http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuJl_TJvGwk

A California homeowner was alerted by her dog barking in the middle of the night. ‘Carla’ didn’t want to give her last name to reporters, but she grabbed her shotgun and noticed a strange man in her backyard, with another stranger waiting by a car. She charged outside, fired off a Biden blast and the two men fled. So what’s the big deal? . . .

Carla’s account to FOX-11 reporters is a little bit different from the version presented in the chuckling TV love-fest in this video.

From FOX-11:

Carla told us her dog woke her up when he started barking. She looked outside and saw a man in her backyard, another waiting by a car.

Carla wasted no time. Wearing her nightgown, she went outside and fired once toward the ground.  Carla says, it was just to scare them off. It worked. The two suspects ran back to a white sedan and drove off. 

Carla says she heard one of them screaming, “Crazy b**ch has a gun!!”

Carla ran outside and fired a 12-gauge warning shot into the ground. The problem is that warning shots are almost always illegal in California. If an aggressor imminently threatens death or grave bodily harm, you’re justified in shooting him, but if he’s that much of a threat, you really need to shoot him! 

If he doesn’t pose an imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm, the law doesn’t allow you to use deadly force against him. This won’t be news to any of our Armed Intelligentsia, but firing a shotgun is always considered ‘deadly force.’

Carla didn’t know that these two men had probably just burgled her neighbor’s house. If she were on trial for aggravated assault, the jury wouldn’t be told this fact either because it wasn’t part of her calculation at the time. But if what she told reporters is correct, the man in her backyard wasn’t directly threatening her. And Carla used deadly force against a person committing simple trespass on her property.

This usually leads to aggravated assault charges, but Carla is lucky to be a sympathetic, eccentric figure and a bit of a folk hero by now. She’s lucky she’s not a middle aged guy. 

The moral of this story? Don’t fire warning shots. And don’t do anything Joe Biden tells you to do.

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77 COMMENTS

    • The open border that extends from CA to the gulf of Mexico and includes AR, NM, and Texas? News flash, slick, we got plenty of hispanic males in CA that have never seen the border and would be lost in Mexico. They been here since this wasn’t the US.

      Go back to your mensa meeting.

      • While I don’t disagree with the sentiment entirely, the non-Native-American population of California in 1846, immediately prior to statehood, was estimated at 8,000 people, many of whom led short lives and not all of whom were Mexican. The Native Americans at that time numbered 100,000, down from 300,000 in 1790. Shortly after the gold rush of ’49 began, the non-native population rose by 300,000, mostly anglos of one sort or another. The great rise in Mexican immigration to CA dates from the opportunities during WWII. In 1940 the state was 6% hispanic. Today it is 38% hispanic.

        • I guess my point was, amongst others, that just because they appeared hispanic doesn’t mean they were illegals from Mexico. Which that ignint remark about our borders implied. For the record, I’m against illegal immigration.

        • Missouri doesn’t have an illegal alien problem , they don’t alow spanish on any state forms , voting booths or anywhere in general.After all English is the language of the land.If you don’t know it learn it or move.

    • P.S. It ain’t the states job to close or control the border. That’s the feds job. You know, barry, slowjoe and the others we elected not once but twice.

        • I’m going to do my best in the coming election cycles to remove their supporters and those of them that can run for future offices. Not much can be done about barry at this point.

      • That’s right jwm, and to answer ‘Scott’s’ question, *that’s* how open borders works for all of us, it produces more Democrat voters to help elect the barrys and slow joes of the political world.

        But Scott, I surmise YOU’RE not on the border, so I guess you’re immune; so how’s that working out for YOU?.

        Stupidity should be painful!

      • Newsflash: when the feds are asleep on their posts, crime is spilling over into border states, and the feds solution is to arm said criminals to “track where those guns end up”, ya it’s the states job to take action to protect its citizenry. Liberals in New York need not weigh in on things they don’t understand, or liberals anywhere for that matter. The fact that what liberals do not understand could fill a space the size of the galaxy, it’s best they just keep their pin-headed idiocy to themselves, lest they wish to be ostracized by people with functioning brains capable of rational thought.

        • I agree. That’s why Hell is a better place to live than California. Everyone in my home People’s Republic thinks I’m a redneck because I liked seeing Virginia, Georgia and Arkansas.

  2. “What trespassers, Officer? I was shooting at a rabid possum that was snarling at me! I guess I must have missed…”

    • Not a good analogy – that would mean that he would be right about something 14 times a week. Not bloody likely.

      • What if the clock reads “military” or 24 hour time? (Which also gets used a lot in Europe for train schedules and the like.) Then it might work as he’d only have to be right seven times a week.

        Um, seven times out of Shotgun Joe is still too much. Never mind.

      • I’ve got to think that even crazy Joe is right about something several times a day. Unfortunately for us, it’s limited to “I think I need to pee”.

  4. And in CA don’t go charging outside to get the drop on people who may or may not be about to burgle your house. Bad from a legal point of view and bad tactics. But the old girl once again proves a point that I and many others on this site make. How much tacticool training does it take to get the upper hand on these thugs?

    An old woman with what looks like a run of the mill Mossberg 500 did just fine in this case.

    • Yep. But if they’d been armed?

      They very easily could have fired back, killed her, and claimed self-defense.

      • If is a mighty big word. These usually play out in one of two ways. Unarmed victim is violated and maybe killed by the bad guys or armed victim scares the bejesus out of the bad guys and they run. They really have no incentive to reenact the OK corral and every reason to get out of dodge. The cops will be coming and not to hand out milk and cookies.

  5. Unfortunately, California being California, even if she did shoot in stone cold self defense shed still end up in front of a judge.Her case would be better, but still.

    Defending yourself is considered uncultured in the Land of Leftism.

    • When last I lived in WV if you killed someone,regardless of reason, you went in front of a judge. In spite of the rumors you can defend yourself in CA. Unless they’ve changed the law in the last few years you can even take a gun from your house to the street to defend the life of another person.

      Warning shots on a residential street, that’s a whole other thing.

      • “you can even take a gun from your house to the street to defend the life of another person.”

        How generous of them.

        Listen, I empathize for CA gun “owners”, and I fully agree that we need to continue the fight in that state for removal of the massive infringements upon the 2nd Amendment. That said, in the meantime, it’s a terrible place to be residing and contributing to if one values his/her personal right to bear arms.

        Don’t live there, won’t live there. Period.

      • “you can even take a gun from your house to the street to defend the life of another person.”

        Wow, haha! How sad to be happy with the little bit they do allow you to do. Too bad that CA legal gun is a stripped down pos compared to what we in other states can own. I like CA residents like JWM because when I get frustrated with my city or state I just need to read their comments to realize how good I have it and how bad things could really be. Thanks for sucking so bad CA!

        • Stripped down? I have a whole safe full of guns. Rifles, revolvers, semi auto’s, shotguns and rimfires. If I can’t deal with a tweaker with that I don’t know how much an AK with 30 round mag would help me.

          My SKS isn’t stripped down, nor is my Makarov or any of my S&W’s. My dream is constitutional carry with no restrictions on the type of firearms I can own. But until then, I’ll muddle thru with my stripped down guns.

    • I hate California. I was forced to live in that hole of idiocy because my family likes its politics. I, for one, do not feel the Bern. I’ll be glad to move away from it forever. The Second Amendment has been completely discarded by the state Derpocats.

      • I spent 10 years of my military career in NorCal. As soon as my final commitment to our Uncle Sam was completed, I packed up the family and moved to one of the Free States. I do not regret my decision, though I sometimes miss the nice scenery. And now all those ARs and AKs with “bullet buttons” are illegal, and every higher-than-10 round magazine is illegal. So, whoever that JWM guy was, he better keep them out of sight or his “Dear Leader Jerry” might have him tossed in the state pen.

  6. Wouldn’t a viable defense be “the friggin Vice President of the U-S of by God A told me to do it?” She took the Biden playbook and ran with it, moo moo and all.

    • Ya know, I’ve been trying real hard not to bring her clothing into. But if I’d seen her charging in the dark at me I would have run before I saw the shotgun.

    • *brainstorm*

      NRA uses bottomless pit-o-cash for funding useful lunatics to perpetrate such shotgun defense tactics until the Veep himself HAS to answer. Preferably carried out by women, gays, non-english speaking come-heres, welfare-types – ya know, the unprosecutable.

      • Wow that is a good job of string together several red herrings and strawmen.

        Biden was caught in a hypocritical lie by the NRA. Are they not supposed to criticism him?

      • @ BuellRider82
        Unless Herr Bloomberg has made an unexpected erroneous multi-billion $ donation to the NRA recently, that member supported pro-gun, pro Second amendment organization hardly has a “bottomless pit-o-cash”, except maybe, compared to you.

        You sound like a sore loser; were you in this lady’s back yard that night and embarrassed yourself?

    • Sorry, the defense won’t work. Biden recommended a double-barrel shotgun and that the potential victim unload BOTH barrels. Looks to me like this lady was using a pump gun and she only red once which meant she was still a potential public nuisance (to BGs).

  7. Given that it’s California I’m surprised she hasn’t already been charged with something. I know here in Mass she’d already be facing charges.

    • In Washington DC, where Mr. Biden resides, it is felony endangerment to fire a shotgun on the porch or balcony in warning. Indeed it is on the DC firearms registration test. You are forbidden from discharging any firearm in the air

  9. She’s damn lucky. Lucky for not being prosecuted for not only having a shotgun, but, using it like this inside city limits. Second she’s damn lucky they were not armed and fired back. Because it didn’t sound like, to me, that she was ready to use it to put the robbers down.

  10. She went outside and out that she had a shotgun and knew how to use it when they were of her property and up the block, she fired off a warning shot to remind them not to come back. The lady in Florida was given 20 years firing a warning shot when her abusive husband was threatening her.

    • Alexander Marissa didn’t fire a warning shot at her husband.

      Both had numerous incidents of violence against each other, and both had a restraining order against the other person.

      She violated her restraining order, went to her ex-husbands house, got into a fight with him, left the living room, walked down the hall (passing two ways to leave the house) went into the garage, retrieved her firearm, walked back down the hall (passing two ways to leave the house), walked into the living room, and fired toward her ex-husband and hit the wall behind him.

      While she was out on bail for this, she violated her restraining order and conditions of bail, when back to her ex-husbands house and beat him up.

      She got 20 years because 10 was tacked on because a firearm was used, and 5 was tacked on because it was a semi-automatic.

      The sentence is stupid, because if she really intended to kill her ex-husband she’d have fired more than one round, but it wasn’t a warning shot at someone threatening her.

      Nor could she claim stand your ground, because she had no legal right to be in the home of her ex-husband in violation of the restraining order.

  11. FPSRussia’s producer was murdered while he had a gun in his hip. Does that mean guns don’t protect us? No. Joe Biden is still wrong.

  12. Joe gets no credit. He say get a side-by-side or over/under. She had a pump. I prefer semi-auto but since I am afraid of shooting my dogs it’s not my go to home defense weapon.

  13. …and if you do fire a warning shot make sure to tell the police when they arrive that you heard the shot too and you think it came from the next block over.

  14. A standard plumber’s pipe wrench used in an assault is re-classified as a deadly weapon.

    It only stands to reason that a lethal weapon in the hands of this considerate woman should be reclassified as a smooth-bore auditory signaling devise.

  15. “Joe Biden Was Right?” Please don’t inflate his head anymore its’ starting to affect the tides. Even the mere suggestion of crazy Joe being right is starting to tear the fabric of reality as we speak.

  16. Joe Biden is doing more to keep Obama safe than the entire Secret Service Presidential bodyguard detail could ever do.

  17. I disagree. Biden has said over and over “buy a shotgun, buy a shotgun.” That’s the one piece of his advice I’ve taken. It barely fits in my safe, what with all the AR-15s in there.

    • When assembling my AR and shopping for uppers, I tripped over a .410 shotgun upper. I should get one of those and send him a photo of it thanking him for the advice.

  20. “She’s lucky she’s not a middle aged guy.”

    Gotta love TTAG. In one post, they trumpet the need to be leaders in promoting diversity and inclusion of all demographic categories in the 2A rights movement. In the next, they make underhanded, unnecessary asides that totally discredit their faux concern about diversity/inclusion.

    • What, exactly, is your point? We’ve got a real problem, which is that firearms ownership has been stereotyped as a middle-aged WASP demographic. It’s outstanding that non-OFWGs defend themselves too; that’s not why this particular DGU is legally problematic.

      As much as these burglars got what they had coming, this DGU went farther than the law of self-defense allows. This woman is fortunate that she hasn’t been charged with a felony already, and I think that she *would* have been charged already if she were not such an eccentric and sympathetic figure.

      If you disagree, state your thesis and defend it.

      • Chris, I basically agree with everything you just said.

        I just offer a simple suggestion: if you really want to reverse the stereotype of all gun owners and gun rights supporters as OFWGs, then in future posts, leave out the sentence “she’s lucky she’s not a middle-aged guy.” Your hypothesis may, in fact, be true, but you would be very hard pressed to prove it. What purpose does that sentence serve?? Nothing productive – just perpetuating the persecuted white man false narrative, which alienates women, people of color, and everyone who have been actual victims of institutional and cultural bias and subjugation.

        Out of one side of your mouth (and when I say “your,” I refer to the TTAG editorial board, not you personally; I know all of the different authors hold differing outlooks/opinions), I seem to hear the (quite persuasive) argument that “the poor, people of color, women, the LGBT community, etc should be ESPECIALLY supportive of the second amendment because, due to systemic discrimination/oppression, they are more likely to be victims of violent crime.” And out of the other side of your mouth I hear the (tired, ignorant and not persuasive at all) argument of “it’s the OFWGs who the system is biased against and face more obstacles than minorities.”

        My gut tells me the second argument is what most authors and readers of this blog actually believe while the first is just some bullsh!t talking point to try to change people’s minds about gun policy.

  22. The problem is that warning shots are almost always illegal in California. If an aggressor imminently threatens death or grave bodily harm, you’re justified in sending him an angrily worded email or text. And then begging for mercy.

    FIFY.

  23. Lets face it, the law gets applied differently to “little old ladies” than it does to anybody else. I’ve been practicing law for many years and have seen it time and time again.

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