Wait till they get in?

[HCountyGuy]

I didn't think the primary question presented here was the reasonableness or lawfulness of force used so much as how the homeowner went about it. We harp on accountability of any rounds fired and I can't say that I would have done what this homeowner did given the circumstances. If time permits, I'm getting set up with a barrel pointed at the door as they continue attempting to force entry. Once entry is made and bad guy is sighted up, then I'll fire as appropriate.


Now, can I necessarily fault the homeowner for his actions while in a reasonable panic of obviously armed dudes trying to get in? No, of course not. But I'd be willing to bet that we (and I'm sure the homeowner) would be far more critical had one of the rounds that went in to his neighbor's unit killed an innocent person.

[TCinVA]

Saw this on another site. I imagine that everyone would agree that putting a dozen holes in neighbor's wall is not a great idea. At the same time there is a clear break-in in evolution. Does homeowner have to wait until they get in such case?

Ability
Opportunity
Intent
Immediate Jeopardy
Preclusion

These are the key factors in determining a justified use of force.

Do the criminals here have the ability to cause death or serious injury? They both have guns, so Yes.
Do they have the opportunity to bring those guns to bear? At any moment they could start firing through the door, so Yes.
Are their actions at this moment preparatory to causing harm with those weapons? A dude in a mask with a gun trying to kick your door down is all kinds of intent, so Yes.
Are the occupants of the home in danger of death or serious injury within a brief period of time? Here again we return to a dude in a mask with a gun trying to kick your door down, so Yes.
Is there a safe alternative to the use of force at the moment that the trigger was pulled? Possibly.

At the time the defender's shots were fired the door hadn't been breached and at least by what we can determine from the camera footage, the bad guys hadn't fired any shots...yet.

They were actively engaged in committing an armed felony, however...which is pretty much a greenlight for engaging them with lethal force.

Ordinarily shooting through the door is a bad idea because it is happening blindly. People hear knocks or someone trying to get in and they open up on a closed door without any understanding of what's on the other side. Here, if the home owner was looking at the ring camera footage he knew full well what was on the other side of the door: Two armed men engaged in the act of a home invasion. Exactly how successful does he have to let them be in this effort? Is his reaction to the situation he faced reasonable and necessary?

I'd argue it's perfectly reasonable given what he saw on the camera. Doubly so as we hear the police themselves say there are shell casings on the outside of the door. Fire was exchanged.

Was it necessary to use lethal force? Given what we see on video it's difficult to argue that the bad guys were just going to give up and walk away. It's reasonable to conclude based on what we see on video that the criminals were not going to relent until they were engaged with lethal force. So I'm going to go with a "yes" on this one.

Had they broken the door, would there be any less risk to the homeowner or potentially his neighbors? No. A greater risk to the occupants, and the same risk to the neighbors across the hall. By the looks of things the guy in the apartment actually used angles to get a good backstop. He didn't stand in front of the door and shoot, but stood off to an angle where his backstop was concrete that could be reasonably expected to stop bullets. So on the reasonable front, one can argue he acted at the moment when it was safest to do so for all the innocent people involved.

I don't teach people to engage through the door in my classes. I tell them it is a best practice to hold their fire until the criminal has actually forcibly entered their home. I tell them this because it hopefully prevents blind firing through a door at an unknown threat, and because a dead bad guy with a gun in his hand on your staircase with your door and frame splintered behind him, it's difficult to argue that this guy was just lost or trying to sell you magazines.

In this specific case there is unmistakable evidence of a home invasion in progress.

This is where "totality of circumstances" in regards to the use of lethal force comes into play. Ordinarily if someone asked me if they should shoot through the door when they think there's a home invasion going on, I'd say absolutely not. But if someone shows me the video here and says "is it OK that I shot when I did?" I'm going to say that while I may not have fired at the exact moment they picked, I can certainly understand why they did.

Does the fact that the door so far in still up mean that a condition of opportunity is not met?

Nope. You have video evidence of how little that door means against the weapons in play. Can the home owner argue that in this circumstance the bad guys might have opened fire so he did it first? Absolutely. And it would be a reasonable claim based on what we see in the video.

As I think of this, things get conflated in my head although the logical conclusion is that the guy shouldn't have shot until they got in.

In that circumstance I'd be on the other side of the door with a 12 gauge if at all possible. And I'd probably have waited for them to get through the door because I'm trying to avoid the use of lethal force if at all possible. The idea is that my actions versus the actions of the other guy make it clear that I only resorted to lethal force after the other guy absolutely insisted on making it a life or death fight.

But anyone who views that video can already see that it was a life or death fight.

I may not have pulled the trigger at that moment, but that's largely immaterial in the consideration here.

Take, for instance, the condition of the door. What condition was the door and the frame in when the home owner shot? We can't see it on camera, but if he sees that the door and frame are getting close to giving up the ghost then any hope that the door will keep them out evaporates. And if anyone has any clue at all about home invasions then they know that doors, even strong ones, do nothing but delay forcible entry. They do not deny it. If someone works at it long enough they will get through. The goal is that it is sufficiently difficult that you have time to get your gun and your wits about you to meet them with force when they do.

Whether it was at that moment or five seconds later, the home owner was going to have to shoot these criminals to defend himself. So while his actions go against my general advice and what I believe I would do in that situation, his actions are perfectly understandable and justifiable on their face.

SOP is SOP, but deviations from SOP when warranted are also just fine.

[1Rangemaster]

I appreciate all of the comments from others on statutes and cases. I have a few anecdotes, as earlier in life I lived in some sketchy neighborhoods. I've always thought Cooper's comment that if you did not have a firearm within reach while reading, you didn't understand the lesson. My personal take on the video is yikes! I sure hope the opposite apartment was unoccupied. That could have been catastrophically tragic.
I had a cinder block through an apartment window(ground floor) on a night before Thanksgiving. The eyes of the thrower(I believe) about popped out when he saw the muzzle of a .45 Commander. He moved so fast it was a "disappearance". Another drunk tried to get in a girlfriend's apartment where I was. Yelling, threats, banging on the door,etc. Same Colt Commander, but my shouted statement of being armed and would shoot seemed to get through and he wandered down the street to be arrested in a few minutes, city being called. A fight in my apartment hallway slammed into my door. It held, but I was at "gun up", down the hall.
Almost two decades ago, with my youngest, went to the gun when what seemed like a violent lover's quarrel was occurring predawn outside our hotel door. That just seemed to fizzle out; no breach of the room door. And finally, an office mass murder during a weekday near my house, prompted me to go home to wife and infant, break out the personal carbine and wait. The shooter had been clearly identified by clothing, and I had mentally made the decision to engage if a similarly dressed armed individual had approached.
@HCM point about bullets going both ways is well said; I recall instances of LE personnel being killed by being shot through walls, so for damn sure that's something to consider. Given that, a defender might consider not continuing to shout commands, police being called, etc. and just go to cover and wait. Curious: any thoughts on "warning shot(s)" at base of door? Try not to flame too much...

Edit to add my appreciation of @TCinVA post-well stated, sir.

[Jim Watson]

Once entry is made and bad guy is sighted up, then I'll fire as appropriate.

Guy. Singular. I can imagine letting one intruder get inside before shooting.
Waiting to be outnumbered seems not sound.

[WobblyPossum]

I appreciate all of the comments from others on statutes and cases. I have a few anecdotes, as earlier in life I lived in some sketchy neighborhoods. I've always thought Cooper's comment that if you did not have a firearm within reach while reading, you didn't understand the lesson. My personal take on the video is yikes! I sure hope the opposite apartment was unoccupied. That could have been catastrophically tragic.
I had a cinder block through an apartment window(ground floor) on a night before Thanksgiving. The eyes of the thrower(I believe) about popped out when he saw the muzzle of a .45 Commander. He moved so fast it was a "disappearance". Another drunk tried to get in a girlfriend's apartment where I was. Yelling, threats, banging on the door,etc. Same Colt Commander, but my shouted statement of being armed and would shoot seemed to get through and he wandered down the street to be arrested in a few minutes, city being called. A fight in my apartment hallway slammed into my door. It held, but I was at "gun up", down the hall.
Almost two decades ago, with my youngest, went to the gun when what seemed like a violent lover's quarrel was occurring predawn outside our hotel door. That just seemed to fizzle out; no breach of the room door. And finally, an office mass murder during a weekday near my house, prompted me to go home to wife and infant, break out the personal carbine and wait. The shooter had been clearly identified by clothing, and I had mentally made the decision to engage if a similarly dressed armed individual had approached.
@HCM point about bullets going both ways is well said; I recall instances of LE personnel being killed by being shot through walls, so for damn sure that's something to consider. Given that, a defender might consider not continuing to shout commands, police being called, etc. and just go to cover and wait. Curious: any thoughts on "warning shot(s)" at base of door? Try not to flame too much...

Hard no on warning shots with lethal projectiles for me. You have no control over where the projectiles end up ricocheting after they hit the base of the door and the ground behind it. You could easily be skipping rounds into bystanders. I firmly believe you shouldn’t fire live rounds towards people if you aren’t trying to hit those people. Either deadly force is legally and morally justified because you’re at risk of death or serious injury or it isn’t because you’re not. There isn’t an in between where lethal projectile warning shots fit in an urban environment. If a grizzly bluff charges you in the middle of the wilderness, feel free to fire a warning shot. In an urban area, most definitely don’t do that.

In this specific incident, I also would have waited until the door was actually breached and I could put sights on the bad guy before pressing the trigger but that doesn’t mean this homeowner did anything unreasonable. The fact that he spoke to them through the video doorbell means he was able to see the video so he could see the two men were armed. Several other posters already went through the AOJ present in this situation play-by-play so I won’t rehash that as it’s been covered well. Shooting through the door was reasonable, just not best practices.

[1Rangemaster]

@WobblyPossum - yeah, I get it. And I have the luxury of sitting at my desk and reflecting on this, rather than dealing with the chaos in real time. Thanks for commenting.
Another argument is one is expending ammo one might need momentarily. I recall an acquaintance some years back who was working from home-some sort of IT business. He habitually was armed in the house-a holstered Glock. Someone knocked at his house door, he did not respond. They then began banging on it, at which point, he got cover in a doorway and waited. Door breached, he shot the first one through several times. The other(s) departed, but it could have gone a different way.

[Lost River]

I've never seen an 8-shot A5. Can we get a pic? Also, you're loaded with slugs for HD? I've always defaulted to buck in the house, now you've got me curious. Thanks

Had to double check. It is 7+1. I recall 8 shots but could not remember if it was 8+1 or 7+1. With 6 on the buttstock and 2 on the fore end, it gives me 15 all up. I actually do have a few (3) buckshot on the buttstock. I used to keep the fore end carrier loaded with bean bag rounds, but they were used while camping one time to dissuade something, rather than actually give it a lethal dose. Now that I am no longer in LE and shotguns are rare, I lost my access to bean bag rounds.

Anyways, I just run it all slugs in the gun.

[Lost River]

Not mine, but a factory 8 shot Browning may be seen here.

https://www.gunsamerica.com/UserImag...wm_6656384.jpg

Briley makes magazine extensions, there was a 3 gunner who maintained that the Browning cycled faster than then available gas and spring actions.

That is an old Rhodesian A5.

They were used in the war in Africa by the Rhodesian Army. There are some articles online about them. Pretty cool guns.

That 3 gunner was/is Pat Kelly.

He sold the above Auto 5 to me. I ended up taking it to the SOF world 3 gun in 2000.

He was also right, at least at the time. I have no idea today, but some of us ran drill with various shotguns on timers. The A5 was insanely fast. The big downside was heavy recoil. The best time for me, when excluding reaction time was 5 rounds in .6 seconds. I have never been able to repeat it, but it at least proved the mechanical ability of the gun. There were and are guys who are way faster than I am.

Pat Kelly and Jim Wall (from Milt Sparks) could pull amazing times with their A5s.

[BehindBlueI's]

One thing that stands out here, is that this wasn’t an attempted burglary into a home that the bad guys didn’t know was occupied. The dude living there actually answered the door, like folks here recommend, and said “No thanks, Go Away”

The accounts I saw said he used a remote doorbell (Ring or the like) to answer and said he wasn't home. Given the point of those doorbells is to be able to answer from anywhere you have a cell signal, that would be believable.

A lot of home invasions are burglaries with a surprise occupant still at home. If this is one of them, and why this apartment was selected, is unknown.

[BobM]

Had to double check. It is 7+1. I recall 8 shots but could not remember if it was 8+1 or 7+1. With 6 on the buttstock and 2 on the fore end, it gives me 15 all up. I actually do have a few (3) buckshot on the buttstock. I used to keep the fore end carrier loaded with bean bag rounds, but they were used while camping one time to dissuade something, rather than actually give it a lethal dose. Now that I am no longer in LE and shotguns are rare, I lost my access to bean bag rounds.

Anyways, I just run it all slugs in the gun.

Much too classy to use on a common burglar!