Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolver
Dan Z. for TTAG

San Francisco has become the festering pustule of California (a title it’s taken in a very competitive race with Los Angeles). Skyrocketing crime, rampant homelessness, and an indifferent criminal justice system have caused so much deterioration in the quality of life in the Bay Area that 40% of the city’s residents told a pollster recently that they’re planning their escape, just as many prominent retailers have.

But the city’s problems aren’t confined to the San Francisco and Oakland city limits, as a couple of suburban Fairfield homeowners found out Tuesday morning when a 27-year-old intruder began knocking on their front door.

From abc10.com . . .

The homeowners, who [Fairfield police Lt. Jausiah] Jacobsen said are in their 60s, had a doorbell camera system and did not recognize the individual. They did not answer the door.

“And then ultimately after that, the suspect actively started kicking the door and he did kick the door off the hinges and then started to make entry into the home,” Jacobsen said.

That’s when the homeowner retrieved a tried and true home defense implement, a .357 revolver.

One of the homeowners had a registered gun and shot the suspect, who ran into the street. When Fairfield officers arrived, they began life-saving measures, but were ultimate unsuccessful. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. 

“They did find that he was in possession of a loaded, semi-automatic handgun that had an extended magazine,” Jacobsen said.

Responding police officers found the would-be home invader across the street, in the process of shuffling off this mortal coil.

According to the Sacramento Bee . . .

Police tried to revive him but he was pronounced dead at 9 a.m. Officers found a pistol with an extended magazine on the man, who was on parole for a violent crime, police wrote.

The perp’s previous violent crime was — yes — home invasion. Recidivism frequently doesn’t pay when your selected victims are armed.

 

Lt. Jacobsen emphasized that this kind of thing is very unusual in the area. But as the abc10.com report makes clear, this is the third time homeowners have dispatched attackers in the greater Bay Area in the last 10 days.

The incident is similar to two other home intruder crimes that have happened in Modesto in just the past week. On June 30, a Modesto woman was killed during a home invasion in Modesto in what investigators called an act of self-defense. A second similar incident happened on July 2, with a Turlock resident shot and killed after trying to break into a [Modesto] home, culminating in an intense shoot-out between homeowner and intruder.

Even in the gun-controlled nirvana that is the Golden State, armed self-defense is very much a thing.

Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolver .357 magnum revolver
Dan Z. for TTAG

According to Dr. Garen Wintemute’s taxpayer-funded anti-gun operation at U.C. Davis, only about 10 percent of Californians own guns. Allegedly.

The real number is easily twice that and probably significantly higher. And with crime soaring as a result of conscious decisions by local elected officials, more armed citizens are exercising their natural right to armed self defense on an almost daily basis.

As the Fairfield homeowner conclusively confirmed, 125 grains of deterrence, judiciously applied, can work wonders in fending off unwanted visitors. That’s a lesson more Californians seem to be learning every day.

 

92 COMMENTS

  1. well… It might be grim… but that is 3 people who we don’t have to worry about the recidivism rates for.
    And in the link about the shootout, the reporter asked “is this like a burglary gone wrong here?” … No ma’am, it was more like an armed home invasion. And I wouldn’t say it went wrong so much as terribly predictably, considering the number of people who have wised up about the realities of “when seconds count”.

    Maybe that’s a decent plan though, take it back to the old days: There aren’t resources for police and the courts to handle things, so the courts can just back off and let justice be meted out immediately and harshly.

    • Burglaries don’t “go wrong.” They are wrong from the git go. Typical idiot liberal reporter. In fact, if an armed burglar ends up dead, that is when things went “right.”

  2. Fairfield is roughly half way between San Francisco and Sacramento, and as a bedroom community (and major outlet outlet), it has generally avoided the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune emanating from the Bay Area Swamp. Modesto not so much. It was once a relatively nice central valley community adjacent to farmland, but it has been infected from gangs (and crime) from both south Sacramento and Fresno. Fresno is a dump.

    I have to go to San Francisco Sunday for a few days. I am not looking forward to it. The only good thing I can say for it is that it will not be 115 like it will be where I live.

    • Fairfield isn’t even in the Bay Area, strictly speaking. It is the home of Jelly Belly’s and a large Budweiser plant.

    • @Mark,

      Yes, Fresno is a total dump. I traveled Hwy 99 between L.A. and Sacramento for many years, until I became tired of all the dumpy and dirty cities along its length…Fresno, Merced, Madera, Stockton, et al. Finally switched back to I-5, and now enjoy the long stretches of open road.

      Also, +1 for the Hamlet’s Soliloquy reference. Act 3, Scene 1 from the Bard’s classic tale.

      • Thanks. My most lasting memory of Fresno was the long strip of every fast food outlet that you have ever heard of and not one decent place to eat.

        • Hah! I was stationed in Merced for a few months in 1980, one of the first briefings advised us of where the decent restaurants were. Over the course of about 2 weeks I went to every one of them, and they were ALL out of business. Nothing but disgusting fast foods everywhere. I guess it has not improved.

  3. Yes, this is the way it should have ended,
    Another felon that won’t get out of jail & commit crimes against society.
    Isn’t this Pelosie’s district? She should have to live in the Bay Area & experience the reality of life in person.

  4. 10%? In CA? That is an outright lie. Not misinformation. Not twisting stats or looking at things through an agenda. It is an outright lie. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t own a gun. And a lot of these are libs. I know one left leaning lib that has an undocumented oil can suppressor.

    Fascists feel the need to lie to advance their agenda.

    • There are those here in SoCal who own guns, and those who haven’t told anyone yet…

      Let’s just say that Los Angeles is one of the last places any foreign army would ever want to send their troops in an invasion.

      • Considering the noise on the 4th, if we don’t have firearms, we’ll have fireworks to fight with.
        I know a handful of libs that have armed up since early 2020 after seeking advice from me. The common questions was, “Should I just get a shotgun? Won’t the sound of a pump do enough to avoid trouble?”
        I would do the Kommie-la Harris giggle, but got sick of it and say “NO”.
        And they all “loved” going shooting in the high desert.

    • The estimates are generally around 4.2 million owners, but I have seen estimates as high as 10 million, out of a population of nearly 40 million. Once study found that 1 in 4 gun owners has an “unregistered” firearm (usually obtained before the various registration laws were enacted and in ignorance, wilful or otherwise, of a law that requires all unregistered (and previously exempted) firearms to be registered. But there are likely around 50 million firearms in this state, of which 185,000 are “Registered Assault Weapons”, at least 5 times that many California compliant ARs and AKS, and a huge number of shotguns and handguns.

    • Hahahahaha!
      I mean, uh yeah, sure I totally agree that only 10% of Californians have guns… “wink wink”…

      • Just where did they get that figure? No one really knows. And does that figure include all the drug dealers gang members and criminal illegals who pour into CA because of its “sanctuary” status?

  5. This just plain makes me weep….tears of joy.

    One less scum bag on the face of the earth to deal with.
    One less Biden voter.
    The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.

      • Pretty much a “That’s where you are wrong kiddo” meme waiting to happen.

      • In the typical gun fight where only a few shots are fired a .357 revolver has the advantage over a wonder 9 with an extended mag!

        • So the right answer here is a Coonan. .357 Magnum power, semiauto reload.

  6. Note that the homeowner is not reported to have applied CPR on the attacker, but waited for the police to show up and make the decision to do it themselves. Very smart. Never attempt to resuscitate an attacker after you’ve shot him in legal self defense, as a zealous D.A. might later use it against you.

    “If you were concerned about preserving your assailant’s life, Mr. Smith, why did you shoot him in the first place?”

    Nope. Don’t put yourself in that squeeze.

    • California has a presumption that anyone entering your house without your permission intends to inflict great bodily injury or death, and that therefore a resident is presumed to be acting in self-defense when using deadly force. This requires a DA to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the resident was NOT acting in self-defense. There will be no charges filed in this case, not after an armed intruder kicked down a door.

      • I wouldn’t be so sure, the cops found the POS across the street, why would they believe he kicked down that door? Oh, wait! Ring doorbell?

    • “Never attempt to resuscitate an attacker after you’ve shot him in legal self defense”

      repeated for emphasis. not only can you be challenged on your intentions as I Haz points out, but you can also be held legally liable for the medical outcome of your efforts.

      you are NOT obligated to provide medical care. stand back and let the experts do that.

    • That point aside … you don’t know where the perp has been or what he’s a carrier of. That’s a whole different category of risk I’d rather not take on.

      • “you don’t know where the perp has been or what he’s a carrier of”

        excellent point.

        • /begin_sarcasm

          On your nightstand?!?!?!? I thought everyone kept them under their pillow!

          /end_sarcasm

      • (sigh)

        Here we go, caliber wars again. Just waiting for someone to jump out of the crowd and yell “10mm…the One Round to Rule Them All!!”

        • LOL, I admit I admire the venerable 10mm and would love to own a PCC chambered for it, but alas, California, and all that.

          If I had to be limited to only two guns, though, it would be a pistol/rifle combo chambered as a set in either .357 Mag or .44 Mag, preferably the latter.

          Pistol go pew pew and boom stick go bang.

      • Ron,

        Tisk, tisk. The real man’s round is .44 Magnum. Something about a 180 grain hollowpoint bullet with a muzzle velocity over 1,600 feet-per-second tends to dissuade even the most determined attackers–human or otherwise.

        • Fire it out of a carbine for added oomph.

          A friend converted a Martini-Henry from .310 Cadet to .357 Magnum. Loads that would have a revolver hitting you head were very easy to handle in the M-H.

    • Yeah, just the thought of a fine young man, up early and off to work, gets himself all prepared and pumped, kicks down a door and is shot to death before 9 AM, how could it get any better than that? If the next one million times a door is kicked in by a lowlife ended up EXACTLY like that, our country would show very positive effects for a hundred years. I am ready to do my part.

  7. Yes I’ve had a friend move back here from San Fran. He said its turning into a real shthole.
    It’s going to get worse nation wide. Just wait till theBiden gets his $15 a gallon gas thing going. This petroleum thing is going to cause a lot of grief, takes a lot of it to produce fertilizer, food is going to become a luxury.
    These riots we have now ain’t going to be nothing compared to what’s coming.

    • Once they get going good, police will not be able to even slow it down, it will be armed citizens willing and able to shoot to kill, or nothing.

  8. He’s passed on! This burglar is no more! He has ceased to be! He’s expired and gone to meet his maker! He’s a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace! If you hadn’t found him in the neighbor’s he’d be pushing up the daisies! His metabolic processes are now history! He’s off the twig! He’s kicked the bucket, he’s shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-BURGLAR!!

  9. If the perp can do that kind of damage to the door just think what he could have done to unarmed residents. Only problem is there are more nitwits out there just like him. Be prepared.

  10. The homeowner who was armed with an archaic revolver that had an ammunition capacity of (probably) only six rounds was obviously hopelessly outgunned by the home invader who was armed with a modern semiautomatic pistol with one of those evil, high capacity magazines. Lord knows that California teaches their police to respond to such situations by loosing bowel control as well as bladder control before bravely running away.

    • I noticed the article’s mention of an “extended magazine”. Mere possession of one is legal here in CA, so it makes no difference to the case and can’t be added as a top-up charge unless a prosecutor can absolutely prove it was manufactured or acquired outside of “Freedom Week” which occurred during the first week of April 2019. Magpuls have small date “sundials” stamped into them, but they can be easily scoured or melted to remove any legibility if a person chose to do so.

      • So long as it was made before then who’s to say that you actually didn’t buy it during Freedom Week.

      • Doesn’t really mean anything. A 1911 or a SIG P220 with an extended magazine would mean a ten-round capacity.

        • True. The article above doesn’t specify the make/model of the perp’s gun, only stating that it was a “semi automatic with an extended magazine”. Not enough info to determine anything.

          An M&P Shield with an extended mag has only 7 rounds, as another example…

    • Depends on the loads and bullets and purpose. I will say in this case I don’t think it seems to have mattered.

    • My .38 Special is loaded with 158gr lead nose semi-jacketed hollowpoints. But that’s strictly secondary to bigger boom sticks.

      • hopefully factory loads rather than hand loads. if you use a hand load the prosecutor will go after you for using a “designer killer bullet”.

        • Actually no. We’ve had several cases that show it’s no different from modifying your car. The attorney will counter argue that you are making more accurate ammo which is safer for the public. It’s become a moot point to even bring up.

        • “It’s become a moot point to even bring up”

          was unaware of that. but I advise everyone to consult your local lawyer regarding local practice.

    • “Wouldn’t 158’s be better?”

      for a barrel less than 4″, yes. 4″ or longer, doesn’t matter at in-house distance.

      • Excellent point.

        If you handicap the .357 Magnum cartridge’s true velocity potential with a short barrel (which does not allow the propellant enough time to burn completely and accelerate the bullet to maximum velocity), then you want a heavy bullet to ensure adequate penetration.

        One of my favorite home-defense platforms is a 7-shot .357 Magnum revolver with a 6-inch barrel and loaded with 125 grain semi-jacketed hollowpoint bullets. Very few humans on this planet will remain functional if their chest is in the path of that bullet.

        (The only handgun platform that I like even better is a 6-shot .44 Magnum revolver with a 6-inch barrel and loaded with 180 grain semi-jacketed hollowpoint bullets. I do not believe that any human on this planet will remain functional if their chest is in the path of that bullet.)

        • Agree on both counts, and I have both on hand.

          9mm is a plinking round for the range.

        • 180s won’t cycle a deagle. they do ok out of a ported s’blackhawk. or a 16″ wrangler.
          yee frickin’ ha. the first poke at the steel targets in the spring is with 240; knocks all the rust right off.

  11. Proper thing to do at this point is to assess the value of the perpetrator’s possessions or whatever cash he may have on him, or in the bank. That goes to the homeowner of course.

    I mean the homeowner has a door to replace and frankly to improve upon.

    Also, ammo ain’t cheap. He’s going to have replace those cartridges somehow!

    • The victim–the homeowner–should also be entitled to the perpetrator’s firearm and ammunition that he/she brought to attack the homeowner.

      • Victori sunt spolia…to the victor belong the spoils (loose translation).

        <sarc
        California legal question…if the miscreant's firearm is not on "The Roster", can you can you consider it a LEO purchase/seizure and still keep it?
        </sarc

  12. You can’t judge Californians by the laws that are made. Many have firearms, even in the metro areas. 10% is bullsh!t! Fairfield, back 30 years ago, might just as well have been a suburb of Bakersfield, real rednecks. I live 20 miles from downtown L.A. and most everyone I know(excluding a blind old man and an old Canadian lady) have firearms.
    I truly don’t believe that voters have voted for gun control. I can believe that many vote Dem for other reasons, but the Dem stand on firearms is not one of them.

    • rt66paul,

      Friendly suggestion to the blind old man that you know: a .38 Special revolver loaded with blanks is an excellent “belly gun” that will definitely deter anyone whose belly is in contact with the muzzle when the blind man pulls the trigger.

      The beauty of that platform, of course, is that there is no possible collateral damage from stray bullets if the blind man misses his attacker since there are no bullets (only propellant) in blank cartridges.

    • I was watching an episode of ‘Cops’ a long time ago. At a crime scene in Washington DC they recovered a revolver that was plainly marked ‘Property of Oakland PD’.

  13. There isn’t a single Democrat in DC that doesn’t wish it was the homeowner dead instead. Otherwise, California wouldn’t have its people mostly disarmed.

    These kinds of situations are what most people want and need guns for.

  14. GREAT story! . . . We need MORE of THESE. One Enlightened Patriot. Team Trump and His Allies 2020 – MAGA (WE’RE NOT going away!).

  15. Good news! I am surprised that Communist California did not try to arrest the homeowners for a “hate crime” or some such nonsense.
    I more homeowners would do this, there would be a lot fewer home invasions.
    These people should be given a reward for eliminating a worthless criminal from society.

  16. Another Biden voter struck down in the prime of his life in senseless gun violence. He was just a good man going through a hard time and needed a little money to get him through. Cruelly and maliciously gunned down by the greedy homeowners who refused to help despite their ability to give him all their valuables peacefully. The horror…..the horror….. Vote democrat and hopefully soon we’ll all live in an America where people don’t shoot you for robbing, raping, beating or murdering them.

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