Good vs. bad of installing a laser sight on pistol?

[Logistar]

What's he doing in my house uninvited, waking me up in the middle of the night if he isn't a threat?

This happened to me:

About 2:30 to 3am. I woke up... thought I heard something. No, maybe not. Hey, there it is again! I grab my revolver and go into the kitchen.

I can see through kind of a sheer curtain that there seemed to be someone messing with the lock on the sliding glass door. I could hear them too. I just wanted them to go away. I wasn't ready to be a hero but I had a wife and 2 small children in the back of the house.

The kitchen lights "pushed" on so I had my elbow ready to slam against the switch. Meanwhile I pulled the hammer back on the revolver and waited. The door slid open. As the intruder entered I punched the lights on with my elbow and yelled, "FREEZE! MOVE AND YOU"RE A DEAD MAN!". I had him - COM - and I could see he appeared to be unarmed. In fact, as he screamed and fell back against the far wall, I discovered he looked very much like my brother-in-law. I moved off him and lowered the hammer and asked for an explanation.

He had been staying with us and left that afternoon to visit relatives in Indianapolis. He said he stopped at a friend's first, drank too much and eventually decided to postpone his trip. He decided it was too late to call us and tried to "sneak in" without waking anyone. He was stuggling trying to find the right key and get it into the lock without using a light.

Stupid - YES. But I always did (and still do) plan to positively identify the threat before firing a shot. Maybe I will be too slow one day, but I will not take a change on my target.

I have only had 2 "threats" in my life where the gun was unholstered. One was my brother-in-law. One turned out to be a cow. (Long story - maybe for another time on TFL - pretty funny though!)

Logistar

[wolfman97]

Wofman, if you read my prior post which is about two above your last post, you will find a number of senarios I mentioned that have either been on the "news", discussed on TFL, or things that are possible regarding why someone may be in your house that is not a threat.

Not in the dark in the middle of the night. A friend would have either come to the door and knocked or rung the door bell, or assuming any of your other assumptions, they would have the lights on and be calling my name loudly to make sure I knew they were there. If they didn't do that, then . . . . oh, well.

You make the following statement: "If some stranger is standing in my home in the dark, uninvited, then there isn't any good explanation that I can think of that would stop me from killing them. "

Yes.

#1 the operative word here is stranger. Before you go wild, it is nice to determine that it is in fact a stranger. Obviously this vaires from person to person.

I can't think of any situation where a male would be standing in my house in the middle of the night, in the dark, and not be a stranger (threat). So far, you haven't come up with such a situation that I would consider plausible.

As I mentioned, some people have given keys to other family members that don't live with them.

If you are given a key to my house, then you know me well enough to know that I have been an avid shooter for more than forty years and that I respond with gun in hand to potential threats.

They may have needed to come to your house for something and didn't want to wake you (granted, that woud be stupid on their part but it doesn't mean you need to kill them).

Why would they need to come into my house for something and not want to wake me? If you want something from my house, why wouldn't you want me to help you get it?

That's stupid to the point of fatal. I wouldn't do that even if I knew the homeowner was a complete pacifist. If they have a key then they know me very well. If they don't then they had to break in somehow - and that gets real close to fatally stupid right there.

It might be a member of your immediate family but because you were just awakened, it is dark, and you have the adreniline pumping, you need to identify the target.

Is it a male figure? Then he isn't a member of my family. It's quite easy to pick out the difference between a five foot female and a grown man.

Even if it is a stanger, I noted a few recent episodes where someone made a mistake in coming into the house. There have been a number of such cases discussed on this board.

Oooops! Like I said, sometimes stupidity is a fatal disease. If someone is there in the dark, uninvited, then I am not going to interview them about their intentions. Hell, a burglar/murderer/rapist would almost certainly lie about why he is there anyway. And they had to break in, so . . . .

Then of course there are those of us who would rather not kill other people unless we have to.

If he is in my home, uninvited, in the dark then I am going to assume I have to. The only reasonable conclusion is that he is up to no good and possibly (probably?) there to do harm to me or my family. That's why the law defines burglary (breaking and entering into the dwelling of another, in the nighttime, with the intent to commit a felony therein) as an "inherently dangerous felony." Meaning - try it and someone is quite likely to get killed, even if you were only there to steal a TV. BTW, if I shot a burglar and he had a friend with him, the friend becomes criminally liable for the death under those circumstances. That's how seriously the law regards that sort of thing (the felony murder rule).

That is a moral dilema we all have to face.

You know that is pretty much the same dilemma as being judged by twelve or carried by six. Under those circumstances, I can certainly live with the dilemma.

Of course then we get into the fact that we have to deal with the rest of society. The law, criminal attorneys, civil attorneys, etc.

I am reasonably sure the law is on my side in that case -- unless of course, the person took the time to knock on the door, loudly announce their presence, turn on the lights, etc. But, in that case, I wouldn't shoot them.

The point of this thread is to discuss the pros and cons of using lasers on firearms. If you would open fire on anyone in your home, that is your business but isn't really related to the topic at hand.

You mentioned it as an example where you would use the laser as intimidation. I explained that I can only think of two general instances in which I would use the laser at all. In my home -- where it would not be used for intimidation for reasons already stated. Outside the home, I probably wouldn't use it for intimidation because you have to pull the gun and come into possible violation of law yourself, so you better be sure you would have had justification to shoot, with or without the laser.

Therefore -- in response to your questions -- I would probably not use the laser for intimidation at all. I just explained why.

[Eric Larsen]

I think this tread has gone off to the side a little bit.
Lasers or guns used for the primary goal of intimidation is a complete farce. Period.
If I draw my gun with or without a laser, it is to defend my life, thats all. Brandishing a weapon for the sake of intimidating will get you thrown in the KlinK!
If you draw your weapon with the primary goal of protecting yourself and the secondary symptom of the gun being drawn and the intimidation of that, is enough to minimize the threat....good on ya.
I wont draw my gun without the thought in my mind that I may just have to shoot someone right this second and I will do it, if I feel its needed.
Sorry for the rant...Shoot well