Conclusions?

In November 2007, Kenneth Batchelor began recieving threatening telephone calls from a dope smoking body builder demanding money. Matthew Clements, a pub bouncer, was the culprit. Clements was well known to police. He had a history of settling disputes with violence. He had once threatened a garage manager with an Uzi submachine gun. He had become obsessed with an imagined debt owed him by the Batchelor family.

On November 18, 2007, Kenneth Batchelor's worst nightmare came true. At 1:00 AM, after informing Mr. Batchelor that he was "coming to get" him, Clements appeared on the Batchelor lawn tearing his shirt off. Mr. Batchelor watched the spectacle from his upstairs window. He armed himself with the only gun available, a shotgun. "I had the shotgun to deter him from going any further. I thought of putting a shot in the air, but I didn’t intend to aim a shot at him," Mr. Batchelor later testified.

Clements responded "I’ll get my gun out before you can raise them barrels." Clements quickly began to scale scaffolding erected outside the home to the window. Bursting through the window, Clements attacked Batchelor. A blast was fired from the shotgun, striking Clements. Clements ran a short distance and was found dead.

Kenneth Batchelor was charged with murder. This attack on a human life occured in Kent, UK. The case would go before a jury. On March 11, 2009, Kenneth Batchelor was unanimously acquitted of all charges. After the verdict, Judge Jeremy Carey declared "No one should draw any conclusions of a general kind on this case. This defendant has been acquitted of the charge of murder, each case depends upon its own merits."

I'll draw a conclusion Judge Carey. It seems the British people understand the right to self preservation far better than does the British legal system.

A Comedy of Errors

"It's 2 o'clock in the morning! You need to go home to bed!" shouted Judie Martel. As the snow drifted through the night outside her home, Mrs. Martel had fallen asleep on the sofa. She was jolted awake by a pounding on her front door. "My first thought was, 'Is that thunder?'" she said, "The windows were rattling."

The noise was not the weather. Mrs. Martel confronted a man entering her shattered door with all that she had at her disposal......a tongue lashing. Then she shoved the man back through the door and barricaded it as best she could. She peered out the window to see if the intruder had left.

Through the darkness she could make out the shape of the man walking through the snow to the other side of her home. He held a bag in his hands. Judie Martel immediately regretted not locking her kitchen door that night. She knew without checking that the kitchen door was unlocked. She seldom locked it, after all, this was Kennebunk Maine, not Detroit Michigan. Rather than locking the door however, she ran upstairs to awaken her husband, a Vietnam vet.

Now, one would think that a Vietnam vet would know what to do. I have to give John Martel credit. He grabbed his shotgun. Then he grabbed the one, the only shotgun shell that he kept in his home. Thus armed, John Martel ran outside towards the shadowy figure in his snow covered yard. When the intruder saw the homeowner with the shotgun, he turned to run.

John Martel fired his one and only shotgun shell over the running man's head. Intentionally. On purpose. Blam! An effective home defense tool became a club. "I was going to shoot to kill," Martel said. "But I've had enough of killing. I shot over his head and he ran up the road."

The police arrived with the radios crackling. Neighbors had called 911 and reported the gunshot and two men running through the neighborhood. The first intruder, Sean Barker, was captured almost immediately while attempting to enter another home. It took a State Police K9 unit to track his buddy Eric Wallace down. The dogs found his backpack, which contained his ID. Although both men were in their early twenties, they each had criminal records and a history illicit drug use. The footprints in the snow showed the men had cased several homes before selecting a victim.

I am happy this couple survived their home invasion, but I have to think it was by Divine providence. The couple is shopping for dead bolt locks, and are considering a large dog to protect them. Judie Martel, a social worker, is trying to view the experience in the most positive framework. "We are very blessed," she says. Her husband is also seeking to reconcile the experience.

"If they had harmed her, I wouldn't have shot in the air," he claims. Well, Mr. Martel, if you have one damned shotgun shell, what the Hell do you plan to do if they decide to harm you and her after you shoot your wad in the air?

It's news reports like these that frustrate me the most. They lay seed to the illusion that blind luck and "blessedness" will save a life. Luck does play a part, to be certain, but Lady Luck favors the person who is prepared. Those deadbolts? They are not going to work if you don't use them. A dog? How about learning to protect yourself? Go buy a box of shotgun shells and quit playing Barney Fife.

Warning Shot to the Head

A motorist who shot and wounded a belligerent hitchhiker Wednesday at a highway rest area acted in self-defense, police say. The shooting happened just before 7:30 p.m. at the Nason Creek rest area on U.S. Route 2 near Lake Wenatchee and just west of Leavenworth.

The man who was shot, Jay Anthony Kneer, 45, was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he was in the intensive care unit in serious condition Thursday. He is listed as a Renton resident, but Chelan County Sheriff Michael Harum said Kneer spent much of his time in Eastern Washington.

Kneer has a criminal record going back 20 years, with more than 50 arrests in that time and multiple convictions for theft, trespassing, drug violations and robbery in King, Snohomish and Chelan counties. He was released last month from the Chelan County Regional Justice Center, where he had been since his arrest in January on suspicion of second-degree robbery. He was well-known to Chelan County deputies, Harum said, and was typically combative with them. He said that when deputies had to handle a call involving Kneer, "you made sure you had a second person there."

Before the shooting, Kneer had been hanging around the rest area. Harum said volunteers who handed out coffee and cookies to passing motorists told deputies that Kneer had been harassing them. The volunteers left at about 7 p.m., shortly before the shooting, so Kneer was the only person around when Dennis Shaw, 66, of Lynnwood, and his wife pulled into the rest area.

In the restroom, Kneer asked Shaw for a ride, but Shaw refused. Kneer followed him, yelling at him and demanding a ride, police said. Kneer's demeanor and aggression began to scare the motorist, Harum said, adding that Kneer had a reputation for aggression and, at 6-foot-2, could be intimidating.

Once he was back at his pickup truck, Shaw retrieved a 9 mm handgun. This only made Kneer angrier, Harum said, and he pulled out a quart-size bottle of whisky and swung it, missing Shaw, who was able to duck behind his truck's door.

Shaw told deputies he pointed the gun at Kneer and fired when Kneer did not back off, telling them he meant it as a warning shot. But the shot struck Kneer in the head. Harum said it appeared to be a clear case of self-defense and he does not expect the motorist to be charged with any crime. "He was pretty upset, and from what the deputies tell me, remorseful," Harum said. "It's pretty sad."

By Hector Castro
Seattle PI.com

It's my belief that warning shots are usually not a good idea. They deplete ammunition reserves, and often serve to escalate conflict. The shot you wasted may be shot you needed to save your life. This is one example where they stopped the threat, however. Whether Mr. Shaw will suffer civil proceedings as a result is yet to be determined.

This encounter could also be cited as an example of raw, instinctive point shooting with a focus on the threat. Godspeed Mr. Shaw.

Warning Shots

1. Don't pull a handgun unless you intend to use it.
2. Warning shots may get you shot.
3. A handgun sucks when your assailant has a shotgun.
4. 911 is not a policeman at the scene.

Nobody wants to take a human life, but the introduction of a handgun into a conflict may only make matters worse if you are not prepared to follow through on the threat that gun represents.

Warning: This video contains graphic wounds and incredible stupidity.



Control your animals and get some bug repellant for your head fellow!

Divine Intervention Takes Out Scum Bag

On Tuesday night, seventy-nine year old Dwight Cook, of Hickory, North Carolina, and his missus were relaxing peacefully at home when they heard a rattle of the front door knob. Mr. Cook went to the door, but found nobody there. Then he heard a crash. Derek Scott Frenceschini had used a piece of cement block to smash the glass in Mr. Cook's other door. After he reached inside, a quick turn of the deadbolt let the 23 year old criminal in.

Mr. Cook's wife ran to the neighbor's home to get help, while Mr. Cook quickly located his .22 caliber handgun. While confronting Frenceschini, Mr. Cook thought he saw something in the criminal's hands. He fired one shot into the ceiling as a warning shot.

“I went to get my .22 caliber gun that I keep in the hallway. I had it in my hand, and I asked him what he was doing. He turned around, and I saw that he had something in his hand. I didn’t know what it was, so I fired a warning shot up into the ceiling,” Cook said.

That's when Divine Providence stepped in. A fragment of the single .22 caliber bullet ricocheted and struck the intruder in the forehead, knocking the fight out of him. Cook then held the intruder at gunpoint while he dialed 911 for assistance. “I wasn’t aiming for him. I’ve handled guns since I was 12, and was a sharpshooter in the Army. If I wanted to hit him, I would have. If he’d moved, the next shot would have stopped him,” Cook said. “I stood to the side of him until the police got there.”

Frenceschini was subsequently arrested and charged with first degree burglary. He was hospitalized for the bullet fragment in his skull and a fractured hand he injured during the break-in, officials said. Mr. Cook was not arrested. As usual, the local constabulary advises against legitimate self defense.
Link
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I rarely second guess a person after a self defense shooting, but this account is ripe for discussion. I cannot avoid it.

First, there is no duty to retreat in North Carolina if one is within their own home. There is no need to make excuses, or God forbid blast ceilings in North Carolina. There is, however, a need for law abiding citizens to effectively defend themselves and their homes against criminal attackers.

Mr. Cook's statement, "If I wanted to hit him, I would have. If he'd moved, the next shot would have stopped him," although well intentioned, speaks volumes of his ignorance. Hitting moving targets is very demanding shooting, especially when one's life is on the line. It's a hell of a lot more demanding than hitting the ceiling of the room you are in. Former Army sharpshooters may have a lot of experience shooting rifles at stationary bullseyes at the range. That does not equate to life saving marksmanship with a handgun. As far as I know, the US Army has no job description of "sharpshooter". This designation is likely a marksmanship ranking, between "marksman" and "expert", a common and non-distinquishing ranking attained by farm boys and city boys alike who never held a rifle prior to military service.

The belief that a .22 caliber handgun will "stop" anyone is an fallacious belief bordering on the belief in magic. If a .22 caliber slug should stop an advancing assailant, it is because he wanted to stop. Yes, the lowly 22 kills more people than any other round. This is not a credit to the round's effectiveness, but rather a bow to it's overriding prevalence compared to other calibers, especially among untrained shooters. Unless the 22 slug penetrates into the CNS, the criminal will simply bleed slowly while he decides whether to flee or snuff the life from the defender.

And now, tactics. Warning shots are never a good idea. First, they deplete life saving ammunition in a life threatening encounter. The bullet you shoot in the air may be the one you need to save your life.

Warning shots are often fired in the hope that the aggressor will retreat at the sight of the firearm, and the defender will not have to take a life. This is the "Magic Talisman Presumption" that one often hears parroted off by those new to firearms. The truth is, introduction of a firearm into a conflict will escalate the conflict if the protagonist is not willing to utilize the gun effectively.

By their very nature, warning shots are often not aimed fire. As unaimed gunfire, they inherently place others at risk. Truth be told, Mr. Cook could have been struck by a stray bullet fragment just as easily as Frenceschini. If the warning shot is aimed, then the shooter has taken his eyes off the aggressor, making himself vulnerable while trying to save the criminal's life.

If a person is justified in firing a warning shot, they are justified in shooting the threat. Shots fired into the ceiling are as much an application of lethal force as shots fired center of mass. They are just a warm fuzzy touchy feelie excuse for not believing one's life is worth defending. They are a last plea for the criminal to stop his activities.

Finally, as in this case, if the "warning shot" should somehow find it's target, the shooter is then wide open for a civil suit. The warning shot will be interpreted and presented as empirical evidence that lethal force was not yet necessary, yet the shooter negligently injured the poor tortured soul who just happened to find himself in the wrong house. Yes, the civil suits are coming........Frenceschini is in the hospital, alive, with medical bills mounting. Meanwhile, Mr. Cook is going on record saying he fired a warning shot, which through Providence probably saved his life. Of course, Frenceschini will say he never threatened the old man, and a lawyer sleazier than John Edwards will produce a plethora of character witnesses who will paint him as a recently misguided choir boy almost killed by the evil old man with a gun.

I wish Mr. Cook the best, but he needs to stop speaking. He may soon learn that a warning shot between the eyes is preferable to one in the ceiling, and a caliber that starts with a four is preferable to a .22. Good luck Mr. Cook. God saved your ass a few days back. Don't place it on a silver platter for the attorneys to devour.