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seamusTX wrote:

NguyenVanDon wrote:If I saw someone at night broken into my car and trying to steal my stuff, I would have unloaded my entire mag through my windshield....

Please think about this: You can be legally in the right and still get into a lot of trouble.

I have to agree with Jim on this. I would not have an absolute mindset over killing someone over a car stereo, speaker, or other personal property that the insurance company will cover. YMMV, but I bet it would be the most expensive point you ever decide to make.

I always like to use the shark tank scenario for this. If it is worth jumping into a tank full of sharks to save.....watch the front sight and squeeze until satisfied. If you would let it sink to the bottom....it might be work thinking a bit more in depth about your actions.

Just my 2 cents....always good to give the mind an occasional jog on these issues.

NguyenVanDon wrote:I'm pretty young myself. I'm only 22 yrs old. If I saw someone at night broken into my car and trying to steal my stuff, I would have unloaded my entire mag through my windshield. Like stated above, Criminal Mischief during nighttime.

Wow... Wow, wow, wow. Let us partake in a little elementary school math refresher, shall we? Remember the "alligator" mouth which opened toward the number or unit of greater value?

[MY LIFE] > [THE LIFE OF ANOTHER]

[MY IPOD] < [THE LIFE OF ANOTHER]

Your CHL is not a calling from God to clean up the streets. Why is everyone SO intent on taking another life?!? Have I ever taken a life? No, but four members of my immediate family and too many of my friends have during their time in the military. Ask them, or anyone with such an experience who lingers on this forum, which they would rather take: a human life, or a trip to the Apple store for a stinkin' iPod. Get over yourself pal; You're not one of the Boondock Saints. It's people like you who give the rest of us a bad name.

jbirds1210 wrote: I always like to use the shark tank scenario for this. If it is worth jumping into a tank full of sharks to save.....watch the front sight and squeeze until satisfied. If you would let it sink to the bottom....it might be work thinking a bit more in depth about your actions.

That's a good one, jbirds. I'll have to keep this one in mind.

Okay okay, maybe I over exaggerated over unloading my magazine through the windshield, but I would have done something though. I'm not going to be a sitting duck and watch someone strip my car apart. I've already talked to 2 LEO this afternoon. They've already told me what I need to do in this situation in justification in shooting or not shooting. I asked a lot of question, to the point where I won't get into trouble with the law and be protected by self defense.

seamusTX wrote:

NguyenVanDon wrote:If I saw someone at night broken into my car and trying to steal my stuff, I would have unloaded my entire mag through my windshield....

Please think about this: You can be legally in the right and still get into a lot of trouble.

Until September 1, the thief or his relatives can sue you.

Imagine if the thief is a young kid and unarmed. The newspapers and TV can make you look like a bloodthirsty killer. You could have people marching outside your house or vandalizing it.

Just something to think about.

He wouldn't think they will break in again because they don't see the stuff laying around, but I guess he was wrong.

They know that you will replace the things they stole, so they come back after a few months. I lost two batteries in a few weeks that way.

- Jim

The LEO here just warn the entire neighborhood about this. I think if someone tries to do this again, no matter if its a 16 yrs old kid, do what you think its right on your property. Especially when it's a night and someone is burglarizing your property. This is not coming from the word of my mouth, but the words from the Arlington Police Officers.

NguyenVanDon wrote:The LEO here just warn the entire neighborhood about this. I think if someone tries to do this again, no matter if its a 16 yrs old kid, do what you think its right on your property. Especially when it's a night and someone is burglarizing your property. This is not coming from the word of my mouth, but the words from the Arlington Police Officers.

That's fine, but those police officers are not going to have to deal with the consequences.

Another thing to think about: If you shoot someone who is in your car, you need to replace your windshield, $350-500. The thief may have HIV or another contagious disease (many criminals do), so you need a biohazard cleanup. You may need a new front seat, $1,000 or so. And your insurance company might not pay for it because you did the damage intentionally (you need to read the fine print).

I need to do some thinking while I cook dinner, which I have to do now. I'll get back to you.

- Jim

TheYoungGuy wrote:

NguyenVanDon wrote:I'm pretty young myself. I'm only 22 yrs old. If I saw someone at night broken into my car and trying to steal my stuff, I would have unloaded my entire mag through my windshield. Like stated above, Criminal Mischief during nighttime.

Wow... Wow, wow, wow. Let us partake in a little elementary school math refresher, shall we? Remember the "alligator" mouth which opened toward the number or unit of greater value?

[MY LIFE] > [THE LIFE OF ANOTHER]

[MY IPOD] < [THE LIFE OF ANOTHER]

Your CHL is not a calling from God to clean up the streets. Why is everyone SO intent on taking another life?!? Have I ever taken a life? No, but four members of my immediate family and too many of my friends have during their time in the military. Ask them, or anyone with such an experience who lingers on this forum, which they would rather take: a human life, or a trip to the Apple store for a stinkin' iPod. Get over yourself pal; You're not one of the Boondock Saints. It's people like you who give the rest of us a bad name.

His CHL has nothing to do with this.

NguyenVanDon wrote:I talk to the LEO about shooting in this situation about an hour ago. He told me it's justified in this situation to shoot someone that is burglarizing your vehicle or home at night. He told me directly, you gotta do what you gotta do because if he was in my shoes he would have done the same thing.

And I suppose this would get you through the Grand Jury phase of your shooting experience.

I heard something once and I am paraphrasing here - If you would die if it were stolen, shoot to keep it.

Never saw a stereo that nice. Every time I have had something stolen from me, there was something I could have done to prevent it, and shooting the thief was not it.

Anygun

NguyenVanDon wrote:
The LEO here just warn the entire neighborhood about this. I think if someone tries to do this again, no matter if its a 16 yrs old kid, do what you think its right on your property. Especially when it's a night and someone is burglarizing your property. This is not coming from the word of my mouth, but the words from the Arlington Police Officers.

I think the point is that a 16 year old kid...assuming they aren't wielding a weapon against you, is pretty much defenseless. At that point you face a question, is ending the kid's life going to do anything productive? Will it gain you anything? What do you stand to lose by doing this?

You're going to feel horrible about killing someone when you could of spared them.

Their parents are going to be devastated and will likely sue you.

You'll cause more damage to your car then they would have.

You stand a chance of going to court anyway.

Your bullets could miss and strike an innocent person.

If the person is still alive then you can maybe receive compensation from them.



Just because you are allowed to doesn't mean you should.




In your situation had I heard them breaking in, my blood would be boiling too. I would of called the cops and told them that someone had broken into my car and was still inside. At that point I would either stay inside, or confront them. If I did go outside it would be with a shotgun, there would be a lot of yelling, and they would be given a chance to hit the deck. If they managed to escape then they get away, if they hit the deck then they'll be there until police arrive, if they came at me then I'd have no issues doing what had to be done.

But just shooting someone because I was mad about them breaking into my car is pretty unacceptable IMO.

frankie_the_yankee wrote:

KRM45 wrote:Why is it that rather than trying to prevent this from happening again your first thought is "can I shoot them?"

I have seen many threads on here about improving security around the home. I would personally look into that first.

NVD can answer for himself, but it hardly seems like this was his first thought.

Perhaps you've not looked at his previous posts...

Van Don,

Here is what I would do in this kind of scenario. (I didn't need to think about what I would do, just how to put it into words in a public forum.)

We are talking about someone breaking into my garage, or my parked car, or stealing from the yard -- not a threat to life.

Someone breaking into cars and stealing loose items is not an experienced criminal. An experienced criminal would be stealing entire cars or valuable parts like the steering column.

Someone breaking into cars most likely does not have a weapon. If he had a weapon, he would be committing armed robberies or carjackings.

Therefore, it is likely to be a kid or a desperate junkie.

A kid does not want to go to juvenile detention because he will be brutalized. A junkie does not want to go to jail because he will be cut off from his drugs.

The first move in this scenario is to put the other people in my house into the safest place with a cell phone, and have them call 911. (I want my family members as far as possible from a potentially violent situation.)

I have a burglar alarm system. It has a panic button near each door. When I hit that button, a loud siren goes off and the monitoring company calls the police are called within a minute.

The kid or the desparate person will run. If the thief does not run, that means either he doesn't care whether he is caught, or is armed and thinks he can overcome anyone who interferes with him.

In that case, I am not going outside to risk my life in a situation with unknown threats. Our cars are not worth that much. They will be in the junk yard in five or ten years.

Are there things that I would risk my life for? Yes, but the cars are not among them.

As always, you have to make your own decision based on your situation and your values.

- Jim

Sounds like someone is carefully casing the locations and then executing a well planned series of hits.

I like the silent alarm.

It goes off in the house.

You go out the back door with a 200 lumen flashlight and your G19. Walk around the far side of the house, go onto the street, then come up behind your vehicle.

You hit the theives with the light at the same time you activate the vehicle alarm.

Of course what happens next might be too much fun.

A friend of mine in California is fearless. He used to take hang gliders from Socal over the Mojave and into Nevada as far as new Mexico.

One night he sees some kids trying to steal his wife's car.

He runs outside using the indirect route I described above and crack backs one, then goes for the kid in the car. The kid stabs the screwdriver he is using through my friends hand and into the slot for the window.

They go for a ride with him on the outside.

My friend pulls the screwdriver from his hand and puts it in the kid's chest, yanks the kid out of the car into the middle of the street, and then drives the car back to his house, parks the car on the leg of the other kid, and waits for the police.

Sorry to reply so late again. I went to get my uncle's alarm done. If they come back again and break the window, the alarm will go off. We also stopped by the nearest academy and my uncle picked up a 12 gauge Mossberg Defender Shotgun for the home defense.

Anyways, I respect everyone opinion here. No hate or whatever towards anyone, and I like to appreciated everyone honesty on justifying shooting or not. Majority of the people here consider me gung-ho, but like someone said before on the first page, only I can choose what to do in a situation like this. I can only speak for myself. Maybe because I'm young, stupid, and I don't know any better, but I have seen my friend's cousin got shot up in a drive by one night in Houston. That day changed my life around. That's why I'm here in Arlington, to get away from the crime, but it looks like Arlington is not even better then where I left off in Houston.

I will go back to the Arlington Police Department and get a written proof what the officers announce to everyone in our neighborhood today to be on the safe side tomorrow. I have also got my entire neighborhood as witnesses of what happened today, so you are looking at over 60+ people. I have gotten to know my neighbors pretty well today. Some I have never spoken to, but today have changed. I found out at least 9 of my neighbors, including us, are packing. We also talked about what happened today, and believe it or not, they are thinking the same way as I am.

Someone here said the family will sue me. I say go right ahead. I got 2 of my uncle's close friends that are lawyers. They are also CHLer's, and my uncle have already contacted both of them of what happen today already, and they have told us what we need to know if something like this happens. I'm going to recommend my uncle's lawyer friends to my neighbors tomorrow, and tell them to give them a call right away.

It's late, and I got church at 9:00am in the morning. It's going to be a long day tomorrow for me. I will keep ya updated on this asap.

Castle doctrine does not go into effect until Sept 1st so you can get sued If something was to happen before then. Be carefull, As long as the theives don't come into the house I will refrain from deadly force. I get worked up when I think about someone trying to hurt my family.

I don't think police or lawyers will change our opinion on this matter, even in the right, the best idea is to preserve life.