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Guns aren’t death rays, even with solid center-mass hits. A Houston homeowner is alive and safe after defending his home against a crazed robber Saturday night, because he kept shooting until the threat was neutralized . . .

From KHOU-Houston:

According to the Houston Police Department, the suspect smashed in the front window of the home, located in the 3300 block of Dennis near Sampson, with a piece of concrete. The incident happened just before 11 p.m.

Investigators said the homeowner heard the noise and grabbed his gun. He then saw the suspect at his front door.

The homeowner shot one time through the window, hitting the suspect in the stomach, police said. The suspect tried to get up and come after the homeowner, who then shot him a second time. The suspect was hit in the hand with the second shot.

The Energizer Bunny Burglar shrugged off a bullet in the gut, but threw in the towel when he got shot in the hand? I’ll leave it to the Armed Intelligentsia to speculate as to which form of pharmaceutical mind-alteration he was enjoying at the time.

This story illustrates several important things. First off, keep firing until the threat is neutralized. Shoot until they go down and stay down. Sometimes you won’t land a solid hit, and sometimes an attacker will keep attacking even after getting their heart shot out. As long as they’re taking coordinated offensive action against you, you need to keep shooting. This homeowner figured it out, and he survived the night unharmed.

The second lesson here is a legal one. In many parts of the country, shooting an attacker through a window would land you in the hoosegow on felony assault charges, but Texas law strongly favors homeowners in cases like this.

Stay safe.

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66 COMMENTS

  1. Well congrats on survival, hope I’m never in that situation. Not sure I would have liked my address posted worldwide there is a gun in this house, but at least most criminal types would think twice before kicking in this door.

      • More proof of the stupidity of the common criminal. If criminals behaved rationally, they would avoid Texas altogether (except the defenseless zones, of course, otherwise known as “gun-free” zones). And since criminals can’t be expected to listen to reason, a more compelling form of address must be employed.

  3. Hands have many, many nerve endings so perhaps the pain was more obvious than the slower moving visceral pain of a gut shot?

    • Yep. And there are not that many pain receptors/nerves in your gut.

      My guess is he didn’t realize he was hit, because it didn’t hurt, until the hand shot, which probably hurt like hell.

      • I wouldn’t trust myself with a head shot on a moving target. Now my wife would probably drill him between the eyes if he were coming straight at her.

        • I can do headshots all day long at very long ranges with a pistol, during the day, slow firing, at the range, with no danger. Can I do that at night, while in danger, with my night blindness? Probably not. At that point any hit is a good hit and pair that up with many hits as possible. Got my G19, with two G17 mags, a surefire flashlight, and a cell at arms reach.

      • “Seven rounds is all you need” is also horrible advice, but that didn’t stop you, now did it?

    • … if your intent is to kill the attacker. Shooting to stop the attack (center of mass), rather than to kill (head), is a better ethical and legal strategy. If the attacker dies as a consequence of your stopping their attack, it’s unfortunate, but you’d rather be able to say you meant to defend yourself than to kill a person if they attacked you.

      • Incidentally. There are cases where two duty pistols loaded with a dozen or more shots each were not enough. It’s also dangerous IMO to think such cases were due simply to drugged up pharma-zombies when simple emotional state can cause people to act all superhuman briefly.

        • Or in the case of a lot of cops they can’t hit what they are shooting at. Especially if they are NYC Cops. Times Square 3 shots 2 bystanders gunned down, Empire State Building – 15 shots fired 12 bystanders gunned down perp hit 3 times.

        • When you want to make the case for higher capacity don’t use a DGU where the defender appears to be 2 for 2. I can see a supporter of magazine limits using this case to show that 10 rounds are good enough for self defense.

          “Incidentally. There are cases where two duty pistols loaded with a dozen or more shots each were not enough.”

          That sounds like a LEO who will generally face a more demanding situation than a private citizen. We only have to stop the bad guy which inlcudes making him run away. The police have to run the guy down.

  8. An attacker often times requires extra attention to neutralize due to any number of factors. Knowing this I am grateful for living in a Pro-2A state. No mag restrictions here.

  10. Good for Texas! In California, I believe, the suspect has to be INSIDE the residential part of the house. Garage does not always count. Once the perpetrator enters the living part of the house, the homeowner may presume lethal threat and defend with deadly force, if he/she so chooses. Still, never a situation I would like to deal with.
    I don’t know about this Texas perps wounds, but would guess the gut shot takes longer to feel an effect. I read an article by Massad Ayoob many years back recounting suspects taking multiple, heavy hits to the torso when under the influence of PCP because the drug anesthetizes the perp as well as overstimulating the brain. They would not collapse until they had essentially bled out or suffered major spinal damage that literally disconnected the arms and legs from the nervous system. Really disturbing. I expect some of the drugs currently in use, like “Bath Salts”, could have a similar effect…Noting we don’t have any information that this perp was under the influence of drugs.

    • It’s not like opening a window to shoot at a perceived threat. The invader breached the window which determines eminent threat. Not sure about stupid laws but I will take my chances with a jury in this case.

    • Then you have you faithful DA prosecuting you for ” premeditated” homicide becAuse you gunned up and waited.

      • True. Probably safer from a rabid DA in Texas than California. Kind of galling to think you can be prosecuted for defending yourself in your residence with a gun, but a fact of life and acceptable risk….

    • Doesn’t really matter…it worked. If it turns out to be a 22, people will say “if he shot him with a 45 then the gut shot would have been enough”. If it was a 45, people will say “a 9mm would not have stopped the invasion”.

    • Homunculus! That is a seriously awesome word. I can count on two fingers (now) the number of times I’ve encountered it outside the confines of a good old-fashioned pencil/paper/dice fantasy RPG.

  15. “I’ll leave it to the Armed Intelligentsia to speculate as to which form of pharmaceutical mind-alteration he was enjoying at the time”.

    Hand to mouth.

  17. When it comes to disabling the body that is under full stress anything that isn’t leading to electrical failure (a CNS hit or something that severs a necessary nerve), a mechanical failure (detached muscle, broken bones or destroyed joints) or a hydraulic failure (loss of blood pressure) you’re basically hoping for a psychological stop. Some people will just quit because you shot them, others because they have ‘seen the light’ and decide consciously to deescalate, but some become the much vaunted ‘bullet sponge’ and soak up even fatal damage while continuing the fight. The answer remains the same, keep inflicting as much damage as possible as quickly and as often as possible until one of these factors decides the contest.

    What has always been more interesting to me is taking the other side; stress inoculating via consideration, visualization and rationalization in order to BE the ‘bullet sponge’ in the event of a life or death fight. One need not be ‘tough’ in the traditional sense, high, nor ‘psycho’ to pull this off. If you train for it, and you’ve spent your whole life with the internal thought that you’ll continue even when mortally wounded it’s much more likely that you actually will do so when the chips are down. The only thing I can say to the BGs who have soaked up so much damage during in the field experiments is thanks. Thanks for teaching me that it’s possible to be perforated, spindled, folded and mutilated and still in the fight.

    • It also speaks of motivation. I have to stay in the fight cause if the bad guy gets pass me he’s made it to my wife, daughter and grand daughters. I cannot allow myself to be shut down by fear or pain.

      • In my Soviet state, my family and I are obliged to retreat if at all possible, handing over our home to any intruder bold enough to gain entrance.

  19. Should of popped him in the head. Now we have to pay his medical bill and jail time. Shoot to kill saves tax payers money.

    • Not to mention his legal defense costs.

      It is tempting to offer commissions to citizens for taking out felons in the process of committing a violent crime. Although that would be too risky as a policy, we might at least offer such citizens medals at public ceremonies.

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