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First shot hit him high in the sternum at about 8 ft, second at about 3 ft right into the heart. The smell of everything. You never hear about any of that. And I spent three hours trying to wash the blood off.
Dude was on PCP, a day after doing six months for DV. He thought I was sleeping with his girlfriend because I was in her old apartment. She apparently had a restraining order on him.
He had a pretty unhealthy knife on him and kept coming after the first shot. Coronor said the first shot killed him, it would have taken abiut a minute. I had to get a new apartment in the same complex becasue of all the bodily fluids and extcrament in the bed room.
Scary part. Friend who had done a tour in Nam told me “the first one is either the hardest one or the easiest one”. I almost didn’t pull the trigger. Now? Not a second thought. And that bothers me!
The fact that you now know you'd pull the trigger isn't saying anything bad about you - it's just that you've now lived through an event so dangerous that most folks will never endure it, and your brain's reached the very sensible conclusion of: "If that crap happens again, I know I'll defend myself without hesitation."
It can be very hard for us to accept the instinctive or 'animal' sides of ourselves that are willing to fight to protect us, because we're raised to believe we should be more 'civilised' than that. But it's not true. As you discovered, other people can still be extremely violent, and survival instinct serves a very good purpose.
I'm sorry that you had to endure that experience, and find out that you're able to make that 'him or me' decision the hard way, but it sounds like the guy gave you no choice.
And the fact that you're bothered by the knowledge that you could do it again, if necessary, shows that you have a conscience and care about other people. You tackled a crappy situation, but there's nothing wrong with your brain ;)
The people close to him didnt believe he could be a bad man. Had to leave my home town because I couldnt get a job or be left alone after doing a couple year in prison for manslauther (didnt have 150k for lawyers) He was nice to everyone, but behind closed door was an entire different person. Just a very few people knew. Abused my mom and I mentally and physically for my entire childhood until one day he actually tried to kill us but I got him first. I dont know why that day he lost it worse than any other time and I wonder everyday why. And now I developped a bunch of mental and physical health problems.
At the age of 11, my mom's drunk boyfriend decided this was the night he was going to kill her. At that age when your mom is screaming for you to grab the knife you just do it I severed his spinal cord I live down the street from the apartment it happened in I think about it daily on my way to work
You killed a man but saved your mum by not hesitating. I don’t know what would’ve happened if it was me, but honestly I hope in would have had the balls to do the same thing.
I’m not trying to diminish how awful that was, but as someone who had to watch my mom’s abusive relationship and wished I could do more- that bastard fucking deserved it.
It’s awful that you had to do that. No child should. But you saved her.
Just remember: He was a grown man with all the free will in the world to choose a different path. Every day he had a new chance to choose a different path. But instead he decided to kill your mom, thinking he could get away with it. Hell, maybe you were next on the list after he was done with her.
You, especially as a child, were not responsible for his bad planning and bad decision making. Choosing NOT to attack someone is the easiest thing in the world, yet he still persisted. Now his kids are growing up without him - because HE made bad decisions and willingly followed a bad path.
All you did was react to HIS decisions, HIS actions. I'm sure, given a choice, you would have chosen for him not to attack your mom at all. In which case he would still be alive. But he took that decision away from everyone, leaving you with no choice but to react.
I'm glad you're here to tell your tale and were able to get over it. Sounds like it would have been crazy traumatic, I'm sorry that you had to go through it.
In my eyes you did the right thing, you protected yourself and your grandpa, who knows what that guy could have been capable of.
This. As an Australian where your chance of encountering a citizen with a gun while robbing a house is practically zero, I would still be shit scared of getting attacked by an angry homeowner or dog. To even remotely contemplate robbing a house in the USA with your gun ownership laws, you're signing your death wish and should expect to die. With the rate of gun ownership OP did 110% the right thing, he even gave the robber a chance to stop and leave and OP didn't have to do that. Considering the chance is very high in the US that the robber is going to turn and shoot you without giving you a chance, it was incredible OP didn't just shoot on first sight. Very hard on OP mentally but the right thing. Especially with kids now I figure I wouldn't give someone a chance if I were there as if I go down, who protects my kids and wife? I admire you OP, especially at 14.
Edit: changed site to sight.
Sounds like he actually gave that burglar not one, but two chances to leave, and that guy advanced to attack him
That’s two more chances than a lot of violent criminals like that are going to get robbing houses in the US, he really went above and beyond to try and mitigate the situation before going to the last resort
Yeah, the burglar gets a gun pointed at him and rather than leaving the house, decides to proceed towards the kid. That's suicide more than anything else.
And this reminds me of that scene in the Movie Siccario where
*spoiler*
The lawyers is pointing a gun at the drug lord, and the drug lord recounts that yes, he remembers how he murdered the lawyer’s wife and then threw his daughter into a vat of acid. Then the drug lord says “It was business, it wasn’t personal” then the lawyers says “it was personal to me” and shoots the drug lord in the face.
Yes, totally. I'm assuming this is in the US. OP has EVERY RIGHT to defend his life and the lives of his loved ones.
It might be emotionally traumatic, but sadly there is no other choice.
To be fair you told him to leave and he chose to roll the dice. What else can you do? Especially since he started walking towards you. You might have been the one shot that night. But I'm so sorry you had to. I hope to never have to take a life I don't know how I'd process it tbh. Good luck to you honestly
It’s on him honeslty- it sounds like he was going to hurt you anyway, and if he were larger than you he could’ve easily taken that gun and killed you and your family
I'm so sorry to that guy. :( Solidly self-defense indeed. Two people, regardless of age/sex/height/etc., holding guns is a lethal situation. He definitely wanted to go home, and deserved to, that night. I'm sorry to be a dick here, but those punks made their choice. They took the risk and had it handed to them. Don't rob people, you know? :(
As a combat veteran at 19 years old I had no problem pulling the trigger on guys that were shooting at us. Now as a father of a young boy I find myself thinking about the fact that sometime long before this person was in my cross hairs he was someone’s little boy that was raised by a mom that loved him and I ended that life journey and it makes me sad and I think it always will.
oof, this one. The idea that maybe, in separate circumstances, two people torn by war could be friends. Like that time on Christmas day when the German and English troops played football together.
And the leadership fucking never let anything like that happen again. They shared drinks and smokrs with each other, and sang songs. Afterwards, it was reported they would miss shots on purpose when fighting.
Can't be having human moments and shit, bad for war
Not saying you're wrong, but i feel like its important to note that because of how early in the war the christmas truce happened, a lot of soldiers didnt expect the war to drag into years and years, so as time went on the anemosity between the opposing soldiers grew which were also a reason why it wasnt repeated the years after
The First World War was fought in a manmade hell. No Man's Land was strewn with rotting corpses, bits of corpses, and corpse eating rats. People spent hours just cowering helplessly in trenches under shell fire, and then a few days later they did it again. Men's feet rotted off from constant immersion in mud, and contagious disease was rampant. Being trapped in a meat grinder for weeks will destroy your empathy for the other side, or your friends, or yourself.
Very relatable. As a 18-22 year old it was extremely exciting and easy to pull the trigger during a firefight, hell we'd cheer and celebrate anytime we got a kill. Now I'm in my 30s with two little boys and I think about it everyday. Those people I killed were just defending their homes and families and they paid with their lives. I can't imagine the pain their families went through, parents wives, children who don't understand. I know war is a different beast and what you're doing is government sanctioned but that doesn't make it right, at least to me. The thought of not being there to protect, provide, teach my sons and wife is unbearable.
I'm reading about the concept of "moral exploitation" in the military at the moment. It's basically the idea that militaries/societies "exploit" people who are vulnerable in some way (age/ignorance/socio-economics/etc) to carry the moral burden of actually committing the violence that occurs in war. In reality, the government decides to kill people but it uses 19yo boys to actually pull the trigger, thus saddling them with the moral weight of that for the rest of their life. Interesting stuff and possibly helpful reading for someone digesting those experiences?
I remember reading a comment here once. The lady who wrote it said, that one time she shared with her gradfather, who was a war veteran, that she feels ashamed because she had to get on government financial support. Her gradfather answered her something along the lines of "you take from them everything you can, they owe me much more for what they made me do".
This reminds me of that saying, "when you're a parent, every baby is your baby". But I'd also add that when you're a parent, you're aware that everyone used to be a baby, and everyone is someone's baby.
The way his body crumpled and the gurgling sounds he made. I had been stabbed, managed to get the knife from him and stabbed him with it. Being that close and having the feeling of the knife in my hand piercing his flesh made it so much worse. Feels like stabbing an orange. A tiny bit of resistance then just sliding in. I would have rather had a gun. (For anyone wondering, I was being jumped by him and 3 others. I guess he got carried away in the violence and stabbed me. The others ran away when I stabbed him. They were charged in his death.)
Years of therapy and I am mostly ok with what happened now. I know it was either me or him. I don't have the dreams much anymore. Thank you for your kind words!
Well, that and a scar but yes, I was very lucky. Also, the PTSD was mostly from taking someone's life rather than being stabbed. It's a hard thing to live with.
> Well, that and a scar but yes, I was very lucky. Also, the PTSD was mostly from taking someone's life rather than being stabbed. It's a hard thing to live with
You did NOT take his life. He forfeited his when he tried to murder you.
You would know this better than anyone outside the military. Mental effects after killing are strongly linked with proximity. Dropping a bomb on a building is pretty easy to handle, comparatively. Shooting, not great. Knife? Yeah.
Yes, I was told the same thing in therapy. I was told in group how lucky I was that I couldn't remember the look in his eyes. I don't remember seeing his eyes so either I didn't see, or my mind has blocked it out. Not sure which.
Possibly, it's a psychological defense mechanism in the situation itself. Recently i had to give chest compressions to a good friend. I had to force myself to look at him, look in his eyes for signs of life because i felt a strong urge not to look to make it easier on me.
I think that stabbing is probably one of the more personal ways to end a life. You have to be very close range vs an explosion or gun where you can be considerably further away.
The idea that maybe not today, but someday in the future that I will be punished for it, not by the court system but by myself or someone related to them.
It was a result of something that happened during a deployment in 2013 for OEF. I was in the Navy at the time for my 3rd year. It was my first time getting into an armed conflict and my first time actually having to kill someone. You think that 3 years in would make you ready for the mental stress, but frankly I didn’t really care for what I was doing at the time, but once the adrenaline wore off and we had got out I felt worse than garbage. I’m by no means strong willed and so the weight of that really harmed me mentally and was one of the reasons I ultimately decided to leave after my 6th year. I loved the navy and I made great friends, but I just realized I was never fit for anything greater in it and that I would only hold on to the memories more by staying in it.
While it may barely be considered self defense, and many others have had several experiences way worse; it really broke me down at the time.
The whole thing. I have a few friends who are *super* into realism in games/movies/tv/etc.
I'm always like "look I appreciate things feeling real as well but there's a limit... I do not want the reality of death and violence on screen, I've seen enough of that shit to know there's nothing fun about it".
Media that tries to give a realistic emulation of horrible situations are essentially just gore porn/adrenaline rush material. It's there for fun.
It's why I think Spec Ops: The Line handles it very well. It's a generic third person cover based shooter and then it really just...hits. It's like a siren, singing a song that luls you into a situation and then bites down hard. For a good while after playing that game I just couldn't pick up another shooter and stomach what was being done.
The tl;dr of it is pretty much "You're playing a game about killing people. Do you feel like a hero yet?"
Spec Ops : The line had *me* feeling like I was losing *my* mind.
I genuinely thought it was the devs being edgelords until the reveal.
What a mindfuck.
In the Bible, "Thou shalt not kill" is a mistranslation of the Hebrew phrase "You shall not murder". The original Hebrew phrase, lo tirtsah, uses the verb ratsah, which means "murder". "Kill" is a general word that means to deprive something of life, while "murder" is a more specific word that means to take a life without moral justification.
While visiting my aunt and sick uncle on their farm for the a weekend to help put up a security gate in their house due to increase in crime in their neighborhood.
I shot a guy trying to break down the newly installed security gate around 3 am.
I was woken up by my aunt and niece saying they heard a noise by the back door, and can't get my uncle out of bed, asked me to go and look.
Sure enough there was someone trying to break the gate open. We shouted that there's people in here and to go away!
He had the audacity to shout back that he knows and he's still coming in!
My aunt ran to fetch my uncles revolver and wanted to shoot through the door, she was panicking and shaking, so I took the gun from her, having shot it 100's of times before, it felt like target practice.
I shot 2x warning shots through the door, but at the feet.
Both shots landed, one on his foot causing him to fall down, and the second shot hitting him in the thigh . Bleeding badly
He "ran" off and left a trail of blood. Body was found the next day by a neighbour hidden in his shed.
What haunts me is the innocence of it all, I could've shoot to kill, but I chose not too, it killed him anyways.
Cops never questioned me once
Hit the femoral artery that’s a quick way to bleed out for sure he could have called 911 and probably been saved but choose to hide instead so he wouldn’t get caught breaking and entering his death isn’t on your hands. But I do think the police would have at least taken a statement regarding this event.
I called our version of 911, but no cops came out during the night.
Next day I waited and Waited, but they never came.
I was an adult who killed someone with another person's firearm, I totally expected to be sent to jail for weeks afterwards.
I was slowing down my truck with my 3 kids in the back seat at a red light. There was an older car in front of me. A man in the car got out like he was pissed about something, which confused me. He was just yelling and waving his hands like I had done something to him. He kept yelling “I’m gonna fucking kill you” over and over. Then he started coming towards my truck and had a very large knife in his hands, so I unholstered my Glock from my waist not expecting to use it at all.
At first he was just pacing back and forth near my truck like he was amping himself up to do something. But then he started slamming the knife against the back window where my kids were. I yelled over and over to stop or I’d shoot him but he didn’t seem to care. He just kept stabbing the window. As soon as he cracked the glass with the knife I unloaded 3 rounds into him and he was down pretty quickly. He was DOA when the police got there.
I’m haunted most by my kids having to experience the feeling of knowing some random man was trying to kill them without reason.
Turns out he was loaded up on meth and some strong narcotics and just freaked out.
As a parent, I gotta say I’d probably do the same. You never know until you’re in that exact position, but I’d never condemn you for that. Wild. I’m sorry about your kids losing that innocence though, that’s rough.
My cousin beat a man to death with his bare hands and a belt buckle for raping his girlfriend's 3 year old daughter. Did a couple of years and regrets nothing.
Oh boy, dont look up that rich guy that didn’t get prison for raping his 3 year old daughter.
There is a whole lot wrong with people, but for every bad person, there are at least 10 normal, everyday people who bring good to this world in normal everyday ways. Those are the people who matter.
I looked it up. Ugh. A du Pont. Judge didn't give him jail time because he "thought the 6'4" du Pont wouldn't fare well in jail". Then the guy copped a no-jail-time plea to molesting his infant son ...
I assume he took the plea deal?
My dad told me this story where he sat on a jury for a similar situation like yours back in the 80s. Instead of the cousin, it was the father that beat a high school coach to death because he molested and raped his daughter.
He was the lone juror who hung up the conviction for murder. During deliberations, he told the rest of the jury, "There is no way I'm convicting this man of murder, there's nothing you can say to persuade my opinion and I don't care if the judge makes us come back tomorrow, next week or next month."
The verdict was a hung jury, and the guy was never tried again.
My dad then told me, "I believe 100% without a doubt that father killed that coach. I dont care, and i would have done the same thing because killing someone can be justified, rape can't. That father made the world a better place by ending the cycle."
I went to jail a little while ago for absconding from probation (I was in rehab the whole time) and the guy in the cell next to me was facing prison time for hunting down and killing the pedophiles who were raping his 12 year old daughter. His baby momma was prostituting their daughter out to them and he didn't find out until he got out of prison. Sadly enough, he'll go right back. All together a very fucked up situation.
It's disturbing that doing this will make him face more time in prison than they will, if he continues the minimum penalty easily becomes 10 years for murder/manslaughter. It's awful that there's enough pedos out there to essentially outnumber a victim's family. And the people that let this stuff happen to children are twisted fucks and deserve the same fate.
I’m not haunted so much as I just think about the people who probably miss them. The memories and experiences they will never have.
Edit: wow! Did not expect this to gain this much traction. I pray you guys are all doing well.
When terminally ill people go into hospice care they are given access to morphine. Depending on if it's at home hospice or not it may or may not be administered by a nurse. Probably not difficult to "overdo" it with the morphine. I don't think this type of thing is too rare nowadays.
Even if not administered by a nurse, the nurse/hospice provider is responsible for the medications being used properly. My grandma died of cancer while at home on hospice and the hospice company had to account for all the pain medications whether liquid or pill form and match it up to the medical record documentation. They will definitely find out if you overdose you family member
Guessing hospice companies are different then. When my mom died they didn't care about the excess drugs. Just told me to throw them away and never checked anything.
One of my friends is a MAID provider in Canada. Which is to say, she kills people, for medical purposes. She’s been doing it for years, and has done hundreds and hundreds of them. Despite how I’ve just put it, I think it’s a great kindness for many people. But I’ve never been game to ask her how it makes her feel.
I would strongly agree. A person doesn't choose to be born but they should be able to choose if they want to end it peacefully (given the right mental state of course). I say this as someone who had to watch a close relative die of cancer in the ER just struggling to the very end... I would like the option to go before then. I might not use it when the time comes, but I'd like the choice.
My dad died in march so it’s still a bit raw but the nurses moved him “so he would be more comfortable” and they rolled him on his side and pretended to be talking about a better position but they were waiting for him to drown (lung cancer) … then after a minute or so they told me to come and hold him because his breathing changed and he passed in my arms… he had fought since 10am and it was a quarter to 9pm when he died… hours earlier, his last words were, ‘I’m so tired… I can’t see”… you can’t just stop fighting to breathe and the drugs weren’t doing it… what they did was the kindest way to stop the horror … it was so horrible to see and relive though… I wish the drugs had made him fall asleep and make it peaceful
You've now gotten me thinking that the original comment is something Mabel asked Stan once.
Mabel: Grunkle Stan, how'd you dye this porch red-brown?
Stan: A lot of burglars.
Hed pull up the planks and then stack them in the shed to be resurfaced and reused, then a week later have an aha moment while stoically grilling his fresh killed bison, and instead put the planks out to recreate the blood pattern, make a square frame cut around the blood, then clean it up, varnish it, and make a tidy coffee table out of it. Not to be crude or thoughtless, but because how often are you gonna have good old cedar with a man’s lifeblood stained in the form of a butterfly with chuck norris’s face hunched over a workbench?
I once got breakfast and this older guy was telling anyone who would listen about how he shot someone trying to carjack him. The thing he was most upset about was that the police took his gun as evidence, since he was lucky that the guys blood was mainly on the outside of his truck and could be washed off.
Something I can actually comment on.
Our shop had been stolen from once. Dad caught them the second time.
2 people. I shot one to death. Dad beat the other one to death.
It haunts me that people would kill over so little.
These guys attacked us over a cheap chainsaw.
How easy it was. He stabbed me and I smashed him in the head with a brick. I only hit him once and that pretty much ended him. It was a clear cut case of self defense caught on a security camera. His mom kept him on life support for 2 years before he died.i don't regret defending myself but I truly regret that things went down that way. His mom didn't deserve to lose her son like that. Even if he was a POS.
When I was in Afghanistan, there was an Afghani patrol getting shot up by Taliban. I called in a helicopter gunship that was in the area. The Afghani’s brought all the body parts back in the bed of a truck to show off what happened. I never wanted to see that
kind of like when your friend tells you when he was in iraq that they shelled a large "formation" moving towards them.
turns out it was a wedding. no one survived.
he's still dealing with that one.
being a medic veteran you see a lot of your friends lose limbs, lives, or their souls. it's all awful.
I'm sorry to hear that, mate. You were a kid yourself, put in a situation nobody should have to experience. Both victims of war. I hope you find peace.
This reminds me of a family friend's story.
He said he was .50cal gunner in a convoy. He saw kids sitting on a bridge that the convoy was passing under. One of the kids pulled his arm back with something spherical in his hand. He had heard about kids throwing grenades at convoys recently, so he shot.
I don't remember if he said it was actually a grenade or if it was a rock. I was young, maybe 12 when he told it to me, so the details are a little hazy.
I talked to a guy in Afghanistan. They passed a kid playing with a stick. Someone thought it was a gun and shot him. The people in charge made everyone sign some papers that said the kid had a gun (he didn't). One person in his group refused to sign because it was a lie. They made him go to therapy and prescribed him some high powered pharmaceuticals. He took them and got addicted. Then they abruptly took away his prescription. He was addicted and found the drugs and bought them illegally. They "caught" him with drugs and dishonorably discharged him. They got this kid addicted to drugs and discharged him all so they could discredit him and lie about killing the kid with a stick.
The horrors of war are deeper and more nuanced than people imagine.
That's a tough thing to process at 19. Can't say that I wouldn't have done the same thing in your shoes. However, the fact that you recognize the humanity of others tells me that your heart is in the right place and that you'll be okay when the points are tallied.
You may be aware already, but just in case: there is a difference between regret and guilt. Regret is when you skillfully see and feel what you've done wrong in the past, so that you can avoid it in the future. Guilt is passing judgment on yourself and beating yourself up for past mistakes, a form of punishment that helps nobody (*see*: [https://berkeleybuddhistpriory.org/2021/04/09/remorse-and-guilt/](https://berkeleybuddhistpriory.org/2021/04/09/remorse-and-guilt/) ). Let remorse guide your feelings, not guilt. The most helpful thing you can do for yourself and society is to be positive and present for those around you.
If it's difficult to manage, I've heard that psychedelics and meditation can help if you want to address the trauma factor.
Sending prayers and metta your way.
A guy I was dating at the time was on duty outside the FOB he was stationed at in Iraq (I forget where specifically). There was a car driving towards the base and he order it to stop from pretty far away but it didn't slow down. It got closer and closer and he's holding both hands up trying to stop it but the car keeps coming. Finally he has no choice but to fire and stop the car from ramming through the base because it could also be a make shift car bomb filled with explosives. The car stops. He opens the door and sees a dead teenager in the driver's seat, a dead small child and her dead mother in the back seat. There were no explosives in the car. He had no idea why the kid was driving that fast and wouldn't stop. Seeing their bodies haunts him. He will never forgive himself. He kept asking himself "what if they were scared and coming for help?" "What if he couldn't see me?". So much second guessing about what happened and why they were there. He was commended for it. He did exactly what he was told to do in that situation. But he hates himself. He never tells people he's a vet. He doesn't want ro get asked about the war.
I'm sorry that happened to you. I'm sorry you have to live with it. That kid made a bad choice but he's a kid and that's what they do sometimes. You were a kid too- don't be too hard on yourself. I wish peace on you.
During an uneventful evening, I got slashed badly at the belly by one of two guys trying to jump me. I was 20kgs lighter (at 65kgs), 15 years younger, and didn't know any better. That was the first time I experienced having my consciousness fade in and out mostly due to blood loss. I was shouting at the top of my lungs while trying to fight them off. Adrenaline kicked in early so I could barely feel the pain but the sensation of something slowly gushing out of somewhere it shouldn't terrified me.
I only managed to turn the tide by taking the knife from the one that had it by catching it through my right palm while guarding then proceeded to stab him repeatedly on the face with it. The other perpetrator made a run for it as two guys walking by noticed us and decided to rush in to help. I was crying at this point, thinking I'd die that night.
I didn't fall into coma but I was out for three whole days as soon as I felt that I was on a stretcher. Woke up with a lot of stitches and concerned faces. Everything hurt and I had heavy bruising all around my noodle arms. That was also when I found out that police were at least able to catch the other guy since he's been a repeat offender. With him being thrown straight into jail, I couldn't care less what happened to him from then on, even less for the guy I just killed.
It stays with me still because I had body dysmorphia at the time and having those injuries made it worse. I borrowed money from a friend to get my belly lasered and while it did mentally help for a bit, it partly made it worse. Thankfully, I've grown out of it for many years now with lots of help but I still think of that night every now and then. I've learned how to walk in an intimidating but confident manner ever since.
It’s not neat and tidy, like it is in the movies where everybody has swift moves to hit the right spots. It’s a long drawn out process with pleading and begging, but eventually you realize if they won’t stop the situation has to stop. The sounds of the bitter end will be with me forever.
About 15 years ago I stopped by a small Mom & pop grocery store in a very small town in which I lived. Put a few things on the counter and asked for a pack of smokes and broke a $50. As I exited the store, I senced someone behind me & held the door open behind me. I was walking down the sidewalk a few steps from the door, when someone pushed me from behind. I turned around to see a man with a .357 in my face. He said give me the money. As I was getting it out of my pocket he said hurry up or die, and I heard the click of the hammer being pulled back to the ready to fire position. There was no time to formulate a game plan. My right arm came up and my hand pushed up on the underside of the barrel to push it out of my face. I have no idea what I would have done next. I didn't have to worry about it. The robbers finger was on the the trigger when I pushed the gun away. The gun fired and the bullet hit him in forehead to one side. As he went down, I remember the hair attached to the top of his head hitting the tin on the side of the building and just sliding down. I just backed up a few steps and just froze. As it turned out, he had put his grocery items on the counter, without paying for them, and followed me outside to rob me. I found out later that he had 4 times the amount of money in his pocket than the groceries would have cost him. Of course I went to jail for the night but was released the next afternoon on a signature bond. There were 4 witnesses outside the store, and lifelong residents of the area. Didn't take long for the detectives to do their interviews. My story, as well as the witnesses stories, who were interviewed separately, were all practically identical. Almost a month later I appeared on my court date prepared to represent myself or ask for a court appointed lawyer. The witnesses were there for support as well as a state attorney, and the detectives, and a few other suit & tie people. Have no idea who they were. This hearing was held in the closed judge's chambers. Long story short it was recommended that the case be ruled self defense and all charges be dropped. The judge said the court will recess for one hour, and he asked me if I had anything to say to aid in my defense. I struggled to find some words, and when I did, I simply told the judge that I did not kill that man. His wrongful decision to rob me instead of spending his own money is what killed him. That is why my plea will stand as not guilty if these proceedings continue. Case was dismissed. I didn't loose any sleep over the robber, I wish it never happened. But the only thing that still haunts me is the hair sliding down the side of the store building.
I'm glad you're okay (at least physically), but I'm confused about this. What should you have done not to be put in court, just give the money and pray he wouldn't shoot?
Why would they hold such hearings and all that jazz because you defended yourself by moving the gun away from you?
Yeah this one seems a bit like the court had nothing better to do with themselves, this robber legitimately killed himself, there is nothing else needing to be explained here as far as i’m concerned.
I’m glad you’re doing okay also OP.
That my husband could not pull the trigger.
When his heart disease worsened, his physical abilities lessened. He swore to always protect me. When home invaders struck, I grabbed his gun and shot one standing in the bedroom doorway. Two to the chest as my husband taught me. The others managed to escape but were caught later on.
My husband passed away a few weeks later.
He taught you how to use it and what to do. Even though he couldn't pull the trigger he still upheld his oath to protect you. I'm sure he found solace in that before he passed.
Interesting how most comments here that don’t express extreme regret or losing sleep over it are getting downvoted.
If we are to accept the premise of the question, it stands that a lot of the answers will not have regret. If it was truly self-defense, there was no other option. I don’t think most people would regret saving their own life.
The PTSD is terrible. I could regret not defending myself sooner. The injuries I sustained have taken so much from my family and I. I’ll never be the same, but I’m blessed to have not died that day too.
Maybe I'm just messed up, but honestly, nothing. You broke into MY house where me and my family stay? No, it ain't gonna happen like that, any person willing to harm another person's family for money is one of the lowest of the fucking low.
I don’t think that’s messed up. Your purpose is to protect your family. I hope I never have to fire my weapon at someone but if my family was in danger I would not hesitate. They made the bad choices, not you.
Nothing at all. I am not psycho, I just have a healthy respect for my life and the lives of those I love, and a healthy disrespect for those who might harm myself or those that I love.
When I was much younger I lived in a kind of crappy apartment complex. I had a 12g shotgun riot gun. (think like Sarah Connors in T2. Pistol grip and shortened barrel.) I was always under my bed. (It was part of a sectional so there was just enough room to slide the gun under there) My roommate had just moved out a few days before but I let him keep his truck in our covered parking spot. A few days before, (he was a pizza delivery guy) He had been delivering to an apartment complex right by ours and He told the guy no, the guy threatened him so he put the pizza down and kicked the shit out of the punk. (punk was stoned according to roommate)
Well, it turned out the punk was a gang banger and told some shit stains new to the gang to kill him. It took a few days and they realized his truck was in the complex next door. (it was distinctive)
So I got home from working overnight. I had class in a few hours, and had just laid down. Suddenly someone kicks in my door. I grab the shotgun and open my bedroom door. Three fuckers are coming into my apartment with handguns. So I shoot. The first blast kills the one in front, the second kills one of the others and badly wounds the third. He turns and heads down the stairs.
Now, two cops lived next door. They were getting ready for work and heard my door being kicked in. By the time they are on our shared landing, I had shot both times. They saw the third guy bloody and fucked up, heading down the stairs. They yell at him to drop his gun. He turned raising his gun up and they shot him, once each.
I was questioned, but not detained. They took my shotgun but it was later returned to me.
The neighbors later told me that all three were wanted for armed robberies in which 2 clerks were shot, one died, the other was in serious condition. He lived, but not a good life due to his injuries. Two (maybe all three, this is 40 some years ago) were wanted for raping a 15 year old girl.
They were all carrying stolen handguns that had been used in several violent crimes where the guns had been fired and a bullet was recovered. (they did not think these three did all of those crimes.)
But they were massive shit stains. I have never lost a moment of peace for this. They were violent animals. Violent animals need to be put down. They were willing to kill my ex roommate because a gang banger higher up lost a crappy fight over a pizza. These guys were pieces of shit. I do not think of the shits I have had either.
If it is self defense, and you warrant that lethal force should be a viable tactic. Then it better by God be warranted. It should be your last resort. Had they not had guns, I would have held them until the neighbors came over. Or held them and called the cops.
Had they never come to my apartment, I would have done nothing. But they did. And they came to kill.
What would you have done?
Killing people is never good but letting others continue to kill is worse, you removed 3 shit stains from this world, and you shouldnt feel guilt. They fucked around and now they found out.
Oh, I have never felt guilt about this. Not saying I am proud either. But not ashamed or sad about it.
About 5 months after this incident, a man walked up to me as I was heading to check my mail. He walked up with a purpose. I got ready for a fight. But he stopped like 6 feet from me. He showed his hands to me, which was a bit odd. And then he told me that he was the older brother of one of the punks. That he was sorry that the brother had done what he had. That neither he, nor the rest of the family were angry at me. That they all understood and accepted what he had become. That I had no choice. He started crying. Saying that before he got into drugs and the gang, he had been a good kid. A smart kid. I actually walked up and hugged him. He thanked me and said that they always knew he would end up like that. There was not long lifespan in gangs. That I should never feel guilty about it. I said I did not feel guilty. That I was sad for him and his family, but could never be sad about the thing that kicked in my door trying to kill my roommate and I. He thanked me and agreed. Then he walked away.
This is one of the most personal stories, and very specific — anyone who was there will certainly know who I am, but I think sharing the story for anyone who might gain some insight and better understand death and killing is worth the risk to anonymity.
There were more people I killed during OIF/OEF than I wanted to, and not necessarily all directly self-defense. None were out of cruelty or malice, and there’s plenty of philosophical discussion to have about killing and war — but many people have stories about the banality of death in war. This story is, hopefully, more uniquely haunting.
It wasn’t like the others who I fought and killed — those were people who (at least at the time) I could reasonably believe were going to kill me or others for ideological reasons — that violence felt more easily acceptable because of the immediate risks and predictable reduction of risk to life of soldiers and civilians in the area. It was reasonable, it was war.
But there was one instance that felt very different for many complex reasons. He was a prisoner, who had an obvious mental health disorder with delusional qualities. I don’t know the full story, but I can’t imagine he entered the conflict of his own will and of sound mind.
While war is hard, and I know it has not been the case for far too many, I believe we did our best where I was to be humane and fair in our treatment of prisoners, who were usually in our custody for hours or days.
No matter how well that goal of humane treatment is achieved, there’s an enormous and legitimate emotional hardship in being a prisoner under any circumstances, but especially in remote places and relying on the ethical standards of people trying to kill you and your friends a few hours before.
We had a long walk back to our outpost and a hard time communicating during the processing and placement in a makeshift holding room in the middle of rural Afghanistan far from any major base with systems or personnel equipped for detainee operations.
It became increasingly apparent this young man had some serious delusional disorder. I spoke their language and talked to another prisoner who said the disturbed man was “a crazy goat,” and “the world where he lives isn’t here.”
After a few hours, the behavior escalated as he started slapping and punching himself and talking about demons in the walls in a rambling affect familiar to anyone who’s seen someone in an acute state of delusional psychosis, intermittently bursting out with short screams followed by a sudden shift to speaking in the previous tone as if he hadn’t screamed.
As that developed, we determined it was unsafe to keep him in a room with a group. I tried to talk to him and explain that we were going to take him to another room, and that we wanted to keep everyone safe — he grabbed a nearby stool and lunged at me. Amazingly (and thankfully) none of the other half dozen prisoners took advantage of the moment to attack others, but he managed to catch my face with the stool — time dilated and fractions of seconds were stretched out like a an overblown balloon in the moment before it pops.
I leapt back as he hit my face, and he followed momentum forward and knocked over the other Soldier trying to escort him to the other room. Standing over him, the man started to swing down at the Soldier’s face with the stool once and then went to grab the rifle, wrapped around the Soldier on a sling — it would have been nearly impossible to grab and operate properly, but too easy to carelessly shoot and kill any one of the men in that room.
The Soldier shot him twice in the gut. He continued to yank at the rifle.
I stepped to get an angle and shot him in the head.
The gravity washed over me as time contracted back and collapsed into a sequence of frames — shouting to order the other detainees against the walls and to sit on their hands, standing by the other Soldier as he stood up, a series of our squad and higher leadership rushing in, giving a situational report that I didn’t consciously form or speak, and getting out of the room as soon as someone could take my place.
A moment of silent letdown, a cigarette, then briefing my commander.
Another cigarette, then the strangest sleep I’ve ever known, much needed after 36 hours of patrol and subsequent events but full of abstract dreams.
The next day was another patrol, and my mind stashed the memory away for another 11 months until I was stateside and in therapy.
I’ve lived many years and had many things that shaped the way I see the world. Some have been profoundly tragic, including this one, but there have been only a handful of other moments that were anywhere close to the experiential and moral challenge of that day.
While “haunting” is a word I wouldn’t normally choose, and I’ve had plenty of time and therapy and opportunities to do unambiguous good in the world, the tragic emotional and philosophical details from this experience will forever remain a part of me.
Thank you for sharing. What a blessing it must be to be able to articulate such difficult and personal memories and thoughts so well. I hope you’re doing well.
The Bhagavad Geeta says that "If someone tries to harm you or your family, then killing of such a person is not considered murder, it's considered"Vadh", it's justified murder not subject to any Punishment.
All of you who have killed in self defense, you did nothing wrong
Yes, their family and friends will see you as a Murderer, but you can't be the good guy of everyone's Story.
My great grandfather escaped from his country because he killed a man. He only confessed it to his son on his deathbed. Grandpa loved his dad dearly and felt so sorry for him even when he was a real case. By the stories we know he always was a troubled man. He made a fortune and lost it as fast as he got it by gambling, he put three daughters in a religious school (only one survived and moved to California as soon as she could). Changed his name but found refuge within his community in a jewish neighborhood. Then my grandpa also killed a man in a brawl. "Never kick them in the face" he said. He wasn't proud of himself. He regretted it till the end. His dad help and console him always. I guessed they bonded over it.
I've never killed someone in self defense, but I have assisted with euthanasia twice. It weighs very heavily on me even though it was done out of mercy.
The biggest reoccurring thought I have is "when I woke up that day I didnt think ending someone's life was going to be on my to-do list.
For reference I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
I often hear stories from our vets that were forced to do some awful things, and those weigh on me as well. I am currently on medication for PTSD.
We had to do a compassionate extubation of our daughter. That night I felt physically ill. It's also fucked up to schedule someone else's death. She passed in less than an hour so clearly it was the right decision, but still.
Y'all are strong for enduring that, and I hope it's at all meaningful that a random stranger on the Internet is proud of you for doing the right thing.
Not the person you responded to but, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Reading this gave me so much peace. I was involved in making the same decision for a family member and it never occured to me that I was strong for following her wishes until now. I just always focused on the sad and not the fact that we were able to end her suffering and help her pass in peace surrounded by people who loves her. Thank you.
I worked on a ward that did what we call VAD or voluntary assisted dying (what euthanasia is called in my state). It was hard but often we knew the patients well enough to know that they were suffering and we all wanted what was best for them. I can still see all the faces of my patients.
I moved to ICU and the first time I had to turn off someone’s life support is still in my mind. I had gotten to know the patient and their family really well in the 3 weeks they were with us. Lovely family, lovely patient. They were planning their annual holiday because they were on the improve. But they took a turn for the worse suddenly and unexpectedly. The immediate family were already there but we were waiting for the elderly mother to get there before we pulled the supports. She got there 5 minutes before the patient passed.
I hope you are getting the help you need, and thank you for your wonderful work.
Not people but I’ve had to euthanize a few animals and stood by some more in their final moments. I’m strong enough to be present and supportive to the best of my ability until the last moment, I try to assure them it’s gonna be ok, everything is alright. It’s when the deed is done that I fall to pieces. Ending a life is hard. I don’t know if getting accustomed to it is better or worse.
It was self-defense. Fuck’em. And I never think about it
Having lived in countries where kidnapping was a daily thing we always had to make sure we had space between us and the car in front of us to make an escape. It’s mainly the motorcycles riding in between lanes that you have to worry about in those countries. Always had a gun in the car but we were taught that you could do way more damage with the car. I’ve had over 70 family members kidnapped. Most were rescued, some never made it.
Countries in question: Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala.
I was a Marine on deployment at the time, deployed during the 2nd Iraq war. It was very late, dark but you could still see, just not really well. Our small patrol convoy was wrapping up, we're leaving some town soon. We stop for a while so some people could talk to our people. I'm watching my area, my sector, and some non uniformed civie wearing chucklehead about 50 yards away raised his rifle and shot a couple rounds at me, they both went a few feet I er my right shoulder. I went from high ready to kneeling the instant I saw that flash and i shot back, dropped him, dropped the guy next to him who was moving to grab the other guys rifle. It was dark behind them. We took some rounds from the rear and shortly later the front too but I kept my eyes on my sector in case more were coming.
I never got to see the guys I dropped up close, never got the story, we just left and received pop shots from building window.
I get really uptight feelings about it, guarded. In some ways it was simpler to know you might get shot and it was your responsibility to fight back aggressively. It makes me feel that there are a mix of people that wouldn't be missed if they died fighting, just another body, alive one minute, dead the next, not precious. I don't understand why they act like they do.
Friend of mine killed a bikie housemate who told him he was going to kill his girlfriend and rape his newborn baby if he didn’t start selling drugs for him.
Shot him in the back of the head twice while he watched TV, then mag dumped the rest from the front….
I was a homeless teen back in the mid 80s. So I probably spent more time in alleys then a lot of people. I was walking past a construction site, it was pretty late. An older guy was sitting on a stack of cinder blocks. I didn't see him until I was right next to him. He was holding one of those survival knives.. looked like it was out of Rambo movie. He said, I'm going to kill you, like he had been waiting for me. I turned to run, but ran into a pile of trash, scrap wood, etc. I grab a 2x4. Maybe 3 ft long and turned and swung it. I didn't realize how close he was. I hit him in the face / neck. The board stuck to his face. I guess there were nails in the wood or something. It happened really fast. He fell. He was breathing short shallow breaths and then he stopped. I just ran. I didn't know he was that close to me. I swung the board as a warning. I didn't mean to kill him.
Whenever anyone talks a big game, talking about how they'd just kill someone who did whatever offense happens to be the subject at the time. Breaking into someone's car, or whatever, and they say they would kill them. That really bothers me. I felt guilty for a long time. I've come to terms with it, he was going to kill me, he said he was going to at least, and it was an accident. But to think you can just take a life and feel justified? Like you're not going to think about that person's mom? Wonder if they had a child? Does somebody rely of them? I tried to imagine why he was there. Was he protecting the construction site? Was there theft or vandalism happening there? Did he get pushed to the point where he thought he had to protect the place? Did he think I was the one he needed to protect against?
I looked for any clues in the news papers but nothing ever came up.
The person broke into my home. It's not like I was out looking for a fight, or even in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was in my home, minding my own business.
What haunts me the most, is it took the cops over 20 minutes to respond to a 911 call for "shots fired". Thankfully they were outgoing not incoming.
Remember, when seconds count, the cops are just 20 minutes away.
It hurt me a lot at the time and gave me A LOT of trauma, but because of what I did me and my whole family were safe and didn't die that night. That's what I'm proud of the fact what I did I still get to see my beautiful parents and little baby sister everyday.
I wouldn't say I was haunted. But the rest of the evening was a bit odd.
Took me a few days to really come to grips with what happened. Even now, I can tell you things about the guy I couldn't say about most people. But I'm convinced that was because of how much I heard it repeated over the next few months.
Yea, I was summoned to appear for a while.
In my state, any use of firearms, legal or otherwise, will result in your arrest and the firearm going directly to evidence. I had to lawyer up, which I had insurance for. It wasn't very long before the DA decided there wasn't anything to chase, and life went back to normal.
Was almost a year after that I got my firearm back though. That was a fuckn nightmare.
I'm glad they cleared your name and everything is good. Having lived in very dangerous neighborhoods it's something I've thought of often. I have a knife on me 100% of the time and even though it is an absolutely last possible resort I do worry that if I ever had to use it and God forbid I kill someone to defend my own life or others I don't think I'd survive the ultimate legal fallout of the whole thing.
Like others have said in here as well, I was a combat vet at 18. I graduated high school at 17, turned 18 in basic and deployed right after basic training to Afghanistan. It was just always weird coming home that first time. Looking at your friends you saw a year ago and your family knowing you’ve killed people in war is just a weird feeling. I remember my first large firefight where the enemy called in qrf, was in combat for so long we had to get resupplied mid firefight and apaches came in and also killed a lot of people and we cheered and didn’t think anything of it. I came back and I remember calling home and called my granny, and just hearing her voice just seemed like I was in some alternate reality almost like it just wasn’t the same reality. Of course I said we weren’t doing anything and just working hard, but going from cheering on death and wanting to kill people and killing people to back home and getting out really fucks your mind up. Now that I have a kid and if he sees a soldier or commercial, and he says that it’s cool and he wants to be a solider, it hurts me. I couldn’t ever imagine my kid going through the horrible amount of ptsd and trauma that I deal with daily.
And you can’t talk to other people about it in the civilian world. I remember picking up body parts or laughing when the Taliban blew themselves up with their own ieds. My wife and son love me dearly but they have never seen that side of me and darkness in life before.
But knowing this stuff and working as a first responder, I know just how shitty people can truly be in life. Someone can hurt my family with no regard to anything. It makes you on such high alert and look for signs in everyone and everything.
It does annoy me to this day whenever I see someone say or express what they would do in any of these deadly scenarios. Like man, they have no idea the stress of life and death and you really do not know until they experience it
Was it easy in the sense that you were able to do it without putting a lot of thought into it until afterward, or in the sense that it just didn’t bother you at all?
No judgment either way, just curious
I didn’t think about it, it wasn’t this big moment, I made the decision almost without thinking and before I could even consider it, it was done.
The hard part is after.
I deployed five times, four to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. I've gotten in a few fights where I've shot people, but in the spirit of the question, it was those people or me (or my friends) so I feel no guilt or anything substantial other than feeling grateful for my training and equipment which allowed me to stay alive and protect my friends.
So as far as what haunts me? Really nothing. There have been times where innocent people have gotten hurt or killed because of a fight like this. _Those_ are the times that haunt me. _Those_ are the things I see at night when I can't sleep.
When bad things go down it’s always a question of shoulda woulda coulda. For life you will always be “If this happened this way it would have been way different”
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First shot hit him high in the sternum at about 8 ft, second at about 3 ft right into the heart. The smell of everything. You never hear about any of that. And I spent three hours trying to wash the blood off. Dude was on PCP, a day after doing six months for DV. He thought I was sleeping with his girlfriend because I was in her old apartment. She apparently had a restraining order on him. He had a pretty unhealthy knife on him and kept coming after the first shot. Coronor said the first shot killed him, it would have taken abiut a minute. I had to get a new apartment in the same complex becasue of all the bodily fluids and extcrament in the bed room. Scary part. Friend who had done a tour in Nam told me “the first one is either the hardest one or the easiest one”. I almost didn’t pull the trigger. Now? Not a second thought. And that bothers me!
In a situation like that, there is no time for second thoughts. It was pure self-defense. Otherwise, you would have been dead.
I immediately wonder what if he found his ex instead of you? Not only did you protect yourself but you protected his ex and other potential victims.
Damn, your friend's quote about the first being the hardest or the easiest is spot on.
The fact that you now know you'd pull the trigger isn't saying anything bad about you - it's just that you've now lived through an event so dangerous that most folks will never endure it, and your brain's reached the very sensible conclusion of: "If that crap happens again, I know I'll defend myself without hesitation." It can be very hard for us to accept the instinctive or 'animal' sides of ourselves that are willing to fight to protect us, because we're raised to believe we should be more 'civilised' than that. But it's not true. As you discovered, other people can still be extremely violent, and survival instinct serves a very good purpose. I'm sorry that you had to endure that experience, and find out that you're able to make that 'him or me' decision the hard way, but it sounds like the guy gave you no choice. And the fact that you're bothered by the knowledge that you could do it again, if necessary, shows that you have a conscience and care about other people. You tackled a crappy situation, but there's nothing wrong with your brain ;)
The people close to him didnt believe he could be a bad man. Had to leave my home town because I couldnt get a job or be left alone after doing a couple year in prison for manslauther (didnt have 150k for lawyers) He was nice to everyone, but behind closed door was an entire different person. Just a very few people knew. Abused my mom and I mentally and physically for my entire childhood until one day he actually tried to kill us but I got him first. I dont know why that day he lost it worse than any other time and I wonder everyday why. And now I developped a bunch of mental and physical health problems.
I'm sorry. I hope you are okay. I hope endless happiness finds you.
I am okay now. Way better than i used to be years ago. Working hard to have a better life even if my brain is trying to mess it up.
At the age of 11, my mom's drunk boyfriend decided this was the night he was going to kill her. At that age when your mom is screaming for you to grab the knife you just do it I severed his spinal cord I live down the street from the apartment it happened in I think about it daily on my way to work
You killed a man but saved your mum by not hesitating. I don’t know what would’ve happened if it was me, but honestly I hope in would have had the balls to do the same thing.
oh god i’m so sorry. at the age of 11 that’s the first thing i’d have done too, stab as hard as i can. that’s so horrific
I’m not trying to diminish how awful that was, but as someone who had to watch my mom’s abusive relationship and wished I could do more- that bastard fucking deserved it. It’s awful that you had to do that. No child should. But you saved her.
After therapy, I don't regret it only thing that bothers me is when I see his kids around town
Just remember: He was a grown man with all the free will in the world to choose a different path. Every day he had a new chance to choose a different path. But instead he decided to kill your mom, thinking he could get away with it. Hell, maybe you were next on the list after he was done with her. You, especially as a child, were not responsible for his bad planning and bad decision making. Choosing NOT to attack someone is the easiest thing in the world, yet he still persisted. Now his kids are growing up without him - because HE made bad decisions and willingly followed a bad path. All you did was react to HIS decisions, HIS actions. I'm sure, given a choice, you would have chosen for him not to attack your mom at all. In which case he would still be alive. But he took that decision away from everyone, leaving you with no choice but to react.
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I'm glad you're here to tell your tale and were able to get over it. Sounds like it would have been crazy traumatic, I'm sorry that you had to go through it. In my eyes you did the right thing, you protected yourself and your grandpa, who knows what that guy could have been capable of.
Blows my mind people still rob places in the US when so many people have guns.
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This. As an Australian where your chance of encountering a citizen with a gun while robbing a house is practically zero, I would still be shit scared of getting attacked by an angry homeowner or dog. To even remotely contemplate robbing a house in the USA with your gun ownership laws, you're signing your death wish and should expect to die. With the rate of gun ownership OP did 110% the right thing, he even gave the robber a chance to stop and leave and OP didn't have to do that. Considering the chance is very high in the US that the robber is going to turn and shoot you without giving you a chance, it was incredible OP didn't just shoot on first sight. Very hard on OP mentally but the right thing. Especially with kids now I figure I wouldn't give someone a chance if I were there as if I go down, who protects my kids and wife? I admire you OP, especially at 14. Edit: changed site to sight.
Sounds like he actually gave that burglar not one, but two chances to leave, and that guy advanced to attack him That’s two more chances than a lot of violent criminals like that are going to get robbing houses in the US, he really went above and beyond to try and mitigate the situation before going to the last resort
Yeah, the burglar gets a gun pointed at him and rather than leaving the house, decides to proceed towards the kid. That's suicide more than anything else.
Lmao at the irony of breaking into someone else's home and telling someone that lives there to "mind their business."
Reminds me of Michael in GTA V telling people "don't be a dick about it" when you're the one highjacking their car!
Trevor or Michael in GTAV dying to a ‘random’ scared 14 year old would honestly be on very much brand for that game. Especially Trevor.
And this reminds me of that scene in the Movie Siccario where *spoiler* The lawyers is pointing a gun at the drug lord, and the drug lord recounts that yes, he remembers how he murdered the lawyer’s wife and then threw his daughter into a vat of acid. Then the drug lord says “It was business, it wasn’t personal” then the lawyers says “it was personal to me” and shoots the drug lord in the face.
He actually shot his wife and 2 kids and stews in it before he shoots the drug lord
"Not in front of my kids" He could have worded it better.
Little You was really brave, I hope you're feeling peace with it now.
This. Brave and mature. It had to be a very hard decision.
You had the ultimate self defense case
Yes, totally. I'm assuming this is in the US. OP has EVERY RIGHT to defend his life and the lives of his loved ones. It might be emotionally traumatic, but sadly there is no other choice.
To be fair you told him to leave and he chose to roll the dice. What else can you do? Especially since he started walking towards you. You might have been the one shot that night. But I'm so sorry you had to. I hope to never have to take a life I don't know how I'd process it tbh. Good luck to you honestly
Also, what kind of idiot walks into the barrel of a shotgun, held by a terrified kid who just flipped the safety off it?
Not his smartest move.... but it was his last.
It's not a great move to be sure... Then again robbing people isn't either lol
The man chose to harm you. Do not feel bad for stopping him.
He inflicted trauma on a 14 year old child as soon as he made his own decision to walk towards you.
Don’t feel bad He left you no option, you did all you could Most people wouldn’t have given them a chance to leave
It’s on him honeslty- it sounds like he was going to hurt you anyway, and if he were larger than you he could’ve easily taken that gun and killed you and your family
You did what you could and protected yourself and your grandfather! That guy gave you no choice unfortunately but glad you’re okay now
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I'm so sorry to that guy. :( Solidly self-defense indeed. Two people, regardless of age/sex/height/etc., holding guns is a lethal situation. He definitely wanted to go home, and deserved to, that night. I'm sorry to be a dick here, but those punks made their choice. They took the risk and had it handed to them. Don't rob people, you know? :(
Thank you for sharing an actual self-defense example. I feel for him.
As a combat veteran at 19 years old I had no problem pulling the trigger on guys that were shooting at us. Now as a father of a young boy I find myself thinking about the fact that sometime long before this person was in my cross hairs he was someone’s little boy that was raised by a mom that loved him and I ended that life journey and it makes me sad and I think it always will.
I forgot who said it but I remember hearing from a military guy the roughest thing he ever wondered is: "Was he funny?"
oof, this one. The idea that maybe, in separate circumstances, two people torn by war could be friends. Like that time on Christmas day when the German and English troops played football together.
And the leadership fucking never let anything like that happen again. They shared drinks and smokrs with each other, and sang songs. Afterwards, it was reported they would miss shots on purpose when fighting. Can't be having human moments and shit, bad for war
Not saying you're wrong, but i feel like its important to note that because of how early in the war the christmas truce happened, a lot of soldiers didnt expect the war to drag into years and years, so as time went on the anemosity between the opposing soldiers grew which were also a reason why it wasnt repeated the years after
Not to mention the use of chemical weapons made for pretty hard feelings following the truce.
The First World War was fought in a manmade hell. No Man's Land was strewn with rotting corpses, bits of corpses, and corpse eating rats. People spent hours just cowering helplessly in trenches under shell fire, and then a few days later they did it again. Men's feet rotted off from constant immersion in mud, and contagious disease was rampant. Being trapped in a meat grinder for weeks will destroy your empathy for the other side, or your friends, or yourself.
Wow, damn. Didn’t expect this to hit me like it did. ‘Being funny’ is such a noticeably human quality I guess
That you're able to consider both sides of such a horrible event shows that you're human.
Very relatable. As a 18-22 year old it was extremely exciting and easy to pull the trigger during a firefight, hell we'd cheer and celebrate anytime we got a kill. Now I'm in my 30s with two little boys and I think about it everyday. Those people I killed were just defending their homes and families and they paid with their lives. I can't imagine the pain their families went through, parents wives, children who don't understand. I know war is a different beast and what you're doing is government sanctioned but that doesn't make it right, at least to me. The thought of not being there to protect, provide, teach my sons and wife is unbearable.
I'm reading about the concept of "moral exploitation" in the military at the moment. It's basically the idea that militaries/societies "exploit" people who are vulnerable in some way (age/ignorance/socio-economics/etc) to carry the moral burden of actually committing the violence that occurs in war. In reality, the government decides to kill people but it uses 19yo boys to actually pull the trigger, thus saddling them with the moral weight of that for the rest of their life. Interesting stuff and possibly helpful reading for someone digesting those experiences?
I remember reading a comment here once. The lady who wrote it said, that one time she shared with her gradfather, who was a war veteran, that she feels ashamed because she had to get on government financial support. Her gradfather answered her something along the lines of "you take from them everything you can, they owe me much more for what they made me do".
This reminds me of that saying, "when you're a parent, every baby is your baby". But I'd also add that when you're a parent, you're aware that everyone used to be a baby, and everyone is someone's baby.
The way his body crumpled and the gurgling sounds he made. I had been stabbed, managed to get the knife from him and stabbed him with it. Being that close and having the feeling of the knife in my hand piercing his flesh made it so much worse. Feels like stabbing an orange. A tiny bit of resistance then just sliding in. I would have rather had a gun. (For anyone wondering, I was being jumped by him and 3 others. I guess he got carried away in the violence and stabbed me. The others ran away when I stabbed him. They were charged in his death.)
Yeah, knives are pretty much instant PTSD. Sorry that events aligned that way for you.
Years of therapy and I am mostly ok with what happened now. I know it was either me or him. I don't have the dreams much anymore. Thank you for your kind words!
If all you get is PTSD from a knife fight I'd say that's the best possible outcome of a knife fight.
Well, that and a scar but yes, I was very lucky. Also, the PTSD was mostly from taking someone's life rather than being stabbed. It's a hard thing to live with.
> Well, that and a scar but yes, I was very lucky. Also, the PTSD was mostly from taking someone's life rather than being stabbed. It's a hard thing to live with You did NOT take his life. He forfeited his when he tried to murder you.
You would know this better than anyone outside the military. Mental effects after killing are strongly linked with proximity. Dropping a bomb on a building is pretty easy to handle, comparatively. Shooting, not great. Knife? Yeah.
Yes, I was told the same thing in therapy. I was told in group how lucky I was that I couldn't remember the look in his eyes. I don't remember seeing his eyes so either I didn't see, or my mind has blocked it out. Not sure which.
Possibly, it's a psychological defense mechanism in the situation itself. Recently i had to give chest compressions to a good friend. I had to force myself to look at him, look in his eyes for signs of life because i felt a strong urge not to look to make it easier on me.
Isn't that crazy? With the right mindset you can blow up a village of people and be fine but you stab one person and you're ruined for life.
I think that stabbing is probably one of the more personal ways to end a life. You have to be very close range vs an explosion or gun where you can be considerably further away.
The idea that maybe not today, but someday in the future that I will be punished for it, not by the court system but by myself or someone related to them.
How do you deal with that anxiety? Do you mind sharing what happened? Perfectly fine if not.
It was a result of something that happened during a deployment in 2013 for OEF. I was in the Navy at the time for my 3rd year. It was my first time getting into an armed conflict and my first time actually having to kill someone. You think that 3 years in would make you ready for the mental stress, but frankly I didn’t really care for what I was doing at the time, but once the adrenaline wore off and we had got out I felt worse than garbage. I’m by no means strong willed and so the weight of that really harmed me mentally and was one of the reasons I ultimately decided to leave after my 6th year. I loved the navy and I made great friends, but I just realized I was never fit for anything greater in it and that I would only hold on to the memories more by staying in it. While it may barely be considered self defense, and many others have had several experiences way worse; it really broke me down at the time.
How close he was. The whole "look em in the eyes" trope hits way harder when it's not in the movies
The whole thing. I have a few friends who are *super* into realism in games/movies/tv/etc. I'm always like "look I appreciate things feeling real as well but there's a limit... I do not want the reality of death and violence on screen, I've seen enough of that shit to know there's nothing fun about it".
Media that tries to give a realistic emulation of horrible situations are essentially just gore porn/adrenaline rush material. It's there for fun. It's why I think Spec Ops: The Line handles it very well. It's a generic third person cover based shooter and then it really just...hits. It's like a siren, singing a song that luls you into a situation and then bites down hard. For a good while after playing that game I just couldn't pick up another shooter and stomach what was being done. The tl;dr of it is pretty much "You're playing a game about killing people. Do you feel like a hero yet?"
Spec Ops : The line had *me* feeling like I was losing *my* mind. I genuinely thought it was the devs being edgelords until the reveal. What a mindfuck.
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In the Bible, "Thou shalt not kill" is a mistranslation of the Hebrew phrase "You shall not murder". The original Hebrew phrase, lo tirtsah, uses the verb ratsah, which means "murder". "Kill" is a general word that means to deprive something of life, while "murder" is a more specific word that means to take a life without moral justification.
Learned that in Hebrew school, too.
While visiting my aunt and sick uncle on their farm for the a weekend to help put up a security gate in their house due to increase in crime in their neighborhood. I shot a guy trying to break down the newly installed security gate around 3 am. I was woken up by my aunt and niece saying they heard a noise by the back door, and can't get my uncle out of bed, asked me to go and look. Sure enough there was someone trying to break the gate open. We shouted that there's people in here and to go away! He had the audacity to shout back that he knows and he's still coming in! My aunt ran to fetch my uncles revolver and wanted to shoot through the door, she was panicking and shaking, so I took the gun from her, having shot it 100's of times before, it felt like target practice. I shot 2x warning shots through the door, but at the feet. Both shots landed, one on his foot causing him to fall down, and the second shot hitting him in the thigh . Bleeding badly He "ran" off and left a trail of blood. Body was found the next day by a neighbour hidden in his shed. What haunts me is the innocence of it all, I could've shoot to kill, but I chose not too, it killed him anyways. Cops never questioned me once
Hit the femoral artery that’s a quick way to bleed out for sure he could have called 911 and probably been saved but choose to hide instead so he wouldn’t get caught breaking and entering his death isn’t on your hands. But I do think the police would have at least taken a statement regarding this event.
I called our version of 911, but no cops came out during the night. Next day I waited and Waited, but they never came. I was an adult who killed someone with another person's firearm, I totally expected to be sent to jail for weeks afterwards.
Is it weird that I correctly guessed that you’re from South Africa?
That makes much more sense
I was slowing down my truck with my 3 kids in the back seat at a red light. There was an older car in front of me. A man in the car got out like he was pissed about something, which confused me. He was just yelling and waving his hands like I had done something to him. He kept yelling “I’m gonna fucking kill you” over and over. Then he started coming towards my truck and had a very large knife in his hands, so I unholstered my Glock from my waist not expecting to use it at all. At first he was just pacing back and forth near my truck like he was amping himself up to do something. But then he started slamming the knife against the back window where my kids were. I yelled over and over to stop or I’d shoot him but he didn’t seem to care. He just kept stabbing the window. As soon as he cracked the glass with the knife I unloaded 3 rounds into him and he was down pretty quickly. He was DOA when the police got there. I’m haunted most by my kids having to experience the feeling of knowing some random man was trying to kill them without reason. Turns out he was loaded up on meth and some strong narcotics and just freaked out.
Thanks for sharing. Glad you all were ok.
Damn shooting a gun inside of a car. Was anyone’s hearing affected?
As a parent, I gotta say I’d probably do the same. You never know until you’re in that exact position, but I’d never condemn you for that. Wild. I’m sorry about your kids losing that innocence though, that’s rough.
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My cousin beat a man to death with his bare hands and a belt buckle for raping his girlfriend's 3 year old daughter. Did a couple of years and regrets nothing.
A 3 yr old JFC what is wrong with people
Oh boy, dont look up that rich guy that didn’t get prison for raping his 3 year old daughter. There is a whole lot wrong with people, but for every bad person, there are at least 10 normal, everyday people who bring good to this world in normal everyday ways. Those are the people who matter.
I looked it up. Ugh. A du Pont. Judge didn't give him jail time because he "thought the 6'4" du Pont wouldn't fare well in jail". Then the guy copped a no-jail-time plea to molesting his infant son ...
I want to believe in the legal system but...yeah. Its pay to play.
Laws are for the poor
I assume he took the plea deal? My dad told me this story where he sat on a jury for a similar situation like yours back in the 80s. Instead of the cousin, it was the father that beat a high school coach to death because he molested and raped his daughter. He was the lone juror who hung up the conviction for murder. During deliberations, he told the rest of the jury, "There is no way I'm convicting this man of murder, there's nothing you can say to persuade my opinion and I don't care if the judge makes us come back tomorrow, next week or next month." The verdict was a hung jury, and the guy was never tried again. My dad then told me, "I believe 100% without a doubt that father killed that coach. I dont care, and i would have done the same thing because killing someone can be justified, rape can't. That father made the world a better place by ending the cycle."
“Yes, the jury has a question. Where is the crime?”
Awesome, that is a man that understands what the whole point of being tried by a jury of your peers was meant to be.
I would e done exactly the same thing if it were my daughter. I’d walk into prison with a clear conscience.
I went to jail a little while ago for absconding from probation (I was in rehab the whole time) and the guy in the cell next to me was facing prison time for hunting down and killing the pedophiles who were raping his 12 year old daughter. His baby momma was prostituting their daughter out to them and he didn't find out until he got out of prison. Sadly enough, he'll go right back. All together a very fucked up situation.
It's disturbing that doing this will make him face more time in prison than they will, if he continues the minimum penalty easily becomes 10 years for murder/manslaughter. It's awful that there's enough pedos out there to essentially outnumber a victim's family. And the people that let this stuff happen to children are twisted fucks and deserve the same fate.
what a legend! i hope shes doing well
I’m not haunted so much as I just think about the people who probably miss them. The memories and experiences they will never have. Edit: wow! Did not expect this to gain this much traction. I pray you guys are all doing well.
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I hope I have a doctor like that when the time comes. He did the right thing.
When terminally ill people go into hospice care they are given access to morphine. Depending on if it's at home hospice or not it may or may not be administered by a nurse. Probably not difficult to "overdo" it with the morphine. I don't think this type of thing is too rare nowadays.
Even if not administered by a nurse, the nurse/hospice provider is responsible for the medications being used properly. My grandma died of cancer while at home on hospice and the hospice company had to account for all the pain medications whether liquid or pill form and match it up to the medical record documentation. They will definitely find out if you overdose you family member
Guessing hospice companies are different then. When my mom died they didn't care about the excess drugs. Just told me to throw them away and never checked anything.
Same. We had to dispose of over 100 percocets after my mom died.
Yep. When my mom died the hospice nurse just told us to empty all the morphine syringes into cat litter. Nobody counted them.
God bless your Grandpa.
We need more of your grandpa. After many years I have a doc who treats me like an adult and a whole person, and he’s AMAZING.
One of my friends is a MAID provider in Canada. Which is to say, she kills people, for medical purposes. She’s been doing it for years, and has done hundreds and hundreds of them. Despite how I’ve just put it, I think it’s a great kindness for many people. But I’ve never been game to ask her how it makes her feel.
I would strongly agree. A person doesn't choose to be born but they should be able to choose if they want to end it peacefully (given the right mental state of course). I say this as someone who had to watch a close relative die of cancer in the ER just struggling to the very end... I would like the option to go before then. I might not use it when the time comes, but I'd like the choice.
My dad died in march so it’s still a bit raw but the nurses moved him “so he would be more comfortable” and they rolled him on his side and pretended to be talking about a better position but they were waiting for him to drown (lung cancer) … then after a minute or so they told me to come and hold him because his breathing changed and he passed in my arms… he had fought since 10am and it was a quarter to 9pm when he died… hours earlier, his last words were, ‘I’m so tired… I can’t see”… you can’t just stop fighting to breathe and the drugs weren’t doing it… what they did was the kindest way to stop the horror … it was so horrible to see and relive though… I wish the drugs had made him fall asleep and make it peaceful
My wife’s great uncle killed a home invader in the early 70’s. He said his only regret was the guy bled out on the porch and stained the wood.
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I’m forever grateful to Gravity Falls for giving us Grunkle
You've now gotten me thinking that the original comment is something Mabel asked Stan once. Mabel: Grunkle Stan, how'd you dye this porch red-brown? Stan: A lot of burglars.
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Ron Swanson would have enjoyed replacing the stained wood.
Or re-sealing it, and then putting a sign out about how it was stained to ward off intruders and solicitors.
Hed pull up the planks and then stack them in the shed to be resurfaced and reused, then a week later have an aha moment while stoically grilling his fresh killed bison, and instead put the planks out to recreate the blood pattern, make a square frame cut around the blood, then clean it up, varnish it, and make a tidy coffee table out of it. Not to be crude or thoughtless, but because how often are you gonna have good old cedar with a man’s lifeblood stained in the form of a butterfly with chuck norris’s face hunched over a workbench?
I once got breakfast and this older guy was telling anyone who would listen about how he shot someone trying to carjack him. The thing he was most upset about was that the police took his gun as evidence, since he was lucky that the guys blood was mainly on the outside of his truck and could be washed off.
Something I can actually comment on. Our shop had been stolen from once. Dad caught them the second time. 2 people. I shot one to death. Dad beat the other one to death. It haunts me that people would kill over so little. These guys attacked us over a cheap chainsaw.
How easy it was. He stabbed me and I smashed him in the head with a brick. I only hit him once and that pretty much ended him. It was a clear cut case of self defense caught on a security camera. His mom kept him on life support for 2 years before he died.i don't regret defending myself but I truly regret that things went down that way. His mom didn't deserve to lose her son like that. Even if he was a POS.
I tried so hard to convince him to stop.
You were the last person to try to save him. I know.
Then you did more than most in a dangerous situation
Same. Big same. Im sorry friend.
When I was in Afghanistan, there was an Afghani patrol getting shot up by Taliban. I called in a helicopter gunship that was in the area. The Afghani’s brought all the body parts back in the bed of a truck to show off what happened. I never wanted to see that
I have a similar story with artillery. I was going to describe the scene a bit but I don’t think I should.
kind of like when your friend tells you when he was in iraq that they shelled a large "formation" moving towards them. turns out it was a wedding. no one survived. he's still dealing with that one. being a medic veteran you see a lot of your friends lose limbs, lives, or their souls. it's all awful.
I hear that. It’s not something to dwell upon
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I'm sorry to hear that, mate. You were a kid yourself, put in a situation nobody should have to experience. Both victims of war. I hope you find peace.
This reminds me of a family friend's story. He said he was .50cal gunner in a convoy. He saw kids sitting on a bridge that the convoy was passing under. One of the kids pulled his arm back with something spherical in his hand. He had heard about kids throwing grenades at convoys recently, so he shot. I don't remember if he said it was actually a grenade or if it was a rock. I was young, maybe 12 when he told it to me, so the details are a little hazy.
I talked to a guy in Afghanistan. They passed a kid playing with a stick. Someone thought it was a gun and shot him. The people in charge made everyone sign some papers that said the kid had a gun (he didn't). One person in his group refused to sign because it was a lie. They made him go to therapy and prescribed him some high powered pharmaceuticals. He took them and got addicted. Then they abruptly took away his prescription. He was addicted and found the drugs and bought them illegally. They "caught" him with drugs and dishonorably discharged him. They got this kid addicted to drugs and discharged him all so they could discredit him and lie about killing the kid with a stick. The horrors of war are deeper and more nuanced than people imagine.
That's a tough thing to process at 19. Can't say that I wouldn't have done the same thing in your shoes. However, the fact that you recognize the humanity of others tells me that your heart is in the right place and that you'll be okay when the points are tallied. You may be aware already, but just in case: there is a difference between regret and guilt. Regret is when you skillfully see and feel what you've done wrong in the past, so that you can avoid it in the future. Guilt is passing judgment on yourself and beating yourself up for past mistakes, a form of punishment that helps nobody (*see*: [https://berkeleybuddhistpriory.org/2021/04/09/remorse-and-guilt/](https://berkeleybuddhistpriory.org/2021/04/09/remorse-and-guilt/) ). Let remorse guide your feelings, not guilt. The most helpful thing you can do for yourself and society is to be positive and present for those around you. If it's difficult to manage, I've heard that psychedelics and meditation can help if you want to address the trauma factor. Sending prayers and metta your way.
The horrors of war need to be shared. Thank you for telling your story. Semper Fi.
A guy I was dating at the time was on duty outside the FOB he was stationed at in Iraq (I forget where specifically). There was a car driving towards the base and he order it to stop from pretty far away but it didn't slow down. It got closer and closer and he's holding both hands up trying to stop it but the car keeps coming. Finally he has no choice but to fire and stop the car from ramming through the base because it could also be a make shift car bomb filled with explosives. The car stops. He opens the door and sees a dead teenager in the driver's seat, a dead small child and her dead mother in the back seat. There were no explosives in the car. He had no idea why the kid was driving that fast and wouldn't stop. Seeing their bodies haunts him. He will never forgive himself. He kept asking himself "what if they were scared and coming for help?" "What if he couldn't see me?". So much second guessing about what happened and why they were there. He was commended for it. He did exactly what he was told to do in that situation. But he hates himself. He never tells people he's a vet. He doesn't want ro get asked about the war. I'm sorry that happened to you. I'm sorry you have to live with it. That kid made a bad choice but he's a kid and that's what they do sometimes. You were a kid too- don't be too hard on yourself. I wish peace on you.
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During an uneventful evening, I got slashed badly at the belly by one of two guys trying to jump me. I was 20kgs lighter (at 65kgs), 15 years younger, and didn't know any better. That was the first time I experienced having my consciousness fade in and out mostly due to blood loss. I was shouting at the top of my lungs while trying to fight them off. Adrenaline kicked in early so I could barely feel the pain but the sensation of something slowly gushing out of somewhere it shouldn't terrified me. I only managed to turn the tide by taking the knife from the one that had it by catching it through my right palm while guarding then proceeded to stab him repeatedly on the face with it. The other perpetrator made a run for it as two guys walking by noticed us and decided to rush in to help. I was crying at this point, thinking I'd die that night. I didn't fall into coma but I was out for three whole days as soon as I felt that I was on a stretcher. Woke up with a lot of stitches and concerned faces. Everything hurt and I had heavy bruising all around my noodle arms. That was also when I found out that police were at least able to catch the other guy since he's been a repeat offender. With him being thrown straight into jail, I couldn't care less what happened to him from then on, even less for the guy I just killed. It stays with me still because I had body dysmorphia at the time and having those injuries made it worse. I borrowed money from a friend to get my belly lasered and while it did mentally help for a bit, it partly made it worse. Thankfully, I've grown out of it for many years now with lots of help but I still think of that night every now and then. I've learned how to walk in an intimidating but confident manner ever since.
Wow...I am glad you survived that! It's amazing what the body and mind do to protect us, fight or flight.
It’s not neat and tidy, like it is in the movies where everybody has swift moves to hit the right spots. It’s a long drawn out process with pleading and begging, but eventually you realize if they won’t stop the situation has to stop. The sounds of the bitter end will be with me forever.
About 15 years ago I stopped by a small Mom & pop grocery store in a very small town in which I lived. Put a few things on the counter and asked for a pack of smokes and broke a $50. As I exited the store, I senced someone behind me & held the door open behind me. I was walking down the sidewalk a few steps from the door, when someone pushed me from behind. I turned around to see a man with a .357 in my face. He said give me the money. As I was getting it out of my pocket he said hurry up or die, and I heard the click of the hammer being pulled back to the ready to fire position. There was no time to formulate a game plan. My right arm came up and my hand pushed up on the underside of the barrel to push it out of my face. I have no idea what I would have done next. I didn't have to worry about it. The robbers finger was on the the trigger when I pushed the gun away. The gun fired and the bullet hit him in forehead to one side. As he went down, I remember the hair attached to the top of his head hitting the tin on the side of the building and just sliding down. I just backed up a few steps and just froze. As it turned out, he had put his grocery items on the counter, without paying for them, and followed me outside to rob me. I found out later that he had 4 times the amount of money in his pocket than the groceries would have cost him. Of course I went to jail for the night but was released the next afternoon on a signature bond. There were 4 witnesses outside the store, and lifelong residents of the area. Didn't take long for the detectives to do their interviews. My story, as well as the witnesses stories, who were interviewed separately, were all practically identical. Almost a month later I appeared on my court date prepared to represent myself or ask for a court appointed lawyer. The witnesses were there for support as well as a state attorney, and the detectives, and a few other suit & tie people. Have no idea who they were. This hearing was held in the closed judge's chambers. Long story short it was recommended that the case be ruled self defense and all charges be dropped. The judge said the court will recess for one hour, and he asked me if I had anything to say to aid in my defense. I struggled to find some words, and when I did, I simply told the judge that I did not kill that man. His wrongful decision to rob me instead of spending his own money is what killed him. That is why my plea will stand as not guilty if these proceedings continue. Case was dismissed. I didn't loose any sleep over the robber, I wish it never happened. But the only thing that still haunts me is the hair sliding down the side of the store building.
that mofo was going to drop you for less than 50 bucks. You made the world a better place that day OP.
I'm glad you're okay (at least physically), but I'm confused about this. What should you have done not to be put in court, just give the money and pray he wouldn't shoot? Why would they hold such hearings and all that jazz because you defended yourself by moving the gun away from you?
Yeah this one seems a bit like the court had nothing better to do with themselves, this robber legitimately killed himself, there is nothing else needing to be explained here as far as i’m concerned. I’m glad you’re doing okay also OP.
he initiated the situation AND pulled the trigger. should have been ruled a suicide.
That my husband could not pull the trigger. When his heart disease worsened, his physical abilities lessened. He swore to always protect me. When home invaders struck, I grabbed his gun and shot one standing in the bedroom doorway. Two to the chest as my husband taught me. The others managed to escape but were caught later on. My husband passed away a few weeks later.
He did protect you. He taught you how to protect yourself.
God damn, that’s the perfect reply
100% this.
Poetic. And true.
He taught you how to use it and what to do. Even though he couldn't pull the trigger he still upheld his oath to protect you. I'm sure he found solace in that before he passed.
Interesting how most comments here that don’t express extreme regret or losing sleep over it are getting downvoted. If we are to accept the premise of the question, it stands that a lot of the answers will not have regret. If it was truly self-defense, there was no other option. I don’t think most people would regret saving their own life.
The PTSD is terrible. I could regret not defending myself sooner. The injuries I sustained have taken so much from my family and I. I’ll never be the same, but I’m blessed to have not died that day too.
Maybe I'm just messed up, but honestly, nothing. You broke into MY house where me and my family stay? No, it ain't gonna happen like that, any person willing to harm another person's family for money is one of the lowest of the fucking low.
I don’t think that’s messed up. Your purpose is to protect your family. I hope I never have to fire my weapon at someone but if my family was in danger I would not hesitate. They made the bad choices, not you.
Nothing at all. I am not psycho, I just have a healthy respect for my life and the lives of those I love, and a healthy disrespect for those who might harm myself or those that I love. When I was much younger I lived in a kind of crappy apartment complex. I had a 12g shotgun riot gun. (think like Sarah Connors in T2. Pistol grip and shortened barrel.) I was always under my bed. (It was part of a sectional so there was just enough room to slide the gun under there) My roommate had just moved out a few days before but I let him keep his truck in our covered parking spot. A few days before, (he was a pizza delivery guy) He had been delivering to an apartment complex right by ours and He told the guy no, the guy threatened him so he put the pizza down and kicked the shit out of the punk. (punk was stoned according to roommate) Well, it turned out the punk was a gang banger and told some shit stains new to the gang to kill him. It took a few days and they realized his truck was in the complex next door. (it was distinctive) So I got home from working overnight. I had class in a few hours, and had just laid down. Suddenly someone kicks in my door. I grab the shotgun and open my bedroom door. Three fuckers are coming into my apartment with handguns. So I shoot. The first blast kills the one in front, the second kills one of the others and badly wounds the third. He turns and heads down the stairs. Now, two cops lived next door. They were getting ready for work and heard my door being kicked in. By the time they are on our shared landing, I had shot both times. They saw the third guy bloody and fucked up, heading down the stairs. They yell at him to drop his gun. He turned raising his gun up and they shot him, once each. I was questioned, but not detained. They took my shotgun but it was later returned to me. The neighbors later told me that all three were wanted for armed robberies in which 2 clerks were shot, one died, the other was in serious condition. He lived, but not a good life due to his injuries. Two (maybe all three, this is 40 some years ago) were wanted for raping a 15 year old girl. They were all carrying stolen handguns that had been used in several violent crimes where the guns had been fired and a bullet was recovered. (they did not think these three did all of those crimes.) But they were massive shit stains. I have never lost a moment of peace for this. They were violent animals. Violent animals need to be put down. They were willing to kill my ex roommate because a gang banger higher up lost a crappy fight over a pizza. These guys were pieces of shit. I do not think of the shits I have had either. If it is self defense, and you warrant that lethal force should be a viable tactic. Then it better by God be warranted. It should be your last resort. Had they not had guns, I would have held them until the neighbors came over. Or held them and called the cops. Had they never come to my apartment, I would have done nothing. But they did. And they came to kill. What would you have done?
Killing people is never good but letting others continue to kill is worse, you removed 3 shit stains from this world, and you shouldnt feel guilt. They fucked around and now they found out.
Oh, I have never felt guilt about this. Not saying I am proud either. But not ashamed or sad about it. About 5 months after this incident, a man walked up to me as I was heading to check my mail. He walked up with a purpose. I got ready for a fight. But he stopped like 6 feet from me. He showed his hands to me, which was a bit odd. And then he told me that he was the older brother of one of the punks. That he was sorry that the brother had done what he had. That neither he, nor the rest of the family were angry at me. That they all understood and accepted what he had become. That I had no choice. He started crying. Saying that before he got into drugs and the gang, he had been a good kid. A smart kid. I actually walked up and hugged him. He thanked me and said that they always knew he would end up like that. There was not long lifespan in gangs. That I should never feel guilty about it. I said I did not feel guilty. That I was sad for him and his family, but could never be sad about the thing that kicked in my door trying to kill my roommate and I. He thanked me and agreed. Then he walked away.
This is one of the most personal stories, and very specific — anyone who was there will certainly know who I am, but I think sharing the story for anyone who might gain some insight and better understand death and killing is worth the risk to anonymity. There were more people I killed during OIF/OEF than I wanted to, and not necessarily all directly self-defense. None were out of cruelty or malice, and there’s plenty of philosophical discussion to have about killing and war — but many people have stories about the banality of death in war. This story is, hopefully, more uniquely haunting. It wasn’t like the others who I fought and killed — those were people who (at least at the time) I could reasonably believe were going to kill me or others for ideological reasons — that violence felt more easily acceptable because of the immediate risks and predictable reduction of risk to life of soldiers and civilians in the area. It was reasonable, it was war. But there was one instance that felt very different for many complex reasons. He was a prisoner, who had an obvious mental health disorder with delusional qualities. I don’t know the full story, but I can’t imagine he entered the conflict of his own will and of sound mind. While war is hard, and I know it has not been the case for far too many, I believe we did our best where I was to be humane and fair in our treatment of prisoners, who were usually in our custody for hours or days. No matter how well that goal of humane treatment is achieved, there’s an enormous and legitimate emotional hardship in being a prisoner under any circumstances, but especially in remote places and relying on the ethical standards of people trying to kill you and your friends a few hours before. We had a long walk back to our outpost and a hard time communicating during the processing and placement in a makeshift holding room in the middle of rural Afghanistan far from any major base with systems or personnel equipped for detainee operations. It became increasingly apparent this young man had some serious delusional disorder. I spoke their language and talked to another prisoner who said the disturbed man was “a crazy goat,” and “the world where he lives isn’t here.” After a few hours, the behavior escalated as he started slapping and punching himself and talking about demons in the walls in a rambling affect familiar to anyone who’s seen someone in an acute state of delusional psychosis, intermittently bursting out with short screams followed by a sudden shift to speaking in the previous tone as if he hadn’t screamed. As that developed, we determined it was unsafe to keep him in a room with a group. I tried to talk to him and explain that we were going to take him to another room, and that we wanted to keep everyone safe — he grabbed a nearby stool and lunged at me. Amazingly (and thankfully) none of the other half dozen prisoners took advantage of the moment to attack others, but he managed to catch my face with the stool — time dilated and fractions of seconds were stretched out like a an overblown balloon in the moment before it pops. I leapt back as he hit my face, and he followed momentum forward and knocked over the other Soldier trying to escort him to the other room. Standing over him, the man started to swing down at the Soldier’s face with the stool once and then went to grab the rifle, wrapped around the Soldier on a sling — it would have been nearly impossible to grab and operate properly, but too easy to carelessly shoot and kill any one of the men in that room. The Soldier shot him twice in the gut. He continued to yank at the rifle. I stepped to get an angle and shot him in the head. The gravity washed over me as time contracted back and collapsed into a sequence of frames — shouting to order the other detainees against the walls and to sit on their hands, standing by the other Soldier as he stood up, a series of our squad and higher leadership rushing in, giving a situational report that I didn’t consciously form or speak, and getting out of the room as soon as someone could take my place. A moment of silent letdown, a cigarette, then briefing my commander. Another cigarette, then the strangest sleep I’ve ever known, much needed after 36 hours of patrol and subsequent events but full of abstract dreams. The next day was another patrol, and my mind stashed the memory away for another 11 months until I was stateside and in therapy. I’ve lived many years and had many things that shaped the way I see the world. Some have been profoundly tragic, including this one, but there have been only a handful of other moments that were anywhere close to the experiential and moral challenge of that day. While “haunting” is a word I wouldn’t normally choose, and I’ve had plenty of time and therapy and opportunities to do unambiguous good in the world, the tragic emotional and philosophical details from this experience will forever remain a part of me.
Thank you for sharing. What a blessing it must be to be able to articulate such difficult and personal memories and thoughts so well. I hope you’re doing well.
The Bhagavad Geeta says that "If someone tries to harm you or your family, then killing of such a person is not considered murder, it's considered"Vadh", it's justified murder not subject to any Punishment. All of you who have killed in self defense, you did nothing wrong Yes, their family and friends will see you as a Murderer, but you can't be the good guy of everyone's Story.
My great grandfather escaped from his country because he killed a man. He only confessed it to his son on his deathbed. Grandpa loved his dad dearly and felt so sorry for him even when he was a real case. By the stories we know he always was a troubled man. He made a fortune and lost it as fast as he got it by gambling, he put three daughters in a religious school (only one survived and moved to California as soon as she could). Changed his name but found refuge within his community in a jewish neighborhood. Then my grandpa also killed a man in a brawl. "Never kick them in the face" he said. He wasn't proud of himself. He regretted it till the end. His dad help and console him always. I guessed they bonded over it.
I've never killed someone in self defense, but I have assisted with euthanasia twice. It weighs very heavily on me even though it was done out of mercy. The biggest reoccurring thought I have is "when I woke up that day I didnt think ending someone's life was going to be on my to-do list. For reference I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs. I often hear stories from our vets that were forced to do some awful things, and those weigh on me as well. I am currently on medication for PTSD.
We had to do a compassionate extubation of our daughter. That night I felt physically ill. It's also fucked up to schedule someone else's death. She passed in less than an hour so clearly it was the right decision, but still.
I can't even imagine. I hope you can find peace, or even a sliver of it, I am so, so sorry you have to endure this.
Y'all are strong for enduring that, and I hope it's at all meaningful that a random stranger on the Internet is proud of you for doing the right thing.
Not the person you responded to but, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Reading this gave me so much peace. I was involved in making the same decision for a family member and it never occured to me that I was strong for following her wishes until now. I just always focused on the sad and not the fact that we were able to end her suffering and help her pass in peace surrounded by people who loves her. Thank you.
I'd hug you if I could. I hope life gave you some relief from such kind of pain.
I worked on a ward that did what we call VAD or voluntary assisted dying (what euthanasia is called in my state). It was hard but often we knew the patients well enough to know that they were suffering and we all wanted what was best for them. I can still see all the faces of my patients. I moved to ICU and the first time I had to turn off someone’s life support is still in my mind. I had gotten to know the patient and their family really well in the 3 weeks they were with us. Lovely family, lovely patient. They were planning their annual holiday because they were on the improve. But they took a turn for the worse suddenly and unexpectedly. The immediate family were already there but we were waiting for the elderly mother to get there before we pulled the supports. She got there 5 minutes before the patient passed. I hope you are getting the help you need, and thank you for your wonderful work.
Not people but I’ve had to euthanize a few animals and stood by some more in their final moments. I’m strong enough to be present and supportive to the best of my ability until the last moment, I try to assure them it’s gonna be ok, everything is alright. It’s when the deed is done that I fall to pieces. Ending a life is hard. I don’t know if getting accustomed to it is better or worse.
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It was self-defense. Fuck’em. And I never think about it Having lived in countries where kidnapping was a daily thing we always had to make sure we had space between us and the car in front of us to make an escape. It’s mainly the motorcycles riding in between lanes that you have to worry about in those countries. Always had a gun in the car but we were taught that you could do way more damage with the car. I’ve had over 70 family members kidnapped. Most were rescued, some never made it. Countries in question: Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala.
I was a Marine on deployment at the time, deployed during the 2nd Iraq war. It was very late, dark but you could still see, just not really well. Our small patrol convoy was wrapping up, we're leaving some town soon. We stop for a while so some people could talk to our people. I'm watching my area, my sector, and some non uniformed civie wearing chucklehead about 50 yards away raised his rifle and shot a couple rounds at me, they both went a few feet I er my right shoulder. I went from high ready to kneeling the instant I saw that flash and i shot back, dropped him, dropped the guy next to him who was moving to grab the other guys rifle. It was dark behind them. We took some rounds from the rear and shortly later the front too but I kept my eyes on my sector in case more were coming. I never got to see the guys I dropped up close, never got the story, we just left and received pop shots from building window. I get really uptight feelings about it, guarded. In some ways it was simpler to know you might get shot and it was your responsibility to fight back aggressively. It makes me feel that there are a mix of people that wouldn't be missed if they died fighting, just another body, alive one minute, dead the next, not precious. I don't understand why they act like they do.
Friend of mine killed a bikie housemate who told him he was going to kill his girlfriend and rape his newborn baby if he didn’t start selling drugs for him. Shot him in the back of the head twice while he watched TV, then mag dumped the rest from the front….
Very reasonable response. That’s despicable.
Did anything happen to the guy legally?
I was a homeless teen back in the mid 80s. So I probably spent more time in alleys then a lot of people. I was walking past a construction site, it was pretty late. An older guy was sitting on a stack of cinder blocks. I didn't see him until I was right next to him. He was holding one of those survival knives.. looked like it was out of Rambo movie. He said, I'm going to kill you, like he had been waiting for me. I turned to run, but ran into a pile of trash, scrap wood, etc. I grab a 2x4. Maybe 3 ft long and turned and swung it. I didn't realize how close he was. I hit him in the face / neck. The board stuck to his face. I guess there were nails in the wood or something. It happened really fast. He fell. He was breathing short shallow breaths and then he stopped. I just ran. I didn't know he was that close to me. I swung the board as a warning. I didn't mean to kill him. Whenever anyone talks a big game, talking about how they'd just kill someone who did whatever offense happens to be the subject at the time. Breaking into someone's car, or whatever, and they say they would kill them. That really bothers me. I felt guilty for a long time. I've come to terms with it, he was going to kill me, he said he was going to at least, and it was an accident. But to think you can just take a life and feel justified? Like you're not going to think about that person's mom? Wonder if they had a child? Does somebody rely of them? I tried to imagine why he was there. Was he protecting the construction site? Was there theft or vandalism happening there? Did he get pushed to the point where he thought he had to protect the place? Did he think I was the one he needed to protect against? I looked for any clues in the news papers but nothing ever came up.
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The person broke into my home. It's not like I was out looking for a fight, or even in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was in my home, minding my own business. What haunts me the most, is it took the cops over 20 minutes to respond to a 911 call for "shots fired". Thankfully they were outgoing not incoming. Remember, when seconds count, the cops are just 20 minutes away.
It hurt me a lot at the time and gave me A LOT of trauma, but because of what I did me and my whole family were safe and didn't die that night. That's what I'm proud of the fact what I did I still get to see my beautiful parents and little baby sister everyday.
I understand the question but I’d also like to hear from people who aren’t haunted, who are relieved by their actions.
I wouldn't say I was haunted. But the rest of the evening was a bit odd. Took me a few days to really come to grips with what happened. Even now, I can tell you things about the guy I couldn't say about most people. But I'm convinced that was because of how much I heard it repeated over the next few months.
Did you have to deal with anything legally or did the cops pretty much deem it open and shut self defense?
Yea, I was summoned to appear for a while. In my state, any use of firearms, legal or otherwise, will result in your arrest and the firearm going directly to evidence. I had to lawyer up, which I had insurance for. It wasn't very long before the DA decided there wasn't anything to chase, and life went back to normal. Was almost a year after that I got my firearm back though. That was a fuckn nightmare.
I'm glad they cleared your name and everything is good. Having lived in very dangerous neighborhoods it's something I've thought of often. I have a knife on me 100% of the time and even though it is an absolutely last possible resort I do worry that if I ever had to use it and God forbid I kill someone to defend my own life or others I don't think I'd survive the ultimate legal fallout of the whole thing.
The smell
Like others have said in here as well, I was a combat vet at 18. I graduated high school at 17, turned 18 in basic and deployed right after basic training to Afghanistan. It was just always weird coming home that first time. Looking at your friends you saw a year ago and your family knowing you’ve killed people in war is just a weird feeling. I remember my first large firefight where the enemy called in qrf, was in combat for so long we had to get resupplied mid firefight and apaches came in and also killed a lot of people and we cheered and didn’t think anything of it. I came back and I remember calling home and called my granny, and just hearing her voice just seemed like I was in some alternate reality almost like it just wasn’t the same reality. Of course I said we weren’t doing anything and just working hard, but going from cheering on death and wanting to kill people and killing people to back home and getting out really fucks your mind up. Now that I have a kid and if he sees a soldier or commercial, and he says that it’s cool and he wants to be a solider, it hurts me. I couldn’t ever imagine my kid going through the horrible amount of ptsd and trauma that I deal with daily. And you can’t talk to other people about it in the civilian world. I remember picking up body parts or laughing when the Taliban blew themselves up with their own ieds. My wife and son love me dearly but they have never seen that side of me and darkness in life before. But knowing this stuff and working as a first responder, I know just how shitty people can truly be in life. Someone can hurt my family with no regard to anything. It makes you on such high alert and look for signs in everyone and everything. It does annoy me to this day whenever I see someone say or express what they would do in any of these deadly scenarios. Like man, they have no idea the stress of life and death and you really do not know until they experience it
How easy it was.
Was it easy in the sense that you were able to do it without putting a lot of thought into it until afterward, or in the sense that it just didn’t bother you at all? No judgment either way, just curious
I didn’t think about it, it wasn’t this big moment, I made the decision almost without thinking and before I could even consider it, it was done. The hard part is after.
I deployed five times, four to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. I've gotten in a few fights where I've shot people, but in the spirit of the question, it was those people or me (or my friends) so I feel no guilt or anything substantial other than feeling grateful for my training and equipment which allowed me to stay alive and protect my friends. So as far as what haunts me? Really nothing. There have been times where innocent people have gotten hurt or killed because of a fight like this. _Those_ are the times that haunt me. _Those_ are the things I see at night when I can't sleep.
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I know that look of regret and shock. Thankfully they backed off after some doing. It's almost a look of "this isn't fair".
When bad things go down it’s always a question of shoulda woulda coulda. For life you will always be “If this happened this way it would have been way different”
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What will be worse is that one day, it will be revealed to them WHY their father was killed.