"Home Invasion Gone Bad"

[Fred Fuller]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04179/338359.stm

Hill District home invasion reported
Sunday, June 27, 2004

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Shots were fired yesterday after a gunman entered a Hill District home only to be chased off by the occupant.

"I guess it was a home invasion gone bad," said Dorjan Anderson, whose Brackenridge Street home was the scene of the home invasion. No one was injured.

Anderson said the gunman, Jason Barber, 22, is the cousin of the mother of Anderson's four children. Anderson declined to name the woman. She and the children were not home during the incident.

In recent weeks, Barber, of the West End, got involved in a dispute between Anderson and the woman. Since then, the two men have been feuding. Anderson said Barber has threatened him.

Yesterday afternoon, as Anderson dozed on his sofa with his shotgun nearby, he said he heard Barber enter the back door. Barber then entered the living room and fired a shot that narrowly missed Anderson's head. Anderson then fired three shots as Barber shot a second time from his .45-caliber pistol as he fled out the door and down a back street. Neither man was struck.

Barber had not been apprehended last night. No charges were filed against Anderson.
============================


"Family feud gone bad" it sounds like. Either Anderson was expecting something of this sort, or he stays more prepared for domestic trouble than the average bear. No matter what the cause or the circumstances, here you have a genuine gunfight, five rounds fired total, five misses.

And three of them with a shotgun.

Without having more details I'd guess that the range was typical across-the-room or down-the-hall distance. At that sort of range (a few feet) ANY sort of shotgun with ANY sort of load is going to shoot more like a rifle. It is not only POSSIBLE to miss completely, it is EASY under those circumstances.

It seems home invasions are getting to be more and more of a criminal M.O., and the trend is to multiple invaders. That is a nightmare scenario if I ever heard one... .

lpl/nc

 

[Badger Arms]

Sounds like the home defender needs to go out and practice some. Three shots with a scattergun and he can't hit a man inside of the distance of a room? I can understand the guy with the 45 missing, but shotguns point so instinctively. Before Dave chimes in, I'm going to call foul. The home defender probably had a pistol grip on his gun. Wonder how bad the houses is looking with all them holes!

 

[CleverNickname]

"Gone bad"!? Whereas it would have "gone good" if the homeowner were dead?

 

[Fred Fuller]

"I guess it was a home invasion gone bad," said Dorjan Anderson, whose Brackenridge Street home was the scene of the home invasion.

Hey, it was a quote. I don't make 'em up, I just post 'em.

lpl/nc

 

[pauli]

misses or not, the attacker fled and the defender was unharmed (excluding, perhaps, his hearing). a satisfactory result, especially as they know who did it.

 

[Jagermeister]

Interesting situation:

I have to agree bout the shotgun. It is difficult for me to visualize missing the intruder at that distance. Using a shotgun as home defense, in my simple opinion, is the best thing since canned beer. As previously stated, it hardly has to be aimed, in fact, it doesn't even have to be raised to the shoulder, OR the muzzle raised to the intruder. By holding the gun in a natural holding positon, muzzle down bout 45 degrees and , pointed in the target direction, and firing will put him down. Using double 00 buck of course. Called a richochet shot (sp)

A shot placed in this manner does not raise much from the floor, and the ash and trash accumulated as its hit the floor, adds to the number of projectiles being sent.

Been there, Done that,

Perpatrator had multple shot just below the knees, and had wood splinters as high as the waist. It knocked him flat on the floor, and put him unconsious. Survived to stand trial.

JM

 

[CZ 75 BD]

Hatfields and McCoys are not done yet.

 

[Lawyerman]

Contrary to Hollywood hype it is relatively easy to miss with a shotgun at close ranges. Overchoked guns contribute to the problem. General rule of thumb is that patterns spread 1" for every yard traveled. If you're talking 5-7 yards, across the average room, that isn't much of a pattern.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

That is something that shocked me about shotguns when I got into shooting. You do have to aim them and it is really easier to miss a big target at close range as the shot hasn't had much chance to spread out.

I figure for the whole thing of shooting at close range without much aiming beyond pointing, I would need a shotgun with about a 6" barrel. That would get the desired scatter needed for short range.

 

[Lawyerman]

I have seen correctional officers miss a 15" steel disc at 15 yards with buckshot while under moderate stress.

Just imagine you are sitting on your couch watching something mindless and all of a sudden your fluffy pillow explodes in a cloud of feathers as some moron pumps a .45 round at you. Might be a little stressful? You can miss with the shotgun, there are no guarantees.

 

[sm]

I subscribe to a shotgun is POINTED not aimed.

Gun fit to shooter for task, pattern board and BA/UU/R.
More something is handled with proper and correct techniques the better the firearm becomes an extension of shooter.

Yep, one can miss "with all them pellets". There is no Holy Grail on ammo, or gun doo dads.

Yep I was taught how to do the richochet with a shotgun as well. Using a barrier as cover/concealment, one can richochet under another barrier with an open base and even off a dirt range put pellets on a teddy.

 

[Coronach]

This sounds like a hostile takeover of one black market pharmaceutical retail outlet by another.

Mike

 

[Badger Arms]

My belief is that the length of the barrel (even at 18") coupled with the natural pointing ability of a shotgun should translate into hits at that range despite the lack of a pattern. You don't have to aim, and here's why:

Assume the pattern spreads one inch for every yard. Well, the target at 3 yards away is going to cover a significant cone compromising about 10-20 degrees anyhow. When hip-shooting my 22lr, I can hit a 12" Gong at 100 yards every time with a little practice walking the fire in. As the tartet moves further away, the pattern opens up and begins to compensate for the fact that the target itself is getting smaller in relation.

Taking it to the absurd, at point blank range, the target covers 180 degrees of the field of fire. Pretty hard to miss. Depending on the size of the target, he covers less area as he moves away and the pattern opens up. Heck, with my Enfield I can hit milk jugs at 15' all day long! I don't think I'm special, my brain is hard wired.

Bottom line, if the guy had practiced every weekend by burning up a few boxes of ammo, he could have painted a smiley face on his target from the hip!

 

[Lawyerman]

The guy involved probably wasn't a dedicated Mall Ninja and didn't practice as much as he should have.

 

[iamkris]

I shoot CAS and Urban Cowboy (essentially 3-gun). There are those, albeit occasional only, that miss shotgun targets. The distance is only 7-10 yards and there isn't much stress involved outside of the competition aspect...certainly not as much as being shot at while trying to shoot back.

That said, it's easy for us to point fingers and say "there's no way you could miss" but I see it all the time with folks in a relatively low stress situation and with people who burn through LOTS of ammo

 

[Dave McCracken]

Sounds more like an interpersonal dispute than home invasion.

When shotguns are employed like rifles, they should be aimed like rifles.

As for skip or "ricochet" shooting, there's a few tricks to it. Do not practice this at home.

 

[Kharn]

I'm with Coronach on the nature of the dispute.

My theory is a PG-only shotgun or a conventional stock fired from the hip.

Kharn

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Badger Arms Quote,
"My belief is that the length of the barrel (even at 18") coupled with the natural pointing ability of a shotgun should translate into hits at that range despite the lack of a pattern. You don't have to aim, and here's why:

Assume the pattern spreads one inch for every yard. Well, the target at 3 yards away is going to cover a significant cone compromising about 10-20 degrees anyhow. When hip-shooting my 22lr, I can hit a 12" Gong at 100 yards every time with a little practice walking the fire in. As the tartet moves further away, the pattern opens up and begins to compensate for the fact that the target itself is getting smaller in relation."

First, there is no natural pointing ability of a shotgun over any other type of long gun and the generic description of pointing ability of shotguns can't be accurate as shotguns come in all shapes and sizes. Just because it fires shot does not make it a natural pointer. I believe you have mixed and mismatched several bits of information into an untenable all inclusive statement.

If shotguns don't need to be aimed and are natural pointers, then how can people people miss with them?

Hitting a 12" gong at 100 yards every time with a .22 shooting from the hip sounds pretty good. Even if you have to walk in the rounds and practice some, that is still pretty good. I bet a lot of the folks that miss with shotguns could hit with every round after they had a chance to walk in their shots and practice, but they don't get offered those options very often.

How come all the Miculek types never seem to shoot at any of the ranges where I shoot?

 

[turretG]

Concerning the silly Hollywood portrayal of the shotguns use there was a scene
in the movie Top Secret where the hero comes into a room and fires one shot
into a room full of bad guys and they all go flying back! Great to see Hollywood
spoof their own movie errors sometimes. I least I think it might have been a spoof.

 

[Badger Arms]

First, there is no natural pointing ability of a shotgun over any other type of long gun and the generic description of pointing ability of shotguns can't be accurate as shotguns come in all shapes and sizes

Good points, so let me elaborate. The one hallmark that every shotgun has is a 'sighting plane' along the top of the gun proper. On some, this sighting plane is a stark, well-defined rib that carrys back from the muzzle to the receiver. On some Shotguns, this is merely a bead at the end of a barrel but often a flattened partial-rib on the receiver. What this translates to is that the eye naturally follows the extension of the barrel to the target. That's the reason longer barrels are more natural for hits, it gives a longer sighting plane.

Secondly, most shotguns have a fore-grip which is in-line with the barrel of the gun. This produces a natural grip whereby the extension of the 'pumping' motion of the grip will be directed at the target. On an Ithaca or Winchester 97 with disconnectors, you can just push the shot at the target and hits come much more naturally. Sure, there are exceptions to these rules, but they are few. It is a defining feature. The long tube is an unmatched pointing device.

If shotguns don't need to be aimed and are natural pointers, then how can people people miss with them?

Well, not everybody shoots their shotguns. Picture Mr. Home defense dude... do you figure he has ever shot a round of skeet in his life? Perhaps Mr. drug deal... uh, I mean Home Protector spent long afternoons in the woods shooting jackrabits or quail? I seriously doubt it. Any level of proficiency comes only with practice. Shotguns require very little practice to become proficient. I watched my son progress from never having fired a shotgun to hitting birds on the Sporting Clays field within the course of a box of ammo. It doesn't take much practice, now.

As for proficiency, it doesn't take much practice. I think the mistake many 'moderns' make is that they don't have much informal practice or plinking. You have to get out and invent games, shoot lots, and shoot from unnatural positions and situations. Try hip-shooting a rifle at targets like paint cans, milk jugs, and the like at relatively short ranges. Try shooting clay pigeons from the hip. You'd be surprised.