There was another major incident last night. Not sure of the details as I have not been out there.
I very much appreciate the advice and support from you all. This is not what I came here for. Fortunately, this is not a gang related problem but one idiot drug dealer and his moron son and their troglodyte fiends, eh, friends from a toen twenty miles away in Colorado.
To answer some of these questions, not in any order:
Have you tried the legal tact and attempted to get some kind of emergency law enforcement certification?
"Deputizing" they call it in the movies, but the ability to do such a thing does still exist in some states under some circumstances.
This would appear to be one of those. Might at the very least put the law on your side if things do get nasty.
-Texas Rifleman
Our Sheriff has his hands full in a large rural county with a small force of deputys. There is no way he would deputize anyone who is not his buddy and especially an Anglo outsider, aka "Gringo." He did try to post a resident deputy to live here but the man quit immediately upon being assigned here.
The moving target question: Look, when someone pulls up in front of my house and opens fire, there is a strong urge to shoot back. If they are firing,, I want to fire back. If they are leaving the scene and not firing, I probably would not shoot at them since the threat has passed. Even LEOs are not supposed to fire on a vehicle leaving the scene. Ofcourse, in the heat of the moment it is hard to predict.
I already had one of these a-holes pull up at my front gate and shoot one of my dogs.
So, I think it would be incredibly stupid to fire at a moving car in your 'hood. If you have gangbangers doing drivebys in your 'hood you need to notify the police and if it doesn't improve you need to move.
-leadcounsel
I agree with that assesment if this were a more populated area. Yes, notifying 911 is an important first response. It is farilt certain that unless I have a body down they will not respond but suggest I come in to town to file an "Incident report". Note, they do not even call it a "Crime" report, too prejudicial.
Move? I have way too much invested in this farm to relocate becuase of one family of imbeciles.
Shotgun? I have four 12s- two SXS, a Bennelli M1, and a Mossberg Turkey gun that handles 3.5 inch shells. The rate of fire on these is somewhat slow owing to rather potent recoil. The Bennelli would be my number on choice but the recoil from multiple shots is hard to take. The Garand does not bother me at all. There is a lightly traveled highway in the back of the field of fire about 400 yards and that concerns me some, so maybe the shotgun is the better weapon considering the angle of travel. If I fire from the roof, the angle would put the bullets into the ground, even richochets would not be likely to reach the highway.
I would suggest parking piece of cr@p vehicles randomly up and down both side of your street --far enough out in the road to be obstacles and then placing Hesco Barriers in front of your houses.
-thinblackline
That is a good suggestion. The junk cars are not an option. However I do have a steel farm wagon that is 14 feet long and almost six tall with the steel side plates up. I could also load it with straw bales and that would make a great barrier without cluttering up the area. The shooters would have to move further up or down the road t shoot from their car or discmount and fire from around the wagon. I suspect they will not do the later.
My house is 2 X 6 framing unforunately, a berm between me and the road would be a good idea.
Anyway, thanks for the thoughts. This has helped me put this in some perspective and work out ideas. I sure wish the State of NM would spend some their oil revenues ($1.3 billion, this year) on law enforcement. The legislature will not use any of this money to fund "recurring expenses" like law enforcement. Since Bill Richardson became Governor, violent crime has shot way up. He just does not take the problems of rural areas seriously- not enough votes. He is a pure politician.