I see that the usual suspects are in a tizzy over the armed St. Louis couple who confronted BLM protestors outside their house. It appears that the pair are both lawyers, so I’m going to assume that they are aware of the elements of the crime of assault and that they would not have pointed their weapons at anyone who was not threatening them with severe injury or death.
However, their gun handling is clearly inept. They appear to have poor awareness of the direction their weapons are pointing, and the women never seems to be holding her Walther PPK properly. They both need more training in safe gun handling.
I haven’t had to shoot anyone since I left Viet Nam in 1972, but I have been in several dangerous confrontations since then. In all of them, when the other people realized I was armed, they decided to withdraw. The sight of a holstered sidearm or a firearm slung over my shoulder or held at low ready was enough to influence their behavior.
The arms I keep for defensive purposes are not kept for offense. They are not kept to inflict my brand of justice on anyone else. They’re kept as a credible deterrent, tools that I am trained to use and willing to use.
One of the reasons Mrs. Hoge and I settled where we did was that the community was peaceful. I doubt that we’ll see much turbulence here, but if the rioters come to our small town, they’d be well advised to stay off my lawn.
I am going to disagree with you at least on some aspects here. Missouri has a very strong castle doctrine. A LARGE number of intruders illegally entered their PRIVATE PROPERTY and were instructed to leave and did not. The disparity of force alone constituted reasonable fear of serious bodily harm. Also, the Tueller rule comes into play here. These people were in close proximity to the home owners on their marked, private property. And the fact that these trespassers did not immediately leave when confronted by an armed citizen is itself telling.
Now, the woman did not seem comfortable with her pistol. I noticed she was holding it in her left hand. And she did sweep her husband with the muzzle several times. We would all benefit from more training but defending your home from a mob is not wrong, even if it was carried out without much tactical finesse.
Indeed, there’s a report over at Legal Insurrection which quotes the couple as saying that the mob caused them to fear for their lives.
Both of them keep violating Rule 2, and she violates Rule 3.
I honestly can’t see where their trigger fingers are as the video is pretty poor quality. But the woman certainly points her pistol at her husband’s back several times. This demonstrates the dangers of insufficient training. Shooting your husband in the back is sub-optimal for everyone.
I’m not sure the male violated rule 2. I think he rightfully believed he may need to fire and was therefore willing to fire at a mob who was threatening his life and the lives of his guests.
But most people NEVER practice for situations like this. I have some sort of training for such a scenario only every other year or so. I mostly use ‘position sul’ with a pistol though when outdoors and alone, I might use low ready.
I would like to think I would have had my rifle at low ready as that was hammered into my head during all my training. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been outside in front of the house with just a pistol or even a shotgun. But, I’ll let you know how I do when confronted by a similar threat next time.
I suspect the demand for realistic home defense training is going to skyrocket in the next few years.
He lets his muzzle track across his wife in one video.
I think I have already conceded that this couple are not Mr. & Ms. John Rambo here. And we all need more training regardless of how much training we have. Hell, I have fired upon a teammate in low-light shoot-house scenarios.
And I used to get flagged on a regular basis at my former range which is a big part of why it is my FORMER range.
And I’ve had people walk in front of my muzzle at an LGS because the store was poorly laid out, and they had their heads up their backsides. But at least it was a store and the employee and I had checked the revolver.
I would like to think I would have performed flawlessly in such a scenario, but if I did, I wouldn’t need any more training. But we all know we end up falling back on our average level of training if not worse.
Maybe I’m just missing your point though.
In a couple of the videos, the protesters are shown opening a gate clearly marked “PRIVATE PROPERTY” and streaming through, which indicates to me it’s a private road they were trespassing on. So they were already breaking the law.
I’ll go along with the consensus here about the homeowners: good intent, poor execution. However, had they fired upon the trespassers, I’d be inclined to back them.
And more details emerge. There appear to have been armed intruders trespassing on their property.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/gun-toting-st-louis-lawyers-defend-mansion-blm-protesters-viral-video
“A mob of at least 100 smashed through the historic wrought iron gates of Portland Place, destroying them, rushed towards my home where my family was having dinner outside and put us in fear of our lives,” said Mark McCloskey.
According to police, the couple told protesters that they were on trespassing on a private street and needed to leave. *Shortly after, the couple grabbed their guns after noticing several armed protesters in the crowd, shouting threats.*
“This is all private property. There are no public sidewalks or public streets. We were told that we would be killed, our home burned and our dog killed. We were all alone facing an angry mob,” McCloskey told News 4. -KMOV4
My constructive comment is: the homeowners had the right idea and, like a whole lot of us, could use more practice. They did well enough, though, and who knows how most average people would have performed?
In normal times, it’d also be constructive to (ab)use them as a teaching example. These aren’t normal times and their situation turned out okay so far, which leaves harsh criticisms of them pretty flat.
Sadly, it’s almost a given that the a**hats of Antifa/BLM/Occupy where ever we’re paid to riot, will be back. I hope the couple bone up on proper firearms control soon, and as K-Dawg would say, “Buy ammunition.”