My guess is the guy in that example had LITTLE or NO gun training. The VERY FIRST thing your taught as a KID in a hunter safety coarse is you NEVER shoot at ANYTHING you haven’t POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED and…You’re sure there’s a SAFE zone BEHIND that shot.
Hunters are killed every year in this country by MORONS that shoot into moving brush only to find out they just killed their friend or family member.
I agree. If he thought someone was just hiding in the shower he should have left the apt. and then called the police. I wouldn’t have told that story on the radio either–just made him look foolish.
Always shoot to kill. If you are shooting at someone your life had better be in danger. Wounding them means they will sue you for everything you have and probably ruin your life, much better off to have them dead that wounded. Especially since they will heal some day and may come back for revenge. It is not a good life looking over your shoulder forever.
I agree with Rich. Back when I was in grade school my father was in a bar having a drink after his shift at Jeep in Ohio where I am from. When he was leaving he got jumped by a couple of bikers, and he ended up getting to his car and defending himself with his .357 magnum. Although he did not kill anyone he wounded one guy and that guy sued him and the bar and won. Even though my Dad produced evidence that the guy was hitting him with a bike chain (his leather jacket had the marks) he still ended up doing 30 days in Mansfield (I am sure Mike knows about Mansfield) and had to pay the guy a large sum of money. Wounding someone just leaves yourself wide open for lawsuits and revenge.
There are a number of things one must consider when choosing to carry, concealed or open. The first and probably most important, is are you truly capable of taking another life. For most of us that carry, that answer is more than likely yes. Do we want to–no. But if the decision comes down to me or the wolf going home that night, well I’ll be eating dinner with my family. If you have doubts - AT ALL, then do NOT carry or even pull a weapon. Period. Secondly, carrying is a lifestyle change. And truth be told, it can be a major pain in the ass at first. You, ideally, should have a lockbox in your vehicle, to lock it up when you go somewhere that is a criminal’s target-rich environment–sorry I mean a gun free zone. (schools, entertainment facilites that hold more than 2500 people, bars(shouldn’t be carrying period if your drinking anyway) etc.)
Thirdly, is if you are going to carry concealed, a wardrobe change may be required. As a rule the larger a person you are, the easier to conceal, just because larger folks have a tendency to wear baggier clothes. And then depending on the climate you live in, and this is personal preference, you may want to carry a sub-compact semi-auto during the summer and a revolver during the winter. A revolver carried in the pocket of a winter coat is almost always at hand and the odds of the hammer getting bound up in the lining of the pocket is highly negligible, as opposed to the slide on a semi.
Then you get into ammo selection. You do NOT want to carry full metal jacket loads in a defense pistol. If it is anything larger than a .380/.38 at close range and it is a FMJ round, it is probably going through. It is going to cause minimal damage to the target and is more likely to hit an innocent or property in the background. Bad,bad, bad. FMJ rounds are good for plinking or MAYBE if you are in a job where the badguy is wearing a vest. Otherwise don’t use 'em.
Lastly (then I’ll shut up) is home defense weapons. Rifles may be good if someones out on the back 40 of the property. ( I use a cheap Hi-Point 9mm carbine rifle for coyotes, coons, possums, skunks, woodchucks. $190 bucks and 9mm ammo is the cheapest ammo to plink with next to .22 ammo.) That being said, I can’t think of ANY scenario where I would use a rifle, carbine or not, inside a house to deter/kill a badguy. Again the odds of passthrough are way too high. It could really ruin your night to kill the badguy with the knife only to find out that the bullet passed through three walls in your house and struck your kid while (s)he was sleeping. The answer to that–a 20 or 12 gauge shotgun. The debate is wide open on semi or pump. Personally, I use a Mossberg 500 Defender pump. 12 ga. The two most unsettling noises in the world for a badguy in someone’s home are 1.) the deep throaty growl of a medium to large dog and 2.) the unmistakable sound of a shell being chambered in a pump-action shotgun. As an aside-crooks are more scared of the dogs than the guns. Dogs in the dead of the night are unpredictable. That’s why I have 4.
As far as training, it just depends on how far an how good you want to get. The NRA has and sponsors classes for every competency level. For carrying and home defense, you will probably want to take any and all tactical classes that are offered, in addition to the obvious safety and familiarization courses.