Always positively identity your target. (Isn't that rule 4 of basic gun safety?) Flash the intruder with a Surefire, say "freeze, I have a gun", and chances are the situation will be quickly defused either way. If not, well, you still have your gun and can take appropriate action.

Note that in the above situation, the EMT could just have easily gotten in to the main room of the apartment another way, and then proceeded to enter the locked bedroom. Given the flimsy interior doors here, one swift kick would probably do it.
 
I have been a renter. A couple of times I have asked my landlord if I could upgrade certain doors. Invariably the answer was "Yes."

So your bedroom has a hollow-core door. Where is it cast in concrete or engraved on steel that you cannot replace the cheesy piece of garbage with a "real" door? If a landlord objects, you thank him for assuming full civil liability for your safety. :)

Where is it written that you cannot modify the entry doors to prevent any sort of easy entry? It is easy to add a deadbolt, and the add-on braceplates are decorative.

If you have not made some sort of security improvements in your residence, why not? I guarantee you that whatever money you spend will be far less than you will pay in legal fees, even in the event of a "good" shooting.

Art

"Maximum cruelty is forcing somebody to think."
 
KSFreeman, IF I was an FBI agent, I could shot an unarmed woman holding a baby through the head or crush a building with a tank, burn it to the ground with 80 men, woman, and children inside, and not have to worry about even a slap on the wrist.

BUT, since I'm not an FBI Agent, and live in KKKalifornia, I'd rather take the (where I live) very remote chance of a witness seeing someone walk into my house in the middle of the rural (hence no lights) night, hearing shots from inside a ranch house constructed of solid wood timbers, and calling the sheriff, then the absolute sureity (SP?) of being arrested, prosecuted, and probably convicted and sent to prison to be surrounded by the very trash I killed IF I called the police to report it.

Besides, my neighbors hear me shooting at night all the time, pest control, so they'd think nothing of hearing a few shots.

Is a "Mall Ninja" anything like a "|<3\/\/|_" (Kewl Hacker)?

Sounds like it. A person, who through outrageous boasts and grandeous statements, tries to make himself appear more skillful than he actually is, or more knowledgable than those around him. If that's the brush you want to paint me with, just make sure you don't get any of that paint on yourself.

As I implied in my first post, the response all depends on your situation. Neighbors, local laws, etc. Use your own judgement about YOUR particular situation. I already have.
 
nbk2000, the FBI questions is a reference to the fact that it is SOP for the FBI (and most fed mall ninja) to commit perjury, obstruct justice and alter evidence. See, e.g., the examples you cite Ruby Ridge and Waco (sun spots on the muzzles of M16s?).

Ninja is slang for cop. Jeff Cooper, to my knowledge, first started to refer to the SWAT-types as this. It has grown to refer to all cops as the militarization of our police continues without abatement. Mall ninja is the combination of mall cop and ninja. See the lates issue of any gun rag that feature police and "mall cop" reverbs at every page. (Aside: my favorite is the latest issue of American Handgunner where they show a ninja doing his "high speed, low drag" tactical/practical rubbish WITH AN UNLOADED HK54!!!).

If you shoot someone inside your house, alter the "crime" scene, feed the body to the hogs (and throw the head in a garbage bin in a grocery store in Indianapolis, Mr. Bowman), drive the vehicle that the BG came in into the lake or river, and wipe up the blood, you look (even if you are totally in the right) guilty. The Prosecuting Attorney (or District Attorney in the PRK) will be on you like a bum on a ham sandwhich with many new and exciting crimes to accuse you of.

That's why you use verbal compliance first to ascertain the intent before you "recon by fire" like the mall ninja do. Bang, bang, bang, stop police! The last thing in the world you want to do is pull the trigger on someone. However, if you do, be ready for Problem #2.
 
In the classes I have taken, verbal challenge is taught. I do understand that these classes are often geared toward peace officers.

I deliberately give offense to none I meet, and do my best to avoid trouble. If someone is undertaking violence in my domicile, I will prosecute the threat until it is no longer threatening. Verbal challenge will only be given if I have the extreme luxury to do so with reasonable safety to myself.

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Come on...there's really only one answer. Assuming you are adequtely armed, do you really feel shooting through a door is going to help in the long run. The saying "the devil you know" comes to mind.

I would prefer to SEE what my options are...the first through the door would see the same thing those behind the door would see anyway...only I'd be in control. This "control" would relate to the legal hassles that would surely follow either way and during the time we work our disagreements.

If it would come down to shooting through a door I'd rather be out the window, and take a defensive position in my neighbors yard...in other words get the H--l out of dodge. Besides, why the heck was the dog sleeping through the house entry in the first place;) .
 
If some one or someones is kicking in my bedroom door in the middle of the night they have signed their own release. One clip through the door, reload and see who was there.
 
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