Monday, May 24, 2010

Get off my lawn.

A few summers ago, we had a little problem with our neighbors who insisted on alternately throwing loud, raucous parties and allowing their teenagers to throw loud, raucous parties that extended into the wee hours, sometimes during the middle of the week. Needless to say, the police department probably got sick of hearing from me.

Anyway, I was home alone on a Sunday night during yet another one of these parties. It was almost 11PM and the revelry next door was in full swing - loud music, red party cups, joints being passed around, and a bonfire. More than once I heard the lady of the house announce she was going to play lookout for the cops. I sighed, deciding to hold off calling the authorities since I was busy on the computer and wasn't yet being bothered by the noise.

A few minutes later, the fire department arrived.

And a few minutes after that my neighbor, lovely woman that she is, marched up to our property line and started hurling threats and cussing me out like a harridan fishwife on a meth bender. (which, come to think of it, might actually have been the case) Due to my history with late-night speed dial, she had assumed it was me who had ratted her out.

I went upstairs and sat on the edge of the bed. I made sure the S&W 642 was loaded and set it on the nightstand. I called Mike and said, "There is a lot of drunk, angry people next door and I'm alone. I have the gun. Please come home."

Nothing happened, of course, and the neighbors have since seen the error of their ways but honestly? to this day, if I saw hundreds of angry, yelling people approaching my doorstep, my last words would probably be,"Get me the rifle."

31 comments:

Old NFO said...

Shotguns are MUCH more effective at close range... Sorry for your troubles...

Carteach said...

Agreed. Should such happen to me, the video camera would be perched in a stable place at wide angle, the phone would be to my ear calling everyone I knew to come help, and there would be suitable weapons to hand.

Call the police? Why? The police ESCORTED the SEIU thugs to the home.

Mad Saint Jack said...

Hundreds of people???

See why I like hi-cap mags?

Jason said...

Actually, those would be my FIRST words.

Mike W. said...

Just imagine if these were "right-wing extremists" instead of leftists SEIU thugs....

Weer'd Beard said...

Perfect Proving Grounds for the SCAR 17!

Still I suspect a Mossberg 590 might have served well-enough.

Glad the ball didn't drop for ya!

Anonymous said...

The Mossberg would be upgraded from "enabler of clay shooting" to "defender of life and home" in an instant. Nothing says, "Get off my lawn, you frickin' zombies" like an evil, black shotgun.

Murphy's Law said...

That crowd acting hostile on MY lawn would result in my Browning belt-fed machine gun being deployed. One warning burst, and then if they're still there...it's grass-cutting time.

Michael W. said...

Sounds like a wonderful time to practice your "Repel Boarders" drill. A shower of musket balls and then cutlasses to the rails............

Jon said...

Yah. I wouldn't have had enough ammo at home for that.

Never too much ammo. Or enough friends with guns.

I'm glad you're ok Breda.

Anonymous said...

Start with the one who looks like the leader and see if the rest have the sense to scatter. If not, center of mass.

Jim

Gay_Cynic said...

I'm with Breda. And with certain traditions that hold that the conditions in your afterlife domicile will be improved by the size of the honor guard you take with.

fast richard said...

When I saw that video I thought about which guns I would load up.

What I didn't understand was the weasel words about juristiction. The Police escort that brought the many busloads of people were from another town. The local police were not notified that anything was happening even though these other police were on the scene.

It was further claimed that these other police did not have any juristiction to enforce the local law, that if the homeowner had requested that they remove the trespassers, they could not have done so. If they had no juristiction to enforce local law, how could they have juristiction to block or direct traffic in order to escort the busses to the property?

This sounds like misconduct by the police that is at least as serious as the actions of the trespassers. When the police look the other way when a crime is committed, or provide protection to the criminals, that is the defining action of a police state.

Anonymous said...

We've come to a bad place in our country where a mob can invade your property with impunity while you are legally helpless to do anything about it. Had the terrified teenage occupant of the house pulled a gun, he and his folks would be UNDER the jail while the vermin who invaded their property and made threats would be interviewed about their harrowing experience by a sympathetic media.

Even more disturbing is that the only way we know about this incident is because it so happens that the neighbor was a big-shot reporter who didn't get the word soon enough to keep her mouth shut.

The rule of law is crumbling before our eyes. The law is becoming a cudgel for a small group of people to oppress the rest of us.

Heath J said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jay G said...

I think an M1A just moved higher up my list of "must have" firearms.

.223 may be easier to carry, but if I'm defending hearth and home I want God's Own Caliber stacked in neat little 20 round boxes.

Glad to hear nothing came of your neighbor's buffoonery, but keep your ear to the ground. Someone unbalanced enough to come to your door is capable of anything.

Keep calling the cops. Keep all of this on record. Make sure that when (not if) she or her crotchfruit push things too far, there's a nice long legal trail to point when they're sporting nice .30" holes.

John B said...

Jay G. I'd want them stacked in neat 20 round magazines. I'm still kicking myself for not getting a .308 CETME back when they were cheap. I actually have two dozen mags around here.

SpeakerTweaker said...

I don't envy your position that evening. I'm 6'3" - 230lbs and you're, well, less than that. I don't think a mob of drunken harridan fishwives on meth benders (I'm stealing that, BTW;) gives a damn either way.

I'm glad nothing came of it.



tweaker

Anonymous said...

Hmmm - SKS on on a sling in front, XD on my hip, garden hose in off hand.

sobriant74 said...

Lets say I have a friend, yeah a friend, who used to have neighbors like these, they kept having strange problems with their electric meter falling out (hee hee) and then their roof started leaking in spots (ho ho) and then somehow someone sprayed all of their grass with roundup and it died (ha ha) and then finally they had a dead raccoon appear on their front porch (4 weeks in a row); they decided they really wanted to move and then I (I mean my friend of course) got quiet nice new neighbors (bwahahahaha). Guess he was lucky is all, strange how things "just happen" like that.

geekWithA.45 said...

Note that you're not legally helpless in an SEIU invasion.

According to some articles I've read, the mob was waiting for some fairly specific actions that would cause them to disperse.

It's sort of like knowing that you have to say "Remove my number from your calling list" in order to make phone salesmen go away.

Of course, delivering the magic words, with a directive to the police to implement the law, is all the more impressive when you're both armed, and armored.

Mike W. said...

And a few minutes after that my neighbor, lovely woman that she is, marched up to our property line and started hurling threats and cussing me out like a harridan fishwife on a meth bender.

Sounds like she wasn't puffing any of the magic dragon with the rest of the partiers.

Rabbit said...

Sometimes home-made napalm, like Kodachrome, just makes the moment so much more special.

PPPP said...

I'm assuming this was before you were acquainted with "The Internet's Most Famous Bersa"(tm).

Anton said...

You need to move to get yourself some new digs!

John Richardson said...

It makes you wonder why you just can't buy Claymore mines at the hardware store. You get other pest control products there....

Anonymous said...

You need to move to get yourself some new digs!

Anton, please don't take this personally, but bullshit. If the neigh-boors, they're the ones who need to change what they're doing.

Jim

Anonymous said...

That is to say:

If the neigh-boors are being like that, then ...

Jim

Zendo Deb said...

For dealing with crowds, you can't beat a semiautomatic shotgun. And the extra-large sized pepper sprays that bar owners keep on hand.

Tam said...

There's a reason that my "grab'n'go" belt has six loaded mags on it...

TOTWTYTR said...

Nothing says "We're not interested" like a shotgun. Except perhaps a SKS with the bayonet extended.