“Vance County [North Carolina] sheriff’s deputies responded around 7 p.m. to an address there after getting a call about a fight,” cnn.com reports. “When they got there, deputies found two people shot. One was Lloyd Woodlief, 84, who lived at the Kittrell home, according to Sheriff Peter White. He had been shot once with a 12-gauge shotgun and ‘died shortly thereafter,’ the sheriff said. His son, 49-year-old Lloyd Peyton Woodlief, had been shot with a 22-caliber pistol, added White. The resident of nearby Henderson, North Carolina, was being treated at Duke Medical Center in Durham as of Tuesday afternoon. The other person involved was the 11-year-old grandson of Lloyd Woodlief.” Apparently . . .
Octogenarian Lloyd Woodlief shot his son. Then his 11-year-old grandson shot him.
The antis will grab this one with both hands. It plays to three of their mendacious memes: people are too stupid to own guns, the presence of guns escalate arguments to violence and you’re more likely to get shot by a gun in your house than use it to defend yourself. Yes well . . .
Imagine you’re 11 years old. Gramps is either mean or mentally ill or both. An argument ensues and he shoots your father. Grandpa is bound to keep shooting Dad (or maybe you) until he’s dead. What are you supposed to do? Let him kill your old man? Not in my world. You defend your father the best way you know how. You shoot your grandfather.
That sucks on all sorts of levels. No 11-year-old should ever be put in that position. But he was and, absent more facts, I reckon he did the right thing. Regarding the presence of guns in a household “enabling” family members’ murderous impulses, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Americans have a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
Our gun rights keep us free from government tyranny and protect us from criminal predation. Because we have gun rights, because there are over 150m guns in American households, there will be collateral damage. It’s unavoidable. Criminals will kill each other with guns, people will commit suicide with guns, emotionally unbalanced people will murder someone with a gun and accidents will happen.
When we encounter stories of firearms-related injury and death, we need to decry the violence. But we also have to keep in mind that tens of millions of gun-owning Americans never fire their guns at another human being. And never will. They exercise their gun rights without incident. And the vast majority of those who do use their gun against others – some 800k of them per year – do so legally, protecting innocent life.
The Truth About Guns will not shy away from the dark side of gun ownership. But we will always endeavor to keep it in perspective, lest we lost our perspective and neglect the rights that protect all we hold dear. [h/t DrVino]
There are all manner of things we could outlaw the would save lives each year—alcohol, sports cars, SUVs, swimming pools, etc…and grandpa could always take a knife and stab his son.
What’s the takeaway? Well with Anti logic the proper thing to do would be to ban Grandpa’s. If a Grandpa hadn’t been involved in this situation, it never would have occurred.
In this version of events, as told by the sister of the 49 year old son, the elderly was father was defending himself from his son the aggressor. The boy was a pawn. Better to wait and see how this develops.
I will tell you hat we do know so far. IN the US murder is down by 50% per capita the past 20 years and it is down 60% in NC
Your take on this is spot on. Collateral damage is indeed unavoidable. Freedom can be messy. With rights come responsibilities and risks. A free people have to accept some risks. That doesn’t mean that we have to like it. Nor does it mean that we can’t try to do things in an attempt to mitigate risk. However, we cannot infringe upon the rights of another in efforts to minimize risk. I don’t think that most gun owners believe that firearms lead to some utopia but they do recognize the alternative to exercising the RKBA is to not be a free people.
People will behave badly. That’s human nature. It’s unavoidable.
Yeah, but when the kid is 50, he can say he’s been shooting and killing people since he was 11. That’s cool!
I think we can leave this type of BS at home. That is exactly the type of joke (and I sincerely hope that was a joke) that feeds more ammunition to the antis. Please refrain from such statements in the future.
If police officers in Vance County come in that shape and format . . . I can’t wait to be arrested ! 🙂
I don’t think you’d enjoy the body cavity search.
Better be sure which team she plays for first buddy!
She might be a “butter face”.
Also sporting the “female mullet”.
Hard to tell in the dark but based on the anterior tilt in her pelvis, appears to have quite a “hang over”.
Bottom line: her best side was photographed.
In the dark, most are sexy.
That was the first thing I noticed….
No matter which way it plays, or how the story ends, that’s plain effed up.
Just when you think your own family may be disfunctional…
Yep, their Thanksgiving meals must be very interesting.
Read the latest update. The father , Peyton Woodlief put the loaded shotgun in his 11 year old son’s hands. His father, 84 year old Lloyd Woodlief was at his home when Peyton burst in and threatened him with a club.
“He pulled out a club, like a policeman’s club stick, and told him he was gonna beat him to death with it,” Thomas said. From there, she said Peyton put up the club and grabbed Lloyd’s shotgun. Lloyd told him to put it down and reached for his pistol.
“‘I’m not gonna let you hurt me,'” Thomas described her father warning Peyton. “And so Peyton, my brother, reached over, put a shell in the shotgun and give it to his son, Daniel, and said, ‘If he shoots me, I want you to kill him.'”
Thomas says her dad told Peyton to leave, but he didn’t. “He steps again,” she explained. “My dad shot him. He shot him five times.”
Immediately, another sound of gunfire, this time it was from that shotgun deputies say her 11-year-old nephew fired.
( statement from Melissa Thomas, the victim’s daughter and Peyton’s sister)
Does this county have a history of cops killing unarmed citizens? If so, I can understand the “Do it yourself” attitude. Sucks that an 11 year old has to make that decision but what elxe could he do? To wait could have meant a much greater body count.
Sound like a pretty dysfunctional bunch…
Can’t we all just get along? No!
The story doesn’t end with the Grandpa testing an 11 yr old’s firearm prowess, an intenational conglomerate later attempted to finish out the boy’s evening, and remainder of his days, by kicking in his door and relieving him of the only (and potentially last) bit of safety he can afford himself.
Don’t let CNN down your block, if they send a surrogate first, make sure the footage is on FOX.
Obviously, if they had taken our guns away, this would have never happened.
/sarc
Serious reply to your /sarc/.
Yeah, the grandfather would have stabbed his son to death, and no one would have been able to stop him. The shotgun made an 11 year old boy stronger than his grandfather. So he could defend his father.
Sounds like the shotgun made the boy an accessory to a home invasion, and a murderer.
No one would have been able to stop an 84-year-old man from stabbing a much younger man to death? I suppose it’s possible, if you have an especially spry and strong 84-year-old and everyone else in the room is an anemic with only one lung. But in general, 84-year-olds don’t commonly win physical altercations with younger people.
No, in the absense of guns the 84-year-old would have been beaten to death by his son while his grandson watched.
Ya see, this is why first cousin marriage is illegal in most places.
What about brother and sister?
What a mess. And it was a mess that didn’t begin and probably won’t end with that night.
Talk about nightmare fuel…
So there was an intrafamily fight we don’t know all the details on. Only highlighting the bad by digging it up before the antis do is only doing their homework for us. You are engaging in the same tactics as they are. Blaming the sins of the drunk driver on the rest of the driving public.
Holy smokes! I feel so sad for the 11 year old kid being thrust into this mess. I hope and pray that the kid gets some serious help. And I also pray for the poor sister that had to watch this all unfold in front of her. Sad times for that family.
I’m the mother of this child. We went to trial on 4-11-16 and the case was dismissed on 4-13-16 based on self-defense. The grandfather shot at my son, his own grandson.
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