Our Night Of Terror
- Thread starter Hysteria
- Start date
+1. Guns are nothing but trouble.
Ummm, not shoot him in the head? Call the police would probably be an excellent start.
The intruder was armed with a gun. Calling the cops at that point would have been pointless.
I'd rather be at trial than dead. Saying that, I don't support firearms in our communities.
Pretty fun explaining in court how you quickly accessed your firearm from safe, ammunition from separate safe and then shot intruder - very time consuming.
Unless of course you just happened to be cleaning it at the time.
From what I understand he keeps a gun near his bed. Lives on his own on a rural farm. Cop shop would have been miles away. Heard noises at midnight, turns the lights on and has the shock of his life.
He's 62 and planned on retiring next year.
I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but aren't we all getting a bit hysterical? "Our Night Of Terror"? When I read the story, it seems like it could just as easily have been entitled "somebody knocked on our door at 3am". 
For those who are going to respond that it's easy when it's not you, I (female) walked into my PPOR with my 13yo son 5 months ago, to stumble upon intruders barricaded in the main bedroom. I could tell as soon as I walked in that we'd been vandalised, but I thought they'd gone and was looking around to see what damage had been done, and tried to break open the bedroom door with my shoulder, before realising that the intruders were still there.
I walked out to the street and called the police, who dealt with it (three cars, six cops, lights flashing). It wasn't fun, but neither was it cause for hysterics.
Admittedly, I'm probably closer to "cool as a cucumber" than prone to panic, but I can think of half-a-dozen occasions over the years when people have knocked on my door at odd hours, none of which were cause for pulling out a shotgun.
There are very few situations that panicking improves. As poor Hysteria has discovered. (And I really don't mean to sound unsympathetic; I'm very sorry your hand is injured and hope it heals well.)
My point is that I think our whole society would be better off if we'd all just take a second to calm the f*** down! (And I suspect Hysteria would now agree. )
For those who are going to respond that it's easy when it's not you, I (female) walked into my PPOR with my 13yo son 5 months ago, to stumble upon intruders barricaded in the main bedroom. I could tell as soon as I walked in that we'd been vandalised, but I thought they'd gone and was looking around to see what damage had been done, and tried to break open the bedroom door with my shoulder, before realising that the intruders were still there.
I walked out to the street and called the police, who dealt with it (three cars, six cops, lights flashing). It wasn't fun, but neither was it cause for hysterics.
Admittedly, I'm probably closer to "cool as a cucumber" than prone to panic, but I can think of half-a-dozen occasions over the years when people have knocked on my door at odd hours, none of which were cause for pulling out a shotgun.
There are very few situations that panicking improves. As poor Hysteria has discovered. (And I really don't mean to sound unsympathetic; I'm very sorry your hand is injured and hope it heals well.)
My point is that I think our whole society would be better off if we'd all just take a second to calm the f*** down! (And I suspect Hysteria would now agree.
)
Not being scared, isn't brave
brave is being scared and accomplishing something anyway
being awoken by an intruder is scary, no exit plan, no exit
Kudos to the op,
whether the intruder were a drunk teen, or an axe murderer,
you can't tell
and with teens, 'it seemed like a good idea' for many assaults B&E thefts arsons
I'm not frightened in the same circumstance, that means I'm not brave.
edit:
b&e at 3am; 21 hours after, or three hours before, necessary meds, that would be a bad bad time for a burglar
brave is being scared and accomplishing something anyway
being awoken by an intruder is scary, no exit plan, no exit
Kudos to the op,
whether the intruder were a drunk teen, or an axe murderer,
you can't tell
and with teens, 'it seemed like a good idea' for many assaults B&E thefts arsons
I'm not frightened in the same circumstance, that means I'm not brave.
edit:
b&e at 3am; 21 hours after, or three hours before, necessary meds, that would be a bad bad time for a burglar
Hi Perp
I replied my thoughts to the op on page 1, I hadn't got to yours
have read yours now
same thing applies, accompished a result, been scared
Ah, gotcha.
A salient fact you seem to have omitted in your original story.
Irrespective, call the cops and stay out of their way. Unless an assassin, it's far more likely they're interested in your new TV than in shooting you.
It is unpredictable what they are actually interested in. A lot of these people are high on drugs or ice or something and can be very erratic. They are often not open to any reasoning and hence all the money on earth may not stop them from causing interpersonal harm.
Law Talking Guy: So would you care to explain how you managed to load your gun so quickly?
Dude: I was cleaning it.
Law Talking Guy: Really? You were cleaning your gun at 3 o'clock in the morning?
Dude: Yes.
Law Talking Guy: You'll have to excuse me, but I find it a little difficult to believe that you were cleaning your gun at 3 o'clock in the morning.
Dude: Well, I sleep during the day and I stay up all night.
Law Talking Guy: That's quite unusual, why do you keep such strange hours?
Dude: I'm a vampire.
Law Talking Guy: Fair enough.
conversely how much crime do we endure as a result of our over tolerance? if you thought every second home had a shooter inside do you think theft, rape and murder in the family home would be anywhere near what we must endure now?
You think that has worked in the US?
It just raises the stakes.
When I was sailing Central America a lot of people, especially Americans, asked if I had a gun onboard in case of pirates.
I said that if I was boarded by several guys with automatic weapons and I produced a gun then that would pretty much dictate the outcome of that scenario.
It just raises the stakes.
When I was sailing Central America a lot of people, especially Americans, asked if I had a gun onboard in case of pirates.
I said that if I was boarded by several guys with automatic weapons and I produced a gun then that would pretty much dictate the outcome of that scenario.
On 6 December 2001, pirates shot and killed Sir Peter Blake while he was on an environmental exploration trip in South America, monitoring global warming and pollution for the United Nations. The two-month expedition was anchored off Macapa, Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon delta, waiting to clear customs after a trip up the Amazon river. At around 9 pm a group of six to eight armed, masked robbers wearing balaclavas and crash helmets boarded the Seamaster. As one of the robbers held a gun to the head of a crewmember, Blake sprang from the cabin wielding a rifle. He shot one of the assailants in the hand before the rifle malfunctioned; he was then fatally shot in the back by assailant Ricardo Colares Tavares. The boarders injured two other crew members with knives, and the remaining seven were unhurt.
Yachting legend.
But that was stupid.
And it cost him his life.
(Sir Peter Blake won the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race, held the Jules Verne Trophy from 1994 to 1997 by setting the fastest time around the world as co-skipper of ENZA New Zealand, and led NZ to successive victories in the America's Cup).
