10 July 24

“Put yourself in a position to ‘be lucky’”

Driesell

“Armed?”

A well-coordinated home-invasion, involving at least three suspects, in CA (LA area), on Tuesday came to an abrupt end when the homeowner shot and critically injured one of the suspects.  The other suspects quickly fled the scene.

The single injured suspect (now hospitalized) has been identified.  To no one’s surprise, he has an extensive felony record for robbery, illegal-weapons possession, aggravated burglary.  He should have been in prison where he could not have harmed anyone, but this is CA, so naturally he was “out on probation.”

Weapon used by the homeowner was a pistol.  Brand/caliber not reported.  Number of shots fired was not reported.

Suspects reportedly directed pepper-spray at the homeowner.  Effect (if any) was not reported.

As noted, one wounded suspect is currently hospitalized.  Others are still at large

The homeowner himself was reported as “injured,” but the cause/nature/extent of his injuries was also not reported (amazing that the “media” apparently thinks none of these critical details are important)

Lessons:

1) “Symbolic barriers” Home-invasion suspects in this case gained entry into this home by smashing-through a sliding-glass door.  Sliding-glass doors are weak and mostly decorative.  They do not represent any kind of formidable/defensible “barrier,” as we see!

2) This home invasion occurred during the middle of the afternoon, not the middle of the night as one might expect.  The home was obviously under surveillance, and perpetrators decided to swoop-in the moment they saw the homeowner’s wife had departed.  They likely thought the home would be unoccupied, but they may not have cared.

3) As is usually the case, when violent criminal perpetrators are greeted with righteous gunfire, they promptly flee like frightened mice.  Bullies are all alike!  When you call their bluff, their phoney bravado instantly evaporates!

4) “Going armed” means being armed all the time, with a deadly weapon, in a high state of readiness, constantly at your fingertips!

It is reported that this homeowner at some point “retrieved a gun” and sometime afterward (with gun in hand) confronted the perpetrator(s).  It is obvious he was not carrying a gun.

In any event, this story has a (relatively) happy ending, in that the innocent were not seriously harmed.

But, we should all look at the totality of these circumstances as a timely warning!

Having a gun in your home, in an unknown state of readiness, “laying-around somewhere” is not “going armed.”  Operators “go armed,” every waking moment, whether “home” or “out.”  We are ever-capable of an instant response to unlawful deadly force coming our way.

“Death comes for us all, even at our birth.

Even at our birth, Death does but stand aside a little.

And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day, or the next, he will draw nigh.”

Sir Thomas More (played by Robert Scofield) in the 1966 movie-version of Robert Bolt’s “A Man for all Seasons”

/John