Cut-and-pasted from previous threads (titles added):
One Reason Why Dealing Drugs Isn't a Good Idea (from the "Official Firearms ..." thread)
I told a story earlier in this thread about my idiot friend accidentally discharging a .357 between another friend and I playing chess at the dining room table. This story takes place in that same apartment. I'll try and be brief while still painting a clear picture.
Dan and Rick lived in the apartment. "Idiot" John and I completed the four musketeers of our little group, and hung out there often. All of us had some martial arts training, Rick having the most at the time--2nd Dan in Tang Soo Do, his father being a master instructor. We all grew up together and were very tight. We were in our early 20's.
Rick was an established pot dealer. He'd purchased a large quantity the day before this incident. Dan was at work, and I was at home when it happened. I went over there and witnessed the aftermath. John was asleep on the couch. Someone knocked on the door. Rick answered it, and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun in the hands of a large guy, with another guy with a gun pointed at him behind the big guy. Both wore masks. They forced him back into the apartment, and ordered him and John prone, face down on the floor. They both complied.
The smaller of the two ransacked Rick's room and found the stash while the big guy covered Rick and John. He came out and gave the goods to the big guy, and then the big guy said something like, "**** it, let's do these ****ers. Go get a pillow."
Rick heard the other guy go back into his room, and realized this might be it. He jumped up (Rick is very agile and was in great shape at the time), grappled with the big guy, and managed to take the gun away from him, screaming "Get up! GET UP JOHN! Only this gun's real ... the other one's a BB gun!!"
John got up, and the big guy broke away from Rick and fled the scene. Rick and John intercepted the other guy as he tried to flee and proceeded to beat the living **** out of him, tied him up, and called the police.
Not three minutes after the violence ended, Dan's girlfriend came in (sheesh ...). John and Rick had blood all over them, they assumed, from the other guy. As Carey helped clean John up, they realized he had a wound in his side, which was bleeding pretty bad. Neither Rick nor John had noticed that the guy had produced a switchblade and lost it early in the scuffle, but not before he'd poked a hole in John. We figure the extreme adrenalin rush prevented John from even noticing his injury while he was fighting.
The police arrived soon after, an ambulance was called, and John was taken to the hospital. I arrived at the scene as they were carting him off. Dan came home a few minutes later; Carey had called him and told him what was going on. Fearing that the blade might have hit an organ, doctors performed exploratory surgery, leaving a huge scar across John's abdomen, which he has to this day. No organs were damaged.
To my great disappointment, that incident led to the eventual fragmentation of our group because of circumstances between Rick and John and the subsequent investigation. But that's another story ...
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Rampant Pit-Bulls (from the "Official Firearms ..." thread)
I'm not much for statistics. I do have some personal experience, having had to defend my home in California twice with firearms, once against a burglar (after being burglarized twice prior when I wasn't home, by Chicano gang members), and once against two frenzied, master-less pit bulls that attempted to bash through my screen door to get at my cat.
The pit bulls had just come from my neighbor's yard where they had attacked my neighbor's wife and one-year-old son, forcing them back into the car. My neighbor was on the phone with the police when I ... dealt decisively with the situation. He told me later that the dogs were in the park across the street, and attacked when he opened the front door to greet his wife and his two little dogs started barking. He's not sure why they went in my yard afterward; I suspect they chased after my curious white cat, which they'd not ever catch. But my front door was open, and my black cat lived inside, and was slow, naive, and very curious of anything going on outside. I was in my room with headphones on and felt the floorboards shaking rhythmically. When I removed my headphones, I heard this incredible snarling and banging; I raced into the front room. They were throwing themselves against the screen door, trying to force their way in, and the thin wire mesh was ripping. I had to think fast. Shinken daisho on display on the fireplace mantle to my right; shotgun (described below) hidden next to couch to my left. There were two; one was HUGE. My cat was frozen like a black bottlebrush, paralyzed in terror, in the middle of the room. I elected the shotgun, and amazingly considering the duress, I waited for about 15 seconds, thinking it through before shooting the big one in the face. It screamed (deliciously, I must say, I love animals but these were attacking me and my beloved kitty in my home), and unbelievably, managed to make it four blocks away, leaving a large pool of blood on my porch and a trail the police were later able to follow, before passing out on it's owner's front porch. My understanding is that it died in transit to the vet. I'm not sure what happened to the other, younger and smaller dog.
The police came within ten minutes, investigated thoroughly and interviewed me and my neighbors, and later, the parents of the dog owner. I was surprised that they arrived so fast. My neighbor was on the phone with 911 when I detonated, and he told me afterward that the officer on the phone had asked tensley, "What was that?!" He replied, "oh my god, I think my neighbor just shot them." Well, he was half right.
My target was outside of the house at the time I fired, which complicated things legally. But the ripped screen door was evidence that supported my testimony, and I was judged--at the scene--within my rights to do as I did. The owners were warned not to disturb me (lol ...). My prestige in the neighborhood actually went up, because we found out that the dogs had been terrorizing others previously, and no one had been successful in getting them controlled.
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Foiled Burglary Number Three (from the "Official Firearms ..." thread)
After the dog incident and the first two burglaries, which happened in relatively rapid succession, I secured the house. I owned two sidearms, a Glock 20 .45 ACP, and a Glock 27 .40 S&W subcompact backup. My best friend, a former 16-year US Special Forces veteran, furthered my theoretical education and practical training, and had given me his weapon of choice for home defense some time before the dog incident, the 18.5-inch (minimum legal length) Remington 870 pump-action shotgun with a 4-shell extender (7 shells total), fitted with pistols grips, front and back. I kept it loaded with alternating double-odd buck and slugs (this was my choice; my friend thought the slugs were a bad idea because of penetration capability--the primary reason why a shotgun is better for home defense is because its projectiles are less likely to accidentally hit a neighbor or passerby because of short range/spread and the poor penetration of shot). Note: I lived alone with two cats--no children in the house.
I was home sick when the doorbell range in the late morinng on a weekday. Not expecting visitors, I looked through the peephole and saw two 20-ish males, Hispanic, turn to another waiting in a running car, shrug, and say loudly, "I don't think the foo is home." I thought to myself, "huh? I don't know these guys ...." I realized they were putting on a show for anyone who could see them (I lived in front of a park). They left, but I figured they'd be back. I was right.
I got one of my sidearms, sat on the couch, and waited. Sure enough, within 15 minutes I heard someone jimmy'ing the side door (which can't be seen easily from the park). That was the point of ingress in the first burglary. It was secured now with a heavy deadbolt. I'd done my homework, walking around the house outside at various times of the day and night to see what could be seen inside, so I knew where I could stand and observe, without being observed. Only one of them had come back (I'm sure the others were waiting in the getaway car, nearby). He moved from the side door immediately to the point of ingress of the second burglary, the high sliding window that led to my back bathroom from the backyard. I had put a barred security grill over it after the second break-in, and removed anything large but portable nearby that would allow someone to climb up to the window. He then made his was around the windows in the back yard, finally deciding on the simple, double-hung window that led into my kitchen.
He produced a long screwdriver (long enough to be used as a stabbing weapon; making him a legal target if he came into my house with it), and started prying open the window. I had the Glock pointed at his forehead the whole time, and had plenty of time to think, fortunately for him. This idiot was maybe 20 years old. He had a mother, and probably siblings, who loved him, even if he was a complete idiot. Part of me wanted revenge, blood compensation for the $40K of precious material things they'd stolen from me previously. But I decided that letting him come in and then taking his life would not be honorable--justified within the law, but not honorable. I moved quickly to the window, keeping the pistol aimed at his head, stomped the floor as hard as I could with my booted foot, and simultaneously KIAI'd, very loudly. His eyes rolled back, he fell back on his ass, jumped up, and ran like lightning, tearing the aging back gate off its hinges in his rush to escape. I carefully followed out the back door and slowly around the side, then out front. But he, and I assume his hidden cohorts, were long gone by the time I reached the front yard.
Soon I had a gang of 30-40 Chicanos congregating in the park outside of my house, regularly. They did their best to intimidate me, time and time again. The police said they couldn't do anything without proof of harrassment, unless a crime was committed. Eventually, after a few months of sleeping with my guns, taking a different route home from work each evening, and wondering whenever I was outside if this was the moment I was going to be killed, I moved out of the house I grew up in, out of the neighborhood that I had loved so much as a kid, and moved downtown, 4 minutes walk away from my office, into a 6th-floor apartment in a high-security high rise. It was the best thing to do, really.
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Cat-Biting, Cat Food-Thieving Possum Meets Katana (From the "I Caught a Skunk!" thread)
My beautiful white cat was an extraordinary hunter. He took out squirrels regularly. I felt great pride watching him carry one in his jaws up into a tree, like the leopard did with an antelope on National Geographic. One day, he came home with a nasty wound in his head, a puncture that started above his eye and exited on his lower jaw. This really pissed me off; I'm fiercely protective of my pets. So I was vigilant.
I kept a dogloo on top of a picnic table on my back porch, which was Raz's mansion, complete with pillowed basket, comforters, cat toys, and his food and water bowls. One evening I was standing at the screen door and heard crunchings and munchings coming from it. The problem was, Raz was standing in the middle of the lawn, looking agitated. In a flash, I realized we had an intruder.
I confess, I can be rather bloodthirsty, particularly in defense of something I love, and I like swords and know how to use them somewhat. At the time I had a katana which I'd procured from Bugei Trading Company, made for cutting and extremely sharp. I fetched it, and went out back to confront the trespasser.
It was a very big, ugly, nasty-smelling possum. Surely it was those canines that had pierced my precious feline. When it heard me approach the opening of the dogloo it looked over it's shoulder and hissed, apparently pissed off that I'd interrupted its munch. Well, that pissed me off.
I executed a tsuki (thrust), and followed up with three in rapid succession, piercing the disgusting creature several times. It backed up against the back of the dogloo, spraying crimson all over the inside. Its tail twitched back and forth spastically, smearing the blood all over the dogloo walls. It looked like bad abstract art. Breathing heavily with katana poised, I watched it watch me for a few minutes. I watched its eyes fade and go out, which inspired this senryu:
Vile satisfaction
As hopeless eyes surrender
the Light of Life fades
The stench was revolting. I washed it out with Simple Green three times, to no avail. It still stank, and Raz wouldn't approach it. I ended up having to buy another one. I'd been having problems with a gang of chicano gangstas congregating in front of my house in the park. There was a garbage can next to the picnic table where they hung out, a fitting place to dispose of the carcass. I wonder if they appreciated my gift in the heat of the summer sun the next day.
