California concealed carry holder shoots ax-wielding attacker on his property
The California suspect, Luis Larios, suffered a non life-threatening gunshot wound
[just my opinion but the homeowner might make good use of a course on accuracy]

Police in the northern part of California’s central valley say that an ax-wielding man was shot after allegedly attacking a property owner who has a concealed-carry permit.

In a Facebook post, the Merced County Sheriff’s Department says deputies received a call Tuesday evening of an assault taking place in the city of Dos Palos, California.

On the way to the scene of the incident, deputies were informed by dispatch that the victim was a legally permitted CCW holder who shot the adult male in self-defense.

That suspect, according to police, had attempted to hit the victim with an ax.

Deputies arrived on the scene and found that the suspect, identified as Luis Larios, suffered a gunshot wound that was not believed to be life-threatening.

The Facebook post says that Deputy Machado administered a tourniquet to Larios as they waited for an ambulance to arrive.

“Deputies determined that the property owner located Larios sitting in his vehicle on the property and was stuck in the mud,” the Facebook post said.

“The property owner then tried to help him get his car unstuck when Larios became angry and grabbed an axe from the trunk of his car. He then began swinging the axe in a threatening way.”

The shooting was determined to be justified self-defense and Larios is currently in custody “pending criminal charges”, according to the release.

Increased gun sales for minorities due to rational reasons

Gun sales for minorities in the United States have been surging for quite a while now. While the popular image of gun ownership continues to be older white dudes, the reality is very, very different.

More and more gun owners are women and many of those are black or Hispanic.

So why are some of them buying firearms?

Well, here’s why one of them did, and she’s unlikely to be an exception.

Andréa “Muffin” Hudson is an activist for incarcerated individuals, directs two criminal justice nonprofits, and believes prisons do catastrophic harm. She is also a gun owner.

When Hudson, 47, drives around Durham, her G2C 9 mm pistol sits beside her on the passenger seat. She carries it with her everywhere, wearing it like a “fanny pack.” She leaves her gun behind only when she goes to the Durham County Courthouse to pay cash bonds.

Hudson lives with her son, 18, and daughter, 28. Her round cheeks frame her easygoing smile as words flow out, her deep voice suited to the seriousness of her work.

Each room in Hudson’s house has a gun in it. Even the bathroom.

“So if you’re in the bathroom, and somebody breaks in while you’re in the bathroom, you can protect yourself,” she said, laughing. “You know, I watch a lot of movies.”

…

Donald Trump’s presidency inflamed deep-seated racial animosity, lent new muscle and momentum to white nationalists, and stoked the fears of people like Hudson. She bought her first gun in 2017.

“I got it because Trump won, became president, and people were acting erratic,” said Hudson, who is Black. “I was thinking that folks were going to start doing stuff to harm other people. I was thinking about The Walking Dead and Armageddon coming, and I wanted to give us a fighting chance to survive.”

Now, a lot of people would read that and roll their eyes. They’d argue that white supremacy isn’t nearly the threat the media makes it out to be.

Here’s my take: It doesn’t matter.

If you think there’s a potential threat to you and yours, it behooves you to arm yourself and prepare to defend your life and the lives of your family members. That means buying guns.

Yes, it may not be as big of a threat as it feels, but most of us are unlikely to be the victim of a violent crime, either, yet we still carry a firearm.

However, for those like Hudson who do have these concerns, I’d offer a suggestion. If you feel this way, you should start pushing the lawmakers asking for your support to oppose gun control.

After all, if you’re a minority and you’re worried about racial strife, who do you think is most likely to be targeted by gun control? If this is such a racist nation, why wouldn’t black and Hispanic gun owners be the target of anti-gun efforts?

If racism is such a prevalent concern, then why not work to make it impossible for those racists to disarm you and eradicate your ability to defend yourself?

Arming up in response to your concerns over a threat isn’t just rational, it’s smart. Yet you should also be prepared to dig in and fight to preserve the ability for everyone to do the same thing.

BOLD-FACED LIE: Gun Control Groups Twist Heritage Foundation Data Out of Recognition in Court Documents

A conglomerate of gun control groups has filed a brief in federal court supporting the District of Columbia in a lawsuit challenging the city’s prohibition on civilian possession of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds.

This was not at all surprising.

What was quite perplexing, however, was the gun control groups’ citation of two of my recent monthly articles for The Daily Signal on defensive gun use. The groups claim the two articles “support” the premise that the District’s ban doesn’t negatively affect law-abiding gun owners, because none of the cases I cited “involved the use of anywhere close to 10 rounds of ammunition.”

Worse, the gun control groups spun this as The Heritage Foundation, among others, having “acknowledged that the ability to fire more than 10 rounds of ammunition without reloading is not necessary for defensive purposes.” (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)

These are incredible claims in the most literal sense: They lack any credibility.

At best, the legal brief’s characterization of my monthly articles on defensive gun use is lazy to the point of recklessness and wrongly attributes to my employer, The Heritage Foundation, a policy position that it doesn’t hold. At worst, this constitutes an intentional effort to manipulate a federal court with a blatantly misleading representation of Heritage’s work on defensive gun use.

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Today, January 8

1297 – Forces under François Grimaldi, the ruling family of Monaco still to date, capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco.

1790 – As required by the U.S. Constitution, George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address to Congress in New York City, at the time, the provisional capital.

1815 – Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British in the Battle of New Orleans

1828 – The Democratic Party of the United States is organized.

1835 – President Andrew Jackson announces a celebratory dinner after having reduced the United States national debt to Zero for the first and only time.

1863 – Confederate forces from Arkansas under Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke engage Union forces under Brigadier General Egbert Brown in house to house fighting in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Union supply depot at Springfield, Missouri.

1877 – Lakota and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse and Two Moon engage in their last battle against the U. S. Army in an unsuccessful attack on troops under Colonel Nelson A. Miles at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.

1889 – Herman Hollerith is issued a US patent for the ‘Art of Applying Statistics’;  a punch card calculator.

1956 – 5 U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani tribe in Ecuador shortly after making first contact.

1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a “War on Poverty” in the United States. (As we can see, it’s been a utter failure, actually causing more problems than Johnson proclaimed to want to solve)

1973 – The trial of 7 men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office complex begins

1982 – After being sued by the U. S. government, AT&T agrees to a consent decree, divesting itself of 22 subsidiary operating companies taking effect at the end of the next year.

2002 – President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act. ( Another failure that was so bad, the law was repealed in 2015)

2003 – Air Midwest Flight 5481, a Beechcraft 1900D, crashes at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 passengers and crew on board.

2005 – The nuclear sub USS San Francisco collides at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man is killed, but the sub surfaces and is repaired.

2011 – Federal Judge John Roll, along with 5 others are killed and 18 more, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, are wounded by a literal madman in a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona

LaGrange police arrest suspect after home invasion leads to gunfire

LaGRANGE, Ga. (WRBL) — LaGrange police arrested a man on multiple charges after a home invasion resulted in gunfire.

On Thursday, Jan. 5 around 11:55 p.m., LaGrange police responded to a person shot near Mitchell Avenue and North Greenwood Street. Around that same time, officers were also dispatched to a home invasion involving gunfire at Lafayette Court.

After being treated and released, Fanning was arrested on attempted murder, as well as three counts of aggravated assault and one count of first-degree home invasion. Fanning is currently being held at the Troup County Jail on these charges.

En Banc Fifth Circuit Denies Chevron Deference to ATF in Bump Stock Case

A majority of judges concluded the plain language of the statute does not apply to bump stocks, but they also would have denied Chevron deference had they found the statute ambiguous.
Today the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms regulation extending the federal prohibition on machineguns to “bump stocks” is unlawful, as Eugene noted in a post below. In Cargill v. Garland, the judges split 13-3 on the merits, and the 13 in the majority divided on the rationale. Eight of the judges concluded the statute is unambiguous. Five additional judges concluded that, insofar as the statute is ambiguous, it should be interpreted not to cover bump stocks under the Rule of Lenity.

One aspect of the opinion, that appears to be supported by half of the judges on the en banc court, is that even were the statute ambiguous, it would not merit Chevron deference because the agency had not relied upon Chevron. Seven additional judges further concluded that ATF should not get Chevron deference because the statute imposes criminal penalties and the ATF reversed its prior interpretation of the statute. (Judge Oldham joined the first part of the court’s Chevron discussion, but not the rest.)

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January 7

49 BC – The Senate of Rome says that Caesar will be declared a public enemy unless he disbands his army which is encamped on the north side of the Rubicon river in northeastern Italy.

1608 – Fire destroys the colony of Jamestown, Virginia

1610 – In a message to  Johannes Kepler:
ALTISSIMUM PLANETAM TERGEMINUM OBSERVAVI
“I have observed the most distant planet to have a triple form”
Galileo Galilei notes his telescopic observation of the first 2 of the 4 largest moons of Saturn: Ganymede and Callisto, distinguishing the last 2, Io and Europa (Attempt No Landing There) the following day.

1782 – The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens

1785 – Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries fly from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon

1894 – Thomas Edison makes a kinetoscopic film of someone sneezing, on the same day, his employee, William Kennedy Dickson, receives a patent for motion picture film.

1927 – The first transatlantic telephone service is established from New York City to London.

1948 – Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell, flying a P-51, Mustang, crashes and dies near Franklin, Kentucky, while in pursuit of a reported UFO.

1954 – The first public demonstration of an automatic machine language translation system is held in New York at the head office of IBM.

1968 – Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor moon lander probe series, lifts off from launch complex 36A, Cape Canaveral.

1973 – Black racist sniper Mark Essex is shot and killed by New Orleans police on the roof of the Howard Johnson’s Hotel after killing 9 people and wounding 13 more in different places over the period beginning on December 31st.

1980 – President Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation, which was repaid, with interest, in 1983.

1994 – United Express Flight 6291, a British Aerospace Jetstream 41, crashes in Gahanna, Ohio, killing 5 of the 8 passengers and crew on board

1999 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of President Clinton begins

2015 – Two moslem terrorists assault the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, killing 12 people and wounding 11.

2020 – The 6.4Mw  earthquake kill 4 people and injures 9 more in southern Puerto Rico.

Ranking Redux

Everytown for Gun Safety is rank. And by that, we mean their state gun control law ranking system is rank(ed at the top of the silliness scale).

Takeaways

Everytown’s state law ranking system:

  • Is arbitrary, lacking any criminological basis.
  • Shows very little gun violence variability between states based on their gun laws.
  • Omits the most violent district, which has stringent gun laws.
  • Includes suicides, which are inappropriate in such an analysis.

Echoing the Brady Campaign

The moribund Brady Campaign (or whatever they are calling themselves this week) used to produce a state gun law scorecard every year. It was, in a word, a gun control wish list and nothing more. We keep their last scorecard criteria to reference their arbitrary scoring system for reference and a few laughs (whichever laws they were promoting that year tended get a higher score).

 

Brady Campaign State Scorecard vs Violent Crime Rates

click for larger, sharable version
 

Everytown Gun Law Ranking and Homicide Rates

click for larger, sharable version

We would dutifully produce a scatter diagram each year showing the utter lack of correlation between the Brady Campaign scorecard and any variety of crime.

The Brady Campaign quit producing their scorecard some time after we demonstrated that the states with “strongest” and most “lax” gun laws had identical rates of violent crime (in this last chart we made, blue California on the left and red Arizona on the right).

With the Brady Campaign largely forgotten, Everytown for Gun Safety picked up the slack and started producing their own “ranking” system

Same game, new player.

Blighted Everytown

The headline element of note is that Everytown’s ranking system doesn’t actually prove their point. Quite the opposite.

Here we took their ranking and graphed it against both gun homicides and all modes of homicides. Though the slope of the line does rise as Everytown’s arbitrary rankings drop (left-to-right, “strongest” to most “lax”) the rise is minuscule.

More importantly, the vertical scattering of points shows high volatility all the way from California to Mississippi. For the statistics junkies, that’s an R2 of 0.02 for gun homicides, which basically means no correlation between Everytown’s gun law rankings and actual gun violence.

Let’s list some of the “research” sins Everytown committed:

  • They omitted Washington, DC, which year in and year out is the murder capital as well as of the nation. The District also has stringent gun control laws, so this omission is blatant data rigging.
  • In their analysis, Everytown included suicides. We have shown, using a more appropriate international scale, that there is no correlation between gun availability and suicide rates. This is because the probability of someone wanting to commit suicide is based instead on external factors and cultural attitudes about suicide.

Let’s score their scorecard:

  • No criminology basis.
  • Excludes important datapoint.
  • Includes inappropriate data.
  • Composed via an arbitrary wish list.

In short, meaningless equine effluvium.

Everytown Dumbs Things Down

We expect advocacy groups (Everytown, NRA… doesn’t matter) to promote their causes. But to present the public with wantonly dubious and disastrously constructed “research” only helps to destroy their own brand and weaken their mission.

 

 

Shooting at Bingo Paradise: Citizens hold alleged suspect at gunpoint

ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. (WKRG) — A Pensacola man was charged with aggravated battery and aggravated assault after he allegedly shot at two women who were asking for jumper cables Wednesday night on Mobile Hwy., according to Escambia County Sheriff’s deputies.

Lee David Wilkerson, 38, was charged with aggravated assault, aggravated battery, firing a weapon, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, a weapon offense and trafficking amphetamine.

As deputies arrived at the business, deputies saw a white male, wearing a gray jacket and blue jeans lying on the floor with two unknown citizens holding him at gun point. Deputies said several customers inside the business began screaming and pointing at the white male on the ground saying, “He is the one who was shooting.”

Deputies said they detained Wilkerson and found a large baggie containing a crystallized rock substance and a fixed blade knife. Deputies said the crystallized rock substance tested positive for methamphetamine.

Deputies said they spoke with a victim who said Wilkerson had shot at her and her friend. The victim said she went to the business to get jumper cables from her mother who was playing bingo inside. She said she saw Wilkerson and another female standing outside of the business. According to the arrest report, the victim asked Wilkerson if they could go inside and tell the victim’s mother her daughter was here to get the jumper cables. The victim said Wilkerson told her, “no.”

According to the arrest report, the victim and her friend began to walk inside to get her mother, at which time Wilkerson and the other female began “acting strange.” The victim said at that time the woman started attacking her. The victim said that is when Wilkerson removed a small handgun from his right side, took the firearm and hit her in the left side of her head. One of the victim’s said Wilkerson then pointed the firearm at her and the other victim and began shooting towards them. According to the arrest report, one of the victims ran inside the business and the other went back to her vehicle and left the business. According to the victim inside the business, she heard more shots being fired as she entered the business.

Deputies said they spoke with a witness who was inside the business calling out bingo numbers. The witness said he heard a commotion outside, at which time he turned around and saw Wilkerson pull a firearm from his pants and begin shooting. The witness said he told everyone in the building to get on the ground. According to the arrest report, two minutes later, Wilkerson came into the business and then two citizens pulled concealed weapons and held Wilkerson at gun point until deputies arrived.

During the investigation, other deputies on scene discovered “numerous” .380 caliber shell casings in the parking lot and near the front entrance to the business. Deputies said a firearm was located in the dumpster where Wilkerson said he threw the gun.

Wilkerson was transported to Escambia County Jail, where he was booked on a $156,000 bond.

Today, January 6

1066 – Following the death of Edward the Confessor on the previous day, the Witan council meets to confirm Harold Godwinson as the new King of England; Harold is crowned the same day, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.

1492 – Ferdinand and Isabella enter Granada at the end of the Granada War and conclusion of the Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula.

1838 – Alfred Vail and Samuel Morse demonstrate a telegraph system using dots and dashes – a forerunner of the ‘Morse Code’ –  to indicate letters of the alphabet.

1847 – Samuel Colt obtains his first contract for the sale of revolver pistols to the U.S government.

1893 –The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation receives a charter from Congress to construct the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, commonly known as Washington National Cathedral.

1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome, Italy.

1912 – New Mexico is admitted to the Union as the 47th state.

1930 – Clessie Cummins arrives at the National Automobile Show in New York City, driving a car powered by one of his diesel engines

1947 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to offer an around the world ticket.

1960 – National Airlines Flight 2511, a Douglas DC-6, is destroyed in mid-air by a bomb, while en route from New York City to Miami, killing all 34 passengers and crew aboard.

1994 – American figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked and injured by an assailant hired by her rival Tonya Harding’s ex-husband during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships

2005 – A collision between 2 Norfolk Southern trains, near the Avondale Mills textile plant in Graniteville, South Carolina, releases about 60 tons of chlorine gas, killing 9 people and injuring over 250 more who were exposed to the poisonous gas.

2017 – 5 people are killed and 6 others injured in a mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport in Broward County, Florida.

2021 – A group numbering in the multiple thousands protesting the count of the Electoral College vote, demonstrates on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol with some entering into the building resulting in the evacuation of Congressional members.

Carjacker killed when victim accelerates, slams into L track support beam in the Loop

Kinda hard on the car

Chicago — A carjacker was killed in the Loop on Thursday evening when the victim fought back, accelerated her car, and slammed into a beam that supports the L tracks, Chicago police said. The Cook County medical examiner’s office identified the deceased man as 18-year-old Elijah Treadwell of Uptown.

Treadwell and a 16-year-old female accomplice entered an Infiniti FX35 in the 100 block of East Lake and tried to carjack a woman around 5:42 p.m., officials said. A struggle ensued, and the victim’s car accelerated into the L support column near Wabash Avenue, trapping the victim and both offenders inside, police said.

Chicago Fire Department workers extracted everyone and took them to hospitals. Treadwell was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The female and the victim have both been stabilized, according to the fire department.

Chicago Critter posted close-up video of the wreckage as crews were preparing to tow it away:

 

In other words, since it’s a Bloomberg funded Front group, keeping the money coming in is job 1.

After midterm defeat, Iowa anti-gunners demand waiting periods

Back in November, Iowa voters sent a strong message of support for the right to keep and bear arms by enshrining it into the state constitution in overwhelming numbers. Not only does the amendment explicitly protect gun ownership, it instructs courts in the state to view any gun control laws through a “strict scrutiny” lens; a measure that requires regulations to be narrowly tailored to achieve a governmental interest.

Activists with the Iowa chapter of March For Our Lives say the new amendment has had an impact on their legislative agenda this year, but they’ve settled on a few restrictions that they believe can pass constitutional muster.

“Strict scrutiny will endanger any hopes of introducing common-sense gun policy in the state of Iowa,” [Waverly] Zhao said. “Additionally, the vague and overbroad wording of the legislation leaves the definitions of terms like ‘arms’ and ‘restrictions’ up to broad interpretations, which may serve to undermine the few current gun regulation policies in Iowa.”

But the gun safety advocates said there are still measures state legislators can pass they argue could help stop gun violence in Iowa. In its 2023 legislative agenda, March for Our Lives recommended Iowa legislators pass a mandatory three-day waiting period, universal background checks and mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms.

The strict scrutiny amendment language was approved by almost 2/3rds of the state’s voters, so Zhao should consider the possibility that those “common sense” policies she wants to see in place don’t make much sense to most of her neighbors. That’s the real roadblock to the type of anti-gun policies that MFOL wants to put in place; the will of the people. The new constitutional amendment is simply an expression of that will, as is their opposition to any new measures that try to criminalize lawful gun ownership or burden the lawful exercise of that right in any way.

Esha Bolar, an 18-year-old high school senior from Johnston and co-state director for the advocacy group, said March for Our Lives had to take a step back from some of its more “ambitious” policy goals, like police demilitarization, given the new amendment and conservative majorities in both chambers of the Iowa Legislature.

“Now I don’t think that’s possible, amongst a lot of other kinds of gun violence prevention policy that we’ve researched in the past,” Bolar said. “But we know that with these three priorities we can see some kind of change happening.”

Bolar said she believes all three of the recommended policies will be able to hold up to any strict scrutiny challenges. Other states have implemented a three-day waiting period and universal background checks for acquiring firearms, which have survived court challenges finding they did not violate Second Amendment rights from the U.S. Constitution. However, new state constitutional amendment offers protections beyond the Second Amendment, which does not hold laws to the strict scrutiny test.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that the courts would uphold each and every one of MFOL’s legislative goals for the year. That doesn’t make them any more likely to be enacted into law. Forget strict scrutiny for a second; these ideas don’t pass the smell test for most Iowans or their elected representatives.

Any attempt to restrict the rights of law-abiding residents, or to try to make the state a safer place by criminalizing a constitutionally-protected right isn’t likely to make it out of committee in Iowa. These young anti-civil rights activists may be hoping to put some new infringements in place, but they’re in for a long wait… period.

New York AG’s Emergency SCOTUS Bid to Preserve Concealed Carry Law Could Mark Showdown Between Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh

New York State Attorney General Letitia James (D) asked the Supreme Court Tuesday to keep its new Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) in effect while a lawsuit works its way through the courts. The emergency filing marks the justices’ first chance to decide a major Second Amendment dispute since it ruled last summer in New York State Rifle v. Bruen.

The 2022 statute was the result of the state legislature’s emergency session which immediately followed the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen. The case had been a successful challenge to New York’s century-old handgun licensing regime. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the Court’s opinion that the statute was an unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment that unduly interfered with New Yorkers’ “special need for self-defense.”

Thomas also noted in his opinion that gun laws must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

New York’s legislative response to the Bruen ruling made it a felony to possess a gun in “sensitive areas” — such as museums, stadiums, public transit systems, parks, Times Square and houses of worship — as well as “restricted areas,” such as private property. The CCIA also added training requirements for concealed-carry permits, as well as a mandated written exam, in-person screening, and a review of social media accounts to ensure a licensee’s “good moral character” before licensing

After it was passed, the CCIA came under immediate attack by gun activists in multiple lawsuits.

In one such case, U.S. District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby, a George W. Bush appointee, temporarily blocked the “sensitive places” and “good moral character” portions of the law on the grounds that analogous regulations did not exist in the 18th and 19th century. James successfully appealed that ruling.

A three-judge panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit next ruled unanimously to stay Suddaby’s order pending the outcome of New York’s appeal and ordered expedited consideration of the case with a Jan. 9, 2023, deadline for briefs.

The panel, which consisted of Circuit Judges Robert D. Sack, a Bill Clinton appointee; Richard C. Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee; and Joseph F. Bianco, a Donald Trump appointee, is the same trio that stayed another district court order in a separate challenge to the CCIA in December.

The gun owners responded with an emergency petition to the Supreme Court on Dec. 21, 2022, in which they asked the justices to keep the district court ruling in effect while the underlying challenge to the CCIA works its way through the appeal.

In a 43-page responsive brief, James urges the justices to refrain from taking the “extraordinary step” of vacating a circuit court order. In particular, James pointed to the timing of the question before the high court.

“This Court ordinarily awaits percolation of legal issues in the lower courts before granting review and would benefit from such percolation here,” the AG’s brief states.

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ARE YOU PREPARED?
BE READY FOR THESE FIVE CATEGORIES

Where’s the danger? Those who carry a weapon in public are constantly asking this question. We’re always in what Jeff Cooper popularized as Condition Yellow. No threat has been recognized, but we’re actively alert for anything that might come up. Once a potential threat has been identified, we move to Condition Orange and begin planning for an attack. We evaluate the threat, the availability of cover and concealment, look for other threats and evaluate the overall environment in case we need to use lethal force. Condition Orange is a critical stage because you’ve identified the threat and must prepare. I propose some threats are already known to us, but most are not adequately prepared to respond.

Threats come in many forms. We can’t always know where they will come from. When we do, however, we’re always better off if we have already prepared rather than waiting until it is staring us in the eyes. A prepared response is always better than an improvised one. This is especially true when the threat is deadly. Massad Ayoob has an oft-repeated phrase for this: “Know where the threats are most likely to come from and have a proven strategy prepared to counter it.” You can’t prepare for everything, so you’ve got to prioritize.

Learning the most common instances where lethal force was used can give you valuable information about where your focus should be. I was listening to the Armed Attorneys (YouTube) discussing this recently. According to them, civilian uses of force cases (as opposed to law enforcement) overwhelmingly come in five categories:

 

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Central Texas homeowner shoots home intruder

BOSQUE COUNTY, Texas (KWTX) – William Strauser, of Valley Mills, was booked into the Bosque County Jail on charges of attempted burglary of a habitation, criminal mischief, and criminal trespass after Strauser was shot by a local homeowner, Sheriff Trace Hendricks said.

At approximately 6:50 p.m. on Jan. 3, Bosque County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a call from a resident on County Road 3505 regarding an attempted burglary resulting in the homeowner shooting the alleged intruder.

The deputies who arrived at the residence found a man lying on the sidewalk in front of the residence with the homeowner holding the suspect at gunpoint.

The home owner was disarmed and deputies rendered first aid to the suspect, who was suffering from a gunshot wound in the upper region of his right leg.

The homeowner told the deputies the intruder rammed his vehicle through the locked gate, accessed the property, approached the residence’s front door, and “aggressively” attempted to break into the residence.

“Evidence at the scene supports this statement. The intruder was transported by ambulance to Hillcrest ER where he was treated for the gunshot wound and released,” the sheriff said. “Once released medically, deputies took the suspect into custody.”

Deputies confirmed the “parties involved were known to each other and that this was not a random burglary attempt.”