I’ve been meaning to write this up for a week now but haven’t had time, but now I do.
Last week, a group of males drove to a house in the Lakewood/Tacoma are after getting into an argument via a text with a resident of the neighborhood. After calling out the guy they were arguing with they proceeded to start a melee in the street. The resident’s mother exited her house with a baseball bat in an attempt to break up the fight.
One of the non-resident males then pulled out a pistol, pointed it at her and then fired a shot off into the air. The males then got back in their car and drove off. However, before leaving the block the front seat passenger turned and fired multiple shots back at the residence.
One of these hit a neighbor who had exited her home to see if she could render assistance after the males drove off. It entered her left eye and did the damage you’d expect, killing her immediately.
The police have caught one of the three males and have arrest warrants out for the other two.
I live in Tacoma, but I don’t live anywhere near that neighborhood, or any neighborhood that even has a reputation for incidents like that in the past. In fact, I can count the number of high school/college aged “young adults” in my neighborhood on one hand. It was part of the reason The Wife and I chose this neighborhood.
However, I plan on being here for a while and know that when the retirees/soon-to-be retirees leave they will rent/sell their homes and that I have no control over who moves in. I also know that Chaos rules the universe and anything can happen at anytime to anyone.
So I have a plan. For every circumstance that I can imagine (and having seen some ghastly situations live and in person, I can imagine quite ghastly things), including this one.
As I heard the new radio station reporting the story I ran through my plan for this exact situation. I know the tools I will need, where they are, the exit, the path, and the position. I also know the law, which dictates the breadth of my available reactions, and the points at which certain options become available.
Do you?
A carload of “yoots” enter your neighborhood and their sole intent is to assault and threaten the lives of your neighbors and raise general hell.
How long will you take to make ready your defense? If you’re over 60 seconds your defense is useless. Your AAR will consist of “and my neighbor took a bullet to the head as I was loading up a mag.” I’m 15 seconds or less from any point in the house to my ready-long gun (either my AR, my HK or my 1187). Then I’m 20 to 25 more to get outside and into position for a situation in the street. That leaves me 20 to assess any changes in the situation that took place in those 40 seconds.
If you don’t figure this shit out now, you may as well just stay sitting on the couch scratching your balls and reading the news reports the next day.
Or you can carry all the time when you are on your property. I do.
Police response times are measured in tens of minutes around here.
So I carry, even when mowing.
I prefer to meet threats with overwhelming force. Even if I did have my pistol on I’m going for my rifle/shotgun and I’m not going out the front door.
In the scenario you mentioned, the obvious answer is to practice low-crawling around your house to get to that long-gun, and follow the dictum: if bullets come THROUGH my walls, I’m firing back out of my WINDOWS, and that’s probably the only time a Grand Jury will give you a pass on shooting from your home towards the outside.
Another idea to consider, even though it might add 10 or 15 seconds getting you into the fight, is to exit a side or back door and come around the house, so you can stop and use it’s wall-corner for cover.
You should, of course, have preplanned where all the cover spots are on your property, and if there aren’t enough, landscape a few in. Large glacial-till boulders can be made to look quite nice. Fieldstone walls aren’t that hard to build. You should also have preplanned your lanes of fire, doping out where the baddies might be firing from (including drive-bys) and where your rounds are going to wind up when they don’t stay in your targets.
A little imagination, a little pre-planning, and you’re the master of this sort of fight.
Just had something that got me prepped the other day for this type of action.
Went downstairs the other night and heard pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. I’ll grant that it could have been firecrackers just as easily, but it didn’t quite sound right to me from my perspective. I had mis-placed my IIIA vest. Had to find it. Thankfully, I have 60% real brick facade on my house for cover, and a good basement.
Said vest now hangs in the closet with a spare 90 rounds for the poodleshooter right above it.
When I’m at home, I always have the G21 on the hip ready to rock. Just a means to get to the rifle and accoutrements.
I am not quite sure what exactly you are saying or intend to do if you are not the intended main target or directly involved in the fight. Open up on a car full of “youth” because they are attacking your neighbor (which will of course make your house the main target when they or their gang kin come back for revenge) or is this just more Rambo fantasies of a more general conflagration with you as the hero? If you are the target go to it, (although one could ask why that is the case) if not you should think long and hard about shooting a 5.56mm into a suburban street for any reason other than direct self defense of self or family…