Great read thanks for posting
Very interesting article. You have to wonder if the case would have been prosecuted if the defendant didn’t fire so many warning shots and intentional shots to wound instead of just taking shots more likely to quickly stop the threat?
It seems clear to me that the defendant and his family were under imminent deadly threat. The attacker said he was going to kill the defendant and made several moves to do so. But prosecutors seem to really like to use a reluctance to end a human life as “proof” that no imminent threat exists.
I also think in this case the warning shots gave the attacker and potentially his BIL several extra opportunities to seriously harm the defendant and his family plus may have put other bystanders at risk if the buckshot deflected off the ground or vehicle. I don’t know that I would have taken those extra risks under such a clear threat to myself and my family.
I’m close to Mr Grooms with physical limits though in different ways. I’m like you. I’m not going to take the chance that my wife and I with a predator like the one in the article. A true statement in the article is: the left is wanting to use the lack of a deadly weapon on the aggressor isn’t reason enough to use deadly force. The standard isn’t a weapon present but the honest belief that you or a loved one will be killed or seriously injured causing great bodily harm. That can be done with fists just easily as a gun.
More people are killed every year with bare hands and feet than all the different types of rifles combined.
If someone says they intend to kill me (and/or strongly implies that intent through other words or actions) I am going to take that threat seriously.
I have been getting some quality physical defensive training over the past year or so but that doesn’t change the fact that I am walking around in a high milage body and have herniated disks in my back that can immobilize me if I just move the wrong way, let alone having someone trying to beat the crap out of me with the intent to do severe bodily harm. But even if I was a young spring chicken with a black belt in martial arts I would be legitimately concerned for myself and my family when someone threatens to kill me. Especially when they have a known history for violence and a buddy nearby, who may or may not be armed, to back them up.
If I were on that jury would have voted Not Guilty. But not for the reasons you might think. To me, the guy said I’ll kill your family, so, if he disables the guy with the shotgun he pretty much has unfettered access to wife and daughters. So to me, this was not only personal self-defenses it was defense of others.
I had something happen this past weekend that has had me feeling sick knowing how close it came to going sideways.
I was on vacation down at the Gulf with my wife and my sister’s family. I’m disabled and fairly limited. Saturday I took a bad fall and had to get shots in my back at the ER to allow me to get home. I have my back brace on and it’s limiting my movement even more. So as the trip goes on I am feeling more and more terrible.
We stop to fill up the tank and we pull in behind some random dude who is nodding out while pumping gas, holding a cigarette and he has spilled a couple of gallons of gas on the ground, his car, and his legs, I yell out to him “Hey Sir, you are spilling gas everywhere”. He jolts awake, and he tells me his gas tank is broken and that’s why he is spilling gas. So I go inside to pay, buy a soft drink and tell the person on duty they need to go scatter some absorbent or kitty litter on the spill. One of the stores employees goes out and says something to the guy while covering the gas spill.
Suddenly, dude charged me cussing me out, only thing I could think of was to push myself into the corner that the ice machine and wall made so I had my back covered and something to support me, and another guy comes charging out from nowhere from another car yelling and cussing.
So now I have 2 guys yelling at me and cussing me out. All I can think to do is to stand there and wait for them to make the first move, 20-30 seconds go by and they finally move off. I got into my car shaking and we left. Got off at the next exit to have a minute to compose myself and called the police to make a report.
Yes I was armed, no I didn’t reveal it.
In this day and age expect the worse.
Happy to know everyone is safe, considering guy with cigarette could have blown the place up!
Maybe he didn’t get to go to Burning Man this year?
No good deed goes unpunished! Guess he was offended that you didn’t let him light himself on fire? Wonder what the second guys issue was??
I have had a couple of similar experiences at gas stations where people started yelling at me either after I did something to help them out or for no reason at all. Those are tough situations because more often then not if you let these nut jobs puff out their chests and prove their manliness they will eventually strut off without incident. But you have to be ready for things to go violent at any instant.
Sounds like your instincts let you know you didn’t need to initiate forceful action. I always struggle with that because I know whoever lands the first blow has a significant advantage especially with my physical disadvantages. But I don’t want to be the one to initiate forceful action if I feel the person’s threats are most likely empty and there seems to be a good chance I can talk, walk or run my way out of the situation.
Glad it all worked out. Hope your back is getting better!
Or maybe he did and was still upset that it got rained/flooded out?
Great fire discipline brother. It literally took much courage to not fire in that situation. Sorry to hear about it though. So many rotten, stupid and evil people out there. Our society is rapidly devolving.
Almost. 
Too bad he didn’t have an incendiary round loaded.
The song playing would have then boom, boom, on go the lights. Guess I have beem listening to too much blues rock recently…
Excellent article. It appears that the victim in this case acted reasonably to defend his family and the jury acted wisely in judging the case. However, the comparison to Rittenhauer with this case regarding the use of deadly force against someone that has no weapon is somewhat of a stretch.