General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWoke this morning to gunfire.
Even though we're not that familiar with the sound of gunshots, we knew what it was. Boom, Boom, Boom. Then silence for a count of three. Boom, Boom,Boom. It sounded like the shooter was standing on our front porch. My husband looked out our bedroom window, but it was pitch black and he could see nothing. We strained to hear and heard nothing. I wondered why the dogs weren't barking. It was unnaturally silent like the silence that comes with a heavy snowfall. We whispered to each other as we moved to the front bathroom away from the windows. Should we call the police?
Then came the other shots, more coughing than booming. A different gun.Was there one person out there or more? Then we could hear faintly someone shouting across the street. I retrieved my cell phone from my bag in the dining room and dialed 911. I told the dispatcher to let the police know there was an active shooter, that he was still shooting, that we couldn't see him, and had no idea what was going on. I was really afraid they would find someone dead in one of the houses across the street.
I went upstairs to see about our daughter. I scared the living daylights out of her. She thought she had heard the shots in a dream. I told her to come downstairs and we waited in the back of the house for the police.
Four squad cars pulled silently into our neighborhood, lights low and stopped at our drive. One of the sheriff's deputies talked to my husband at the door, then went to investigate, telling us to stay inside.
Later we learned that they found the shooter, sitting on his porch across the street, an assault rifle across his lap. He was so drunk that when they told him to stand up, he fell off the porch. He had been firing various guns into the air, into the ground, and into his own car. They told us they found seven guns in his house and, of course, took all of them. They were looking for shell casings for several hours. I hope he never gets his guns back. I don't have much hope he'll never be able to buy another one, though.
I have some faint inkling of how the people in the recent mass shooting felt; of how people in areas where the sound of gunshots is the norm feel. It's not a good feeling.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)stage left
(2,966 posts)I think he was angry and then he was drunk and angry.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)they good for much other than killing and terror?
Union Label
(545 posts)sounds like the ammosexuals that I've met.
lostnfound
(16,193 posts)He is VERY lucky. He didn't end up dead, and no one else either.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,219 posts)You don't forget the sound of the gunshots, or what that sound represented.
Shooter was a well-respected member of the community, CC holder, lived in a safe, upper middle class community.
stage left
(2,966 posts)Until they're not. I'm glad he was shooting at his car rather than someone. No one in the house, but the shooter. His wife had left earlier, as it turns out, to spend the night with her parents. I assume they had been fighting.
Knowing you heard someone being killed must haunt you. I'm so sorry that happened to you.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)Don't people realize that bullets come back down?
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)But it was different when we heard it in Los Angeles. Automatic weapons fire is especially unnerving -- all the more bullets flying and your walls are like cardboard.
stage left
(2,966 posts)some fool down the street decided to shoot his guns and a bullet went through a little girls bedroom wall. Fortunately there was no one at home at the time.
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)They use a deer blind that is 25 feet off the ground and also a ravine and remote cameras. They know that no one is down range and that every shot they take will be back stopped by the ground. Very responsible shooters as I wish everyone else was.
stage left
(2,966 posts)Firing an assault rifle in a residential area is not responsible. Angry and drunk, but not responsible.I'm glad he didn't take it into his addled head to fill the car parked in our driveway full of holes.
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)houses in the US are stick built, rather than brick or concrete built like in Europe.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Basements are commonly built where foundations have to be deep due to the ground freezing. If you don't get your foundation below the frost line, the freezing ground will push the building out of the ground.
If you have to go down 8 feet to get below the frost line, it doesn't cost much more to make a basement. If you only have to go down 4 feet (standard depth in Los Angeles, and it's only that deep due to earthquakes) then a basement costs much more.
So in the parts of CA with a deep frost line, you will find basements. In the parts of CA that everyone is familiar with, the ground doesn't freeze so basements are not common there. Kinda like how you will not commonly find basements in Florida.
(apologies for the totally unnecessary side-tracking)
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)In the mountains near LA (like around Big Bear) you'll find basements.
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)last time I was there I was about 10 or 11 and we didn't go there often.
I'm from socal but live in WI because my partner is from here.
AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,852 posts)when the grapes started to get ripe. I can't express what a relief it was when they stopped that.
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)snow cornices and prevent avalanches. Also sticks of dynamite. Between those explosions and the squeak of big metal treads on the snow cats, every morning sounded like WWII.
Bucky
(54,087 posts)wolfie001
(2,279 posts)djean111
(14,255 posts)my neighbor told me it was not safe to sit out on the backyard deck during hunting season, because even though the woods were posted, people were still out there with high-powered hunting rifles. And any time someone got killed, it was deemed an unfortunate accident.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)I just moved from there! Wow! Small world huh?
But yeah, our house was more out in the open, next to the military base. Hunting wasn't allowed near the base.
djean111
(14,255 posts)It has been a long time. I lived on Blalock Road. Moved to Florida right when they had started filling up that dam on Orange Factory Road. My property backed up to the creek that feeds it. Lots of deer back there. It was so funny, I thought that deer would slip silently through the woods - no, crashing was more like it. And I bet I planted hostas five times before I gave up on what was really an all-you-can eat buffet for the deer. Giant owls, VERY loud woodpeckers. Even the big spiders made the leaves on the ground rustle. Snakes. One day my son came home from exploring the woods and told me he had found a huge field planted in marijuana. I told him to stay away, if someone saw him it would be easier for them to make him disappear than to move the plants. It is a beautiful state, but I did not like the racism or the politics in general. My son got booted from a swim club we had joined because he brought a black friend twice.
That being said, great restaurants, and Myrtle Beach!!!!!!!
retrowire
(10,345 posts)I'm an NC native. I was born in Durham, NC and always grew up in RTP. Parents decided to up and move to Bahama in my teenage years (worst years to move out to the middle of nowhere) and that's how I know that area. I lived there for about 5 years before I got the hell out and moved right back to the RTP.
The racism is something I noticed lightly within RTP and I noticed it a bit more heavily the further you get away from that. I think it's because RTP is kind of like the Silicon Valley of the Carolina's, people are a lot better educated and cultured around those parts. But Bahama? Oh no.
I think I almost got in a fight with a deer once in Bahama. They're definitely not the peaceful critters we believed them to be. I was walking down a dark back road one night, angrily brooding in my young adult angst when I heard the sound of a large animal in the woods next to the road I was walking on. Angry, I decided to try and scare it by making some sort of fierce grunting noise at it. It didn't get scared of me, oh no... That deer made a much fiercer grunt and made a sound as if it were charging towards me.
I ran like hell and did not look back.
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)The farmers hunt on their own land, which is all around us. It will be Ka-pow, Ka-boom from now until spring turkey season, whenever that is. And in the off-season they are shooting at their styrofoam deer decoys.
Other than that, it's really "peaceful" here. (sarcasm)
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)Too many guns, too many people who should not have them.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)stage left
(2,966 posts)Found out he was pounding on another neighbor's door. They were terrified. They had guns and they were on the other side of the door, guns drawn, in case he managed to break in.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)I've seen arguments from couples that included tossing a old tube type TV through a second story window.
Fortunately nothing that required diving into a cast iron tub to avoid flying lead.
TheJames
(120 posts)From about a third mile away. I was working late as maintenance/technician at a small state of the art digital recording studio and the sound engineer had gone out to the parking lot to smoke a cigarette. He came back in, kinda shaken up, and said we should come outside for a minute. There was serious gunfire going on, "right over there", several different calibers, including some fully automatic weapons. We listened for just a few minutes, until someone said, "Maybe we should go back inside". Oh, yeah! We found out the next day that there had been a "turf battle" between the Jamaican Mafia and some Mexican Drug gang. The police reported over 200 casings found. Pretty scary, indeed.
That was fairly typical of some parts of Houston in the 80's.
stage left
(2,966 posts)My husband just told me they found 17 shell casings and 8 shot gun shells.He used a hand gun on his car.
wolfie001
(2,279 posts)Wow, how frightening. Hopefully, the authorities will make sure your neighbor never puts his hands on a firearm again. Fuck the NRA!!!!
stage left
(2,966 posts)I was so afraid someone was going to be found dead across the street. I hope he can never have a gun again.
NonMetro
(631 posts)Until they shoot somebody!
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)hunter
(38,337 posts)It's those damned bloody altruistic genes I carry. Same reason how my wife and I first met as big city public school teachers.
Gunshots? Time to take kids inside and play on the floor in the back bedroom, away from the street.
My wife was in the E.R. that day, on the team patching up the guy who got shot. Me and our kids retreated to playing Lego on the floor in the back bedroom. We lived in house that had patched up bullet holes in it, another story. I still drive an old car, different story, with a bullet hole scar.
Always just before the stories get really strange... I was walking my kid to school the next day and the blood stains were still visible on the sidewalk.
This poor guy who was shot by the cop and patched up couldn't stay out of trouble and was later shot and killed by gangsters in another city.
Guns are stupid.
Guns and alcohol are not a good combination.
hunter
(38,337 posts)NYCButterfinger
(755 posts)stage left
(2,966 posts)I want us all to be safe.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)college because I could afford it. The neighbors across the street shot out our front window.
hunter
(38,337 posts)... I don't know what my problem is, but I fled safe U.S.A White Cocoon in the 'seventies.
Bullies in middle and high school called "queerbait" and often left me writhing in the dirt bleeding.
Some still claim I've got no self-respect.
A sad, sad lot, all of them.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)I had nuns set all the other boys in the second grade on me. They beat the shit out of me and when I went to her to complain she said I was a big baby. I shuddered and was introverted. At 69 I still am not a people person
hunter
(38,337 posts)And still i live.
Hah! We win!
stage left
(2,966 posts)stage left
(2,966 posts)I'm sure I would have freaked out.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)In fact, the complete term "WELL REGULATED militia" should register to law abiding gun owners.
Do many honestly understand what the intention and spirit of that law is? This guy knows.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)when guns are in the hands of insane people gunning innocent people down all the time, it does not reflect well on him!
stage left
(2,966 posts)Just watched this and this gentleman makes perfect sense.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)Can the anti gun control crowd find anything in what he says to argue against? I don't think so.
stage left
(2,966 posts)I sort of Twitter.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)it needs to get around more....
mnhtnbb
(31,408 posts)It's a very scary feeling. Twice, I've called police. I don't ask them to come to our house, because the sound
of the gunfire usually seems to be coming from an adjacent street.
Several years ago Eve Carson, a student at UNC-Chapel Hill, was abducted in the early morning hours from her
apartment, driven around to ATM's, and then driven in to an adjacent neighborhood (where I walk my rescue dog,
Snowy every other day) and murdered. It was the year after our fire and we were living in a rental house
probably not a 100 yards from where she was murdered. I was out of town when it happened: my husband
didn't hear the gunshots at 5:00 am, but I suspect if I'd been home, I would have heard them since I'm such
a light sleeper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Eve_Carson
I'm glad your shooter was just a dumbfu*k and no one was hurt. That must have been very, very disturbing
to have it happen right across the street.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)And for the other three student victims in Chapel Hill recently, executed over parking spaces.
How long can we let this carnage go on?
mnhtnbb
(31,408 posts)also for the still unsolved murder of another UNC-Chapel Hill student in her apartment three years ago.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/09/hedgepeth-documents-released-0904
However, she wasn't shot.
stage left
(2,966 posts)It might be a good thing for his wife that she left.
Warpy
(111,383 posts)because I had a floor loom to house (now two) and needed the extra floor space that lower rent provided. When I wake up to gunshots, I roll off the bed to the floor and wait for it to stop. It's never gotten bad enough for me to crawl into the bathtub, usually the floor with the lights off will do.
My present area isn't bad, most of the shots are a street over and exchanged between carloads of gang jerks.
It sucks to wake up that way. Last one in this area was down the street, used to go out at 11:30 at night and shoot down the street. You could set your clocks by him. A ricochet took out one of the tail light lenses on my car. Eventually the cops waited for him in a dark car and nabbed him. I hope he never gets his guns back, either.
Alcohol + guns = very bad idea.
Vinca
(50,318 posts)Just in case the fool gets the guns back, can you sleep near the back of your house so you won't be at risk if he does it again? Your scary case is a perfect example of why we don't need 300 million guns in this country.
I'm going to try to find out what happens in a case like this. I would hope his guns would no longer be his. I don't know what stops him from buying others, though. All the Bedrooms are in the front. I don't know.
LibertyLover
(4,788 posts)is not fun at all. I used to live in a neighborhood in Annapolis that backed up to a public housing development. Gunfire from it, usually due to drug deals going sour, were a normal occurrence.
JCMach1
(27,579 posts)... on some days it sounds like a war zone...
stage left
(2,966 posts)Tipperary
(6,930 posts)Asking a person with an assault weapon to stand up is not something I would do if I were a cop. Also, bullets that are shot up into the air do come down. I would file a complaint against this guy if I were you. I would not want someone that crazy in my neighborhood. I hope you stay safe, but that guy sounds pretty nutso to me.
stage left
(2,966 posts)while they confronted him, I don't know exactly what they did. I think you have a good point about a complaint against him. Thanks.
Tipperary
(6,930 posts)raccoon
(31,127 posts)bullwinkle428
(20,631 posts)get himself killed.
I'm very glad to hear you and your family are safe - I hope this guy gets the help he so clearly needs, and is NEVER allowed to possess a weapon again, but I share your pessimism on that issue.
Fairgo
(1,571 posts)Whistling past you ear. A front porch patriot exercising his god given right to, um, uh... Let me get back to you on that...