This happened not far from me... .22

Seems not too long ago an outcast teen walked into a school lunchroom with a .22 ruger pistol and killed 2 or 3 people and injured others. It was all over the news and probably discussed here as well. Yes, .22's are deadly weapons. Not my first choice for SD, but definitely dangerous.

My wife's brother's wife's son...........

Believe it...I went to the service of my friend David. There's more to it than what the papers are printing. Still under investigation. He just wanted to get his kids. No reason to shoot an unarmed man.

We don't know many details (and probably won't ever) so what else can we take away from this?

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That it won't be the first or last time. History repeats itself. That's the nature of the beast.

"Not my first choice for SD"

Or my second or third. Or ninth or tenth.

John

Without all the details, there is not enough for me to draw an opinion from.

1. He was in another person's house. This is usually enough in itself to get shot. However..... Why did he have a key? Why, if he wasn't supposed to be able to get in using the keys, were the locks not changed?

2. Did he have a reason to be there? If he had kids with his ex, still in custody with his ex, he had at least an excuse to be there, if not a reason.

3. How did he say he was going to "hurt" the husband, and why would he say such a thing? (I know of a new hubby that was pounded by ex-hubby, because new hubby thought the right to beat ex-hubbies kids came along with the ring and new wife....I'd probably have kicked the door open in that situation too, nobody gets to beat my kids...)

4. Where was the imminent threat to the husbands life that justified a killing?

somersetbound said:

Believe it...I went to the service of my friend David. There's more to it than what the papers are printing. Still under investigation. He just wanted to get his kids. No reason to shoot an unarmed man.

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Evidently, from perusing on-line news articles from back in June, there is in fact more to the story.

Apparently the assailant had a history of violence against his [former] wife when they were still married. TRO denied because she couldn't commit to the follow-up hearing due to new job, so she went for the divorce.


Dumb move to keep the same locks, knowing he still had (or likely had) keys after having lived there, given the prior violent behavior.

Possibly avoidable situation with new locks, but ultimately it's probable that his continued assertion of his "right" to control his former wife's life would have led to a bad outcome of one sort or another.

People who compulsively control others will often ignore restraining orders, and everyone "is shocked" that an official piece of paper failed to function effectively as a magic talisman.

I'm guessing that, short of picking up and moving out of the area, there would be little the newly married couple could do to avoid a violent confrontation.

This was never going to end well.

Getting hit by a .22 anywhere is going to hurt. Getting hit by a couple of .22's is more than likely going to have a positive ballistic effect, even if they miss the critical structures of the body.

This story just sounds wrong... I suspect Emerson had made some threats, but was he a hostile person in general? Seems like a waste to me regardless of the outcome.

22-rimfire said:

This story just sounds wrong... I suspect Emerson had made some threats, but was he a hostile person in general? Seems like a waste to me regardless of the outcome.

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He made threats against his ex-wife and then entered her home uninvited that same night. I'd say he got what he had coming.

The only people I feel sorry for in this story are the shooter and his family, who are no doubt feeling guilt despite the justification for the shooting.