Drive-by shooting (?) across the street

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Telperion

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About 30 minutes ago, there's 5-10 shots fired on the street behind my place. Now there's a squad of cops walking around, looking for evidence. Looks like they're focusing on the apartments across the street, which already have a reputation for being pretty ghetto.

Wish I could say I did some kind of tactical roll to the floor, but I was more or less caught in condition white. :( Maybe I would have reacted more decisively if stuff were coming through the walls. I didn't hear any glass shatter or walls hit, so they could have been shooting into the air for all I know.

Also, being close the 4th I thought it might be fireworks. The pacing and regularity of the bangs should have tipped me off otherwise. Any suggestions for recognizing fire and taking cover in your residence? :uhoh:

I need to move out of this place.
 
Glad to hear you're not hurt. Hope no one else is around the area got injured unless they were one of those rotten punks.

I think the best thing you can do is drop down out of plain view of a window for starters if you think it's gunshots, and crawl your way into a room in the home that doesn't have any exterior walls, or farthest from the apparent direction of the shots. Then call 911 if possible and grab a firearm since the situation is sudden and the motives unknown. Also make sure anyone else residing in the home at the time is ducked, covered, and safe.

There isn't much else you can do in a typical home unless you have a safe room or an armored tank and turrets. I wouldn't suggest peeking out a window no matter how curious unless you want to be a visual target with no intel of how many there are, where they are, and what they're shooting at.

They were just outside, with guns drawn already, and shooting at something. They might be gone, or they might be waiting for their target next door to your home, or at you if its random. If they see a head pop up in a window, they might be inclined to shoot at it.
 
If there was gunfire outside (which there has - idiots fireing into the air) I would roll down and take cover. If while in the process of rolling saw any shiny barrels pointed at me I would crawl along the floor up the stairs to my "weapons closet" get the first high powered rifle I saw load it hang out the window and "do my business" :D

Edit: On second thought why don't you pack up your stuff and leave if the nieghborhood is so bad?
 
This was in San Mateo. Normally it's a pretty low traffic area.

Add: I don't recall any ambulances last night, so hopefully nobody was hurt.
 
Despite what many people will say about what they would do, you probably reacted like most of us would. I know the last time (prior to July 4) I heard a few rifle-like cracks outside my house I just sat there dumb and happy thinking "Damn, there goes a transformer." Turns out I was right.
 
similar

had a similar experience years ago...heard multiple "bangs" outside...I did finally realize (with my wife nudging me to go see because it sounded like shots to her) it was gunfire and took my pistol and slipped outside to see what was happening...a man was actually standing on top of a van in a 3 point stance firing a pistol at a man cowering on a second flood apartment landing...I decided I had to do something and slipped my safety off and braced against the corner of my home...I was beginning to squeeze the trigger and thinking all sorts of conflicted thoughts about what I was doing and how much trouble I was maybe getting into...when I stopped...I saw people gathering behind the man in my line of fire on the landing behind him and was fearful of hitting one of them...about that time the guy stopped shooting, jumped in the van and took off..the "victim" was not hit...as near as I could tell later it was a drug deal grudge thing. my guess is at home we tend to relax and let out guard down..and in quiet neighborhoods we are just slow to sense danger..points we need to remember I guess in these times.
 
When I was a teenager I lived in "the projects". Government housing. I used to hear gunfire on a simi-regular basis. A few times I even had it happen right outside my window. Lucky for me I lived on the second floor. Also lucky for me the buildings where made entirely out of formed concrete. Walls, floors, ceiling, everything. The walls had a thin layer of plaster directly over the concrete and you had to use concrete nails to hang anything off the walls! So unless I had my head hanging out the window I knew there was no way I was getting shot.
 
I used to live in San Mateo and talk about a sleepy town. The Taco Bells close at 10. Can't believe a drive by was done there. Should have been plastered all over the SM Daily.
 
I live out in the country, anyone brazen enough to go shooting at my neighbors deserving or not is going to catch a mag or two out of my AR. You start mowing drive by cars in the street you'll see that type of activity come to a screeching hault real quick. Maybe they should try this theory out in the people republik of CA.
 
Could it be considered self defense if they are not shooting AT YOU?
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Yes, it could. Well, at least it could here. Using deadly force to stop another person from unlawfully using deadly force is legal, but there are several problems. Usually we're not talking about fine upstanding citizens when drive-bys are happening. It may be difficult to know just who to shoot. You also might be completely wrong about who the aggressor is. The dude on the street might have begun firing at the car, and it might just be me in that car shooting back to cover my retreat (not likely, but y'know).

If it's abundantly clear what's going on, and you shoot to protect another person, you'll be in the right in the legal sense, but the s-storm that's going to come up will be something to behold. Make that decision Carefully.
 
San Mateo county has a specific ordinance that allows guns to be used to defend your life, your property or the life of someone else. So if you saw someone's life being threatened across the street you could take action.

Now if you did indeed take out that pistol and blast away at a fleeing car/person the chance of you missing and hitting an innocent are very high. Then you get arrested and sued.
 
That's the very reason why I moved a couple months ago. Too many shootings/hackings from MS-13 and others.

Hell, one night I'm standing on my back deck enjoying the night air and I hear several reports from a rifle. A mile down the road some guy brought an AK to the front of a gym and the cops took his ass down with their AR's. Apparently one of the police dogs got confused and attacked one of the cops in the process.
 
I'd suspect that if you know the people who's house is getting shot at. You don't see anyone out returning fire in an aggressive manner it aught to be safe either shooting the car or the person driving. Personally it should be required where drive by's are a part of life, just making the threat of certain deth if you commit a drive by seems like it would cut the problem out. Then again, I live in a very racist town. They just started allowing hispanic people to own property and I hear there's a few African Americans attending school here. John Wylie price would get his head blown off if he tried his antics out here.
 
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