From another old retired military fart and shooter…
Something to think about…
Rioters with Antifa and BLM shirts and face coverings are unexpectedly marching through your suburban residential neighborhood. You don’t live in a gated community. The streets are public. Assume you live in Arizona. But in case you don’t, think about what you would do.
With binoculars, you surveil the marchers as they approach. You observe they are armed with baseball bats and Molotov Cocktails. Some have weapons. Others are carrying bricks and other objects. Their manner of dress, what they are chanting, and what they are carrying clearly projects violence. You’re understandably concerned.
And then the unthinkable happens. They stop at your house (they probably saw your Trump sign and American flag). You are trained in the use of firearms and have a suitable firearm in your possession, one that is reliably accurate, both at close range and distances beyond 25 yards.
Your decision is …?
1. Call the police and wait inside your home, being sure to advise the police dispatcher that you are armed and what you are wearing for identification purposes, and/or
2. Call your neighbors to warn them, and/or
3. Search for a fire extinguisher (if you have one or more – you should), and/or
4. Stand in plain view near the entrance to your home (holding your firearm as a deterrent in a non-threatening fashion, hoping for the best), and
5. If close enough, verbally warn the rioters not to come on to your property (while not displaying/raising your firearm).
In spite of the above choices of action, one of the rioters carrying bricks comes onto your property. He begins throwing bricks at your windows. Another rioter carrying a Molotov Cocktail follows him onto your property. It appears he is preparing to throw a Molotov Cocktail through what will soon be several broken windows. You see him attempting to light the Molotov Cocktail.
Your decision is …?
1. Eliminate the threatening arsonist(s) when he/she/they come onto your property, or if afraid to act …
2. Wait for the brick thrower to break windows before defending your home, or if still afraid to act …
3. Wait for the arsonist to light the Molotov Cocktail before defending your home, or if still afraid to act …
4. Wait for the arsonist to throw the Molotov Cocktail before defending your home, or if still afraid to act …
5. Move away to a place of possible relative safety and watch your home and its contents burn.
6. ?
This is probably as good a time as any to consider what actions you might lawfully take. The next several months has the elevated potential for civil unrest that could reach into the suburbs. We have already witnessed, in hundreds of incidents across the country, the lawless run wild, looting, burning, destroying businesses and private property, and the innocent victims who were attempting to defend themselves and their property, and the property of others, be arrested and prosecuted. Why it is not the other way around? Has self-defense become unlawful?
NO pressure here but the Antifa/BLM thugs are gathering in the street in front of your home – right now. What are you going to do?
Edit- Thanks to Tom for the video link. Mas Ayoob discussing how to navigate this mess. Long but GOOD!!!
Its a thought I’ve already had. My street has a city park across from it, meaning lots of people have a right to go there. There are a pair of large trees in front that would take a helluva arm to lob a bottle over to my residence room. Walls are stucco on concrete block but roof is shingles on wood deck and trusses – I’d probably be screwed.
House next to me is far worse. Has a large tree but high understory to allow a bottle to be line driven. Wood siding on wood studs, about 60 years old – its ready to catch fire as is.
I’d mentioned my concern to a friend, who told me given our large Demorat population, local rioting would likely not happen in their opinion. You might actually be hurting someone on your side.
Its why I try and keep my truck sticker free, as well as not wearing political shirts to advertise. Some people can’t handle the truth.
Commentary from ACLDN president Marty Hayes and board member Mas Ayoob: https://youtu.be/tj7suPt9nHE
I’ve thought about this scenario since all the fun began months ago. And I’ve had to think very hard on where I would draw the line between shoot/don’t shoot. Molotov cocktails, are to my mind, a clear indication of a lethal threat. Doesn’t matter if they are on a public street. I will shoot anyone that tries to light a molotov cocktail and throw it in my direction. I don’t have an American flag or any Trump signs out front, and this is a quiet neighborhood tucked away out of sight in a suburb of Jacksonville. Still, the possibility exists that trouble could find it’s way out here. I would contact the police and wait if I can. If I can’t, well, we’ll have to see what happens.
Take ’em out. Then explain it to the police, when and if they get there. And yes, I’ve thought about it.
There is a fairly widespread legal consensus that anyone who throws or attempts to throw a Molotov cocktail in your direction is intending to do you grievous bodily harm. That would be the line for me unless they started throwing the bricks at me and not my windows. I can’t, however, provide you with any exact references, I just remember hearing a former police chief talk about it.h
That fairly widespread legal consensus has yet to stop grasping prosecutors, the media or the social media from wanting to and succeeding in destroying the home defender.
Though the police may not initially charge the defender with murder or unlawful brandishing or something, some local prosecutor will.
And the defender will be fired from his/her job due to social pressure and media attention.
All members of the family will come under intense scrutiny and will be hounded by the press and social media, and they’ll lose their jobs, too.
It’s the playbook the Left has used since before George Zimmerman. Grasping prosecutor, ruin him/her and all associated with him/her in the press and in public. Hound them into suicide or financial and social destruction so that even if a court finds him/her guilty, his/her life and the lives around him/her will be destroyed.
Now if a rioter kills or injures the home defender, the rioter will get a couple million on GoFundMe and get a book deal and be a ‘celebrity.’
Sick. Sick world we live in.
“Now if a rioter kills or injures the home defender, the rioter will get a couple million on GoFundMe and get a book deal and be a ‘celebrity.’”
He has to survive first.
He/she/it or his/her/its family.
Fixed it! 🙂
Oh, and video the whole encounter.
Call 9-1-1 and report a large group of armed and armored, potentially violent demonstrators. They are inciting to riot. I’m armed (shotgun, sidearm) and inside my home.
Set up a video camera and start it rolling. The camera should be inside the house.
I already know where the fire extinguishers are.
When bricks are thrown, shout an order to cease.
As soon as I see the Molotov cocktail, I draw a bead on it and wait impatiently. Have any of you shotgunners out there shot at hand tossed bottles or hand trap clays? When the cocktail is lit, I cut loose and break the bottle. The resultant explosion of burning gasoline should give them a new hobby.
Take cover and watch for shooters. First one to fill his hand gets sent to perdition.
The rest will probably run to safety – 70 yards out.
Preparation is ESSENTIAL!
In order to be prepared, in ADVANCE of an incident, you should:
1. Know where the exits and entrances to your property are;
2. Have your defense tools ready for use, and within instant access; and
3. Have ALREADY moved to a location where the cops and prosecutors and government have good sense!
Woodstock, GA: Cultural Center of the Universe
If I might add a bit to my above, rather brief, comment. First, in today’s legal environment in many states, and nationwide if the worst happens two weeks and a day from now, if you do take action to defend yourself and your family, as I will do, you can expect to be arrested and prosecuted when the police do get there. If you can’t accept that, your best bet is to hope you can run faster than they can. Second, one of your prime responsibilities is to protect your family from harm to the extent you can, even at the cost of your own freedom or life (no less an authority as the late Reinhold Niebuhr, and eminent theologian, wrote about that). To both ends, it might be best if your defence strategy directly involved only yourself and perhaps one other shooter and a spotter, if available. The rest of the group — if any — can be “innocent” ammunition passers.
Shoot myself immediately.
The homeowner’s insurance will get my wife a new house.
The life insurance will ease her pain.
Self defense has become weaponized against the defender by the legal system to the point that everything you’re trying to save will be taken from you to pay for the legal proceedings.
The sad thing is it might very well be the people selling sound legal advice who gave the tormentors the kernel to begin weaponizing due process against the defenders.
They sell classes in how to navigate the flawed system, demonstrating how it’s weak and showing the tyrannical where to shore it up.
If we’d just expended the time and money to fixing the system…
Too late.
> If we’d just expended the time and money to fixing the system…
Unfortunately systems are resistant to being fixed.
In the end, it usually involves rope and a lamp post.
I agree, as I laid out any outcome of defense in my response to Heresolong up a couple comments.
There’s only momentary safety in self-defense, as the system is now been fully weaponized against the ‘right-wing’ self defense.
Oh, if you’re a lefty, or a drug dealer protecting your stash, the system will be used for you. (drug dealers shooting each other usually get 1/3 of the sentence that a normal murderer would get, and then usually parole out the first time…)
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Butch and Sundance time.
I didn’t put this much blood and sweat into my place to let some fucking communists burn it down. What better place for a last stand than ones home?
that’s easy. i flank the crowd and shoot the firebomber from the side. dust off a couple more to get them running. ditch the gun and return home. act like i just woke up when the police arrive. smile as my ten house quests swear i was there all night.
All- Thanks for the comments. Tom, I’ve edited the post to add that video, thanks!
Posted from my iPhone.
Have discussed this with Mrs. Freeholder. At the first breach of the envelope of the house (broken window in this case), the breachers die. Anyone who lights a Molotov dies no matter where we are in the sequence of events. If we have to take that first step, well, the rest are free, aren’t they? The leaders, if obvious, die. All this will be videoed through the scope. I’ll take my chances with the law, if it still exists, rather than the mob. The mob has no mercy, but the law occasionally does.
I can’t retreat. Wife is pert near bedbound and her powered chair can’t outrun most leftists. She can outrun maybe an attacking Twiggypuff but that’s it. Takes too long to load her in the van, so that’s right out.
So…
It’s Ragnarok time. And we’ll go down swinging and taking as many of them as we can.
Because of this, I don’t fly my political opinions in everyone’s faces. Except the American Flag. Which will doom me come Nov. 3rd.
Meh. It’s been a goodish run. And, yes, we have discussed this over and over in the last 6 months as the violence just keeps racheting up.
Doesn’t help that I stupidly live in a leftist hell-hole in Florida. No, not that one, or the other one. I live in Alachua County. Home of the Gators and more crazy leftists than Berkeley, CA (seriously, not kidding, it’s crazy here, too bad I didn’t know this when I moved here and put down roots.)
So glad we are in Texas. In a cul-de-sac that is at the end of a dead end street. One way in, one way out. Narrow fields of fire. Anyone coming in here is not just passing through.
I will observe from cover through my sights. First aggressive act against me or a neighbor, as Beans said, “Ragnarok”. I will strike first, hard, and fast. Legal consequences be damned. These animals will not stop until they ARE stopped.
“With binoculars, you surveil the marchers as they approach. You observe they are armed with baseball bats and Molotov Cocktails. Some have weapons. Others are carrying bricks and other objects. Their manner of dress, what they are chanting, and what they are carrying clearly projects violence. You’re understandably concerned.
And that is the point at which I open fire with a rifle, reloading as necessary. Every single man, woman and child in the mob is a fair target. “Lawful” has nothing to do with it. This is war. They chose their side. They chose their actions. Action, meet reaction.
All- Agreed! This IS Texas…
Hey Old NFO;
In the past I would say “once the Molotov Cocktail was Lit and fixing to be thrown at my house, I would fire”, but in this day and age when I have seen the legal system being weaponized against the homeowner, you pretty have to let your stuff get burned down because if you don’t the DA will charge you anyway, so you are in a lose, lose situation. you fire and get doxxed, bankrupted by the resulting legal fees because the DA will come after you even though you are legally in the right, but it don’t matter, you will be hounded in the media, and get fired by your risk adverse employer or if your are self employed, your livlihood will destroyed. It sucks all the way around. It is almost like you have nothing to lose, once you start firing, you start stacking bodies at that point.
It’s going to depend a LOT on your locality. You may want to sound out your local cops and see if they’ve got advice (they may know which DA is sound, and which DA is picking up extra checks from the Tides Foundation).
Regardless, it depends on how much you value your home and your stuff and your life — as well as the lives of your family.
My inclination is to gun them down and worry about prosecution afterwards. You can only fight one war at a time, after all.
Mobs are rabid animals. The best choice is to retreat, if it’s an available action, or eliminate as many of those with long range, or incendiary devices. At that time, your only hope is to break the charge, and disperse the enemy.
If you’re lucky, your neighbor will take the position as a sniper, and cause chaos.
All- Thanks. Different perspectives based on location IS an issue.
Posted from my iPhone.
I learned a ton from that video. Thank you!
WSF- You’re welcome!
Call police and describe situation first. Fortunately, my house faces a steep slope – I don’t have to worry about shooting towards my neighbors house, they are up the hill. Do NOT go out and brandish. Not because of brandishing laws but because these guys are often armed themselves and you would be just be providing a target. Any shots I’d fire would be from a spare bedroom window. And a molotov cocktail would be the point that would happen.
A couple weeks ago some friends and I took lunch to the Sheriff’s office to thank them. I asked if they had had any problems due to us being close to DC. They said no, that this area is still pretty law and order.
My concern is less violence here than the supply chain being broken due to violence in distribution areas. So my freezer arrived last Friday and I’ve been stocking both that and canned/jarred stuff that I regularly use for cooking. If things stay calm, well, I’m ready for snow, too.
> Call police and describe situation first.
Local 911 answers “please hold” and it can take a while after that before anyone comes on the line. And in ordinary, non-rioting times, the average police response is 20 minutes. And who knows what the police would do once they arrived… it’s likely I would have simply summoned a new batch of trouble.
Either way, it’s going to all be over *long* before any cops roll up.
That’s a tough question to answer, but thanks for asking it, and providing the video.
In the state I live it’s legal to use deadly force against someone attempting arson on a building believed to be inhabited.
I wish I lived next door to you guys. I wish we all lived in the same neighborhood.
If there are no witnesses, there wasn’t any crime.
If they can’t identify you, well someone else did it.
If you drop a few of them before they get anywhere near you, then no one knows who did it, again, no witnesses, etc.
But you need to get rid of that gun and its ammo, because then it obviously wasn’t you doing the shooting, was it?
A fair amount to ponder. I setup at my Mother’s place in Dallas during the recent disturbance, but there wasn’t any trouble. Would I have shot if needs be? Yes. And been within the law.
Here in Hill County the, ahem, revolutionaries might get as far as the first police Tahoe then game over. So we’re fortunate. Other places? Not so much. But… I think we’ll find this anarcho larpf run out of steam as soon as people start getting put away for years and the money runs dry.
Why would you want to waste your time calling for the cops during incidents of civil insurrection? Their primary area of concern will be protecting the centers of political power for those who write their paychecks and fund their retirements. Protecting actual citizens is not near the head of their list of personal responsibility. You must remember that it is a JOB for them.
Democrat controlled cities changed their hiring practices back in the 90’s, and gung ho types got black listed. What you have now is authoritarian, anti-self defense types, for the most part. If they showed up while you and your home are still standing, they would be inclined to confiscate your weapons “for the safety of the public”, and then leave.
Essentially, you are making a “man with a gun” call, and that typically entails 8 to 12 cops responding, and requires about 20 minutes to gather them before rolling to your location. You tell them that a large group of them has shown up, and that response time may stretch to hours, or maybe forever/your lifetime. Remember, they are not ALLOWED to shoot them in groups. The political optics would be bad, dont’cha know?
Bear in mind, that the Blue City cops didn’t grow up with guns, and they tend to be really bad with them. Circular firing squads seem to be common actions with them. Damn scary to be near that, let me tell you!