Shot my AR pistol for the first time today.

[JERRY]

We don't always live in a world we want or need. We live in the real world, the one where logic and reason can occupy precious little place in a courtroom, a milieu where the person who was defending their "castle" is, in many if not most cases, going to be the target of the leftist criminal prosecutor and/or the bottom-feeding plaintiff's lawyer in a civil lawsuit. You come to the door with muffs atop your head or draped around your neck to greet the responding police after you've shot a home-invader; trust me, you're not going to make a favorable impression. If you hide the muffs, assuming you have the time and wit to do so and are later found out, things will only go worse for you. It doesn't take much imagination to hear the da/plaintiff's lawyer assert, "He (the castle defender) was more concerned about his hearing than he was about taking the life of a black teenager, "armed" with a water-pistol, who accidentally entered the wrong house (even if he used a crow bar to do so).

To be clear, I have no problem whatsoever with a victim wanting to save their hearing by donning a set of muffs before encountering an intruder and possibly having to shoot them; I have no desire to be a pioneer (in my thirty years of le, I've never heard of an incident where the home owner had the presence of mind to take such an action) in this self-defense stratagem. And if I were so unlucky to have been caught trying to salvage what little hearing I have left by employing earmuffs in the anticipation of having to shoot someone, I'd argue, "I wear these every night, not just tonight; it's my wife-she snores."

that's a laughable response, as any scenario with enough ridiculous thought can be spun into your being the bad guy no matter what.

 

[dickydalton]

break in if you want

Saint Victor

• dickydalton
• Sep 30, 2020

 

[SwampWolf]

"Laughable", I suppose, to you because you have no rational response. If you are wearing earmuffs when the police arrive to assess your actions after having shot somebody, no matter how "righteous" you believe your actions to be, the police are going to think you're a kook, and, worse, maybe a murderous one. Why would you try to hide or "remove" the muffs as you suggested, if having them on doesn't betray a nefarious intent?

Like I said, you go first and try to explain your actions in a court of law. The laughter you hear from your "peers" on the jury won't seem so funny.

 

[JERRY]

"Laughable", I suppose, to you because you have no rational response. If you are wearing earmuffs when the police arrive to assess your actions after having shot somebody, no matter how "righteous" you believe your actions to be, the police are going to think you're a kook, and, worse, maybe a murderous one. Why would you try to hide or "remove" the muffs as you suggested, if having them on doesn't betray a nefarious intent?

Like I said, you go first and try to explain your actions in a court of law. The laughter you hear from your "peers" on the jury won't seem so funny.

I never said to hide anything. removing your ear muffs is well, for most of us common sense, as is leaving the gun alone too. you're trying to create comical scenarios to support your line if thinking, but a good shoot is just that. even in the state of Ohio, if somebody kicks in the door of your home and enters bearing a weapon and you shoot them, your earmuffs or lack of them at the time of the shooting won't matter in the court. if I am wrong, please, with thousands of such shooting in the U.S.A. point to at least one where earmuffs were made an issue of.

 

[SwampWolf]

please, with thousands of such shooting in the U.S.A. point to at least one where earmuffs were made an issue of.

Please tell me of one incident amongst the many "thousands" of such shootings in America where the home owner actually came to the door to greet the police after shooting someone wearing muffs, or even if there was circumstantial evidence that he/she did. In my thirty year le career, I've investigated many "righteous" shootings and I've never known of it or heard of it happening (which isn't necessarily saying that it never happened-I hold the view that you should never say never unless you know the facts with absolute certainty-and I don't). If wearing earmuffs when shooting someone in your home is so normal and innocuous, why make any effort to keep the presence of the muffs from the eyes of police investigators?

To be clear, as I said earlier, I have nothing against donning ear protection in anticipation of having to fire a gun inside of your home. I'm just making the salient point that appearances are everything and it is prudent to assume that many prosecutors aren't "stand your ground" proponents and will use and twist any behavior that's outside the "norm" in an effort to convict you of the crimes of Manslaughter or Negligent Homicide (again, reference the aforementioned St. Louis couple who have been charged with a felony for merely brandishing their weapons in the face of a mob threatening to kill them and move into their home-I'm sure they aren't finding their current scenario humorous).

Finally, what is so "comical" about my "scenario"? With your Wahoo/Yahoo ball cap avatar, I assume you must be acquainted with the tragic incident occurring recently in a Cleveland park where police officers shot and killed an African-American teenager who had an air gun in his hands. Nothing funny about that.

 

[JERRY]

Please tell me of one incident amongst the many "thousands" of such shootings in America where the home owner actually came to the door to greet the police after shooting someone wearing muffs, or even if there was circumstantial evidence that he/she did. In my thirty year le career, I've investigated many "righteous" shootings and I've never known of it or heard of it happening (which isn't necessarily saying that it never happened-I hold the view that you should never say never unless you know the facts with absolute certainty-and I don't). If wearing earmuffs when shooting someone in your home is so normal and innocuous, why make any effort to keep the presence of the muffs from the eyes of police investigators?

To be clear, as I said earlier, I have nothing against donning ear protection in anticipation of having to fire a gun inside of your home. I'm just making the salient point that appearances are everything and it is prudent to assume that many prosecutors aren't "stand your ground" proponents and will use and twist any behavior that's outside the "norm" in an effort to convict you of the crimes of Manslaughter or Negligent Homicide (again, reference the aforementioned St. Louis couple who have been charged with a felony for merely brandishing their weapons in the face of a mob threatening to kill them and move into their home-I'm sure they aren't finding their current scenario humorous).

Finally, what is so "comical" about my "scenario"? With your Wahoo/Yahoo ball cap avatar, I assume you must be acquainted with the tragic incident occurring recently in a Cleveland park where police officers shot and killed an African-American teenager who had an air gun in his hands. Nothing funny about that.

jesus you are really missing what i actually said. i did not say hide anything. i will repeat, i did not say hide anything. i told the other guy to take off his earmuffs before greeting the police should something happen. do you understand that?

next the st. louis couple were not inside their home firing guns at a person(s) that broke into their dwelling; they were out in their yard waving their guns around. how can you confuse what they did with a home invasion defense? maybe you are referring to a different story that i am unaware of.

comical scenarios indeed. read what you wrote about somebody breaking into your house at night "by mistake" as you say with the incident at the park you mentioned. for a 30 year cop you must have wrote some lousy reports if this is your true response to what i stated earlier.

 

[JERRY]

earmuffs near bedside will help reduce that, no matter what gun is used.

I'm not sure I'd want to greet the police with a set of ear muffs on my head after I disposed of a deserving burglar-but I'm one that doesn't fully trust the "justice" system after having served thirty years in it. Think St. Louis and a law-abiding couple being charged with a felony for merely "brandishing" their weapons in the face of a mob threatening their life, limb and home.

you're just not aware, and training even mild training will alleviate this. when you empty your hands of your gun before greeting the police you can be trained to remove your ear muffs from your head too. while many rightly don't trust the "justice" system, there is a world of difference in using a gun inside of your home after a criminal has forced their way in and confronting them while they are on the street and you leave the relative safety of your home to go out in your yard. that too can be trained out of you.

Yeah, you agree then it would be prudent to hide the muffs when the police start looking for a reason to charge you with the crime of defending your home. Again, review the pending case in St. Louis referenced for a reality check on the state of today's America's notion of what constitutes "jurisprudence".

 

[Mainsail]

Ignoring the argument about earmuffs for HD, as I have a pair of electronic muffs hanging on the side of the safe for exactly that purpose.

This is the one I assembled for the wife. She found my A1 a little heavy. I got the 11½" PSA upper on another forum and it came with the blast diverter, sort of cone shaped inside. We didn't find it any louder than a typical AR. I've since replaced the blade style not-a-stock thing with a different one. Trijicon MRO on top.

 

[JERRY]

[QUOTE="SwampWolf,.[/QUOTE]

you win, you're right.

people will read this exchange and decide for themselves.

 

[SwampWolf]

next the st. louis couple were not inside their home firing guns at a person(s) that broke into their dwelling; they were out in their yard waving their guns around. how can you confuse what they did with a home invasion defense? maybe you are referring to a different story that i am unaware of.

The point you have apparently been missing all along is that some prosecutors in some jurisdictions will use any legal trick imaginable to prosecute anyone using a firearm for self-defense; the St.Louis incident cited being only a specific example to reflect a general practice. If you're naive enough to give them reason to persuade a jury to believe you were more concerned about your hearing than you were about taking the life of another human being (facts and context be damned; appearance being everything), then lay them muffs next to your gun and let the party begin.

comical scenarios indeed. read what you wrote about somebody breaking into your house at night "by mistake" as you say with the incident at the park you mentioned. for a 30 year cop you must have wrote some lousy reports if this is your true response to what i stated earlier.

I've investigated hundreds of cases and written thousands of reports over my career and did a pretty good job at it. It is not all that unusual for someone to enter someone else's home "by mistake"; it happens. It also happens that innocent people get shot because their behavior was deemed "suspicious" (holding a BB gun or a wallet or a cell phone in their hand), the ambient light being dim and the time to react being short. I wonder how a jury might react if it was learned that the unfortunate Cleveland police officers involved in the tragic shooting of a teenager while he was "armed" with an air gun in the incident referenced earlier, had taken the time to don earmuffs before killing him...