GRAMMA'S SHOOTING GALLERY
Posted on 07/19/2003 6:08:35 AM PDT by GailA
Sixth home shooting bloodies thief N. Memphis woman gives $200, then 2 shots from .32
By Bill Dries dries@gomemphis.com July 19, 2003
A woman gave a home invasion robber $200 before dawn Friday, then pulled a gun from her china cabinet and shot at him twice when the robber demanded even more money.
Police found a trail of blood inside and outside the house at 906 Meagher in North Memphis and were looking for a suspect at local hospitals Friday.
The shooting is at least the sixth incident since June in which a Memphis homeowner or resident has shot or shot at attackers. Like the other incidents, it will be reviewed by state prosecutors.
This is what happened about 2 a.m. Friday, according to a police report:
The robber took a screen off a back room window of the house, raised the window and crawled inside. He confronted the homeowner, Estella Schaefer, 65, and demanded money. He apparently was not armed.
It took Schaefer 15-20 minutes to look for money as he waited and she then gave him $200 in cash.
The robber told Schaefer, "'I know you've got more money than that. Someone told me,'" the police report says.
That's when Schaefer reached into her china cabinet and pulled a .32-caliber black revolver, shooting twice at the robber as he ran toward her to take the gun away from her.
He failed to get the gun, but Schaefer was cut on her left knuckle during the struggle. She declined medical assistance.
The robber ran out a side door and north on Meagher.
Police found a trail of blood going out of the house and for about half a block on a sidewalk on Meagher. They believe the robber was wounded.
Schaefer, who could not be reached by The Commercial Appeal for comment, told police that she didn't know if she hit the robber with either shot and had never seen him before.
Police described him as a black man in his mid- to late 20s, standing 5-foot-7 and weighing about 200 pounds.
A wave of shootings involving confrontations at people's homes began June 13 when David Ronald Washington, 44, was shot to death after breaking into a home at 3980 Wildwind Cove. He was the man police have identified as the East Memphis "cat burglar."
That same day, Kevin Martrell Humphrey, 19, was shot to death and a second suspect was injured when they tried to force their way into a home at 2959 Lark.
On July 9, William Ronnie Payne, 45, was shot and killed after trying to force his way into a home at 4212 Warbonnet.
Ricky Ricardo Wilborn, 21, was killed and Ali R. Ford, 24, was critically wounded July 11 when a man police say they robbed at an East Memphis ATM shot them as they took him by force back to his house at 4555 Dunn to get more money.
All of those shootings were ruled justified after a case-by-case review by the District Attorney General's Office.
However, police on Tuesday charged Joseph Jones Jr., 22, with two counts of reckless endangerment after he fired six blasts from a 12-gauge shotgun at a man he caught breaking into his shed at 1427 Leflore Place.
Jones didn't hit the burglar, but one of the shotgun blasts shattered a bedroom window at the house next door, narrowly missing two children who had been asleep in the room.
Jones claimed the burglar was armed and that the burglar shot at him as he fled.
That and the way he lurched way left from the center.
This is very sad. Get well soon, ma'am!
Circa 1880 vintage bunkhouse flap holster, rawhide lacing, circa 1883 .38Colt cartridge belt.
Batteries not included.
(no scope)
(no laser sights)
Doc Holliday's favorite .38
Pre-Kid death, could be his.
Could be Sarah Brady's.
Guess we hit on it instinctively -- had a friend whose husband ran off with his nurse and left her in a big house with three little girls under the age of 10 . . . and a loaded .38 on the master bedroom closet floor. (He was not only a jerk, he was an idiot too.)
She quite sensibly was afraid to touch it, and called us in for a consultation. We retrieved it and discovered it was loaded . . . then told her we would teach her how to use it and keep it safely. Took her to the range, started her with my little S&W semi-auto .22 target pistol, and worked her up to the .45 ACP (she decided to stop there and not try the .41 Mag.) But she REALLY liked the 1911A1, better than the .38 S&W she had.
I would say a 1911A1 with low profile grips ought to fit most any hand (my daughter started shooting it when she was 11).
BTW, I don't know why the Browning hurts so bad - must be the way the stock lines up on me, because I have shot multiple rounds of skeet with dad's/granddad's 16 ga. Parker double, in a Tshirt, with no ill effects. Parker sure could build a good gun!
If we were going to buy a general purpose 12 ga. autoloader, which would you recommend? (Of course what I really want is one of those nice Italian skeet guns with the interchangeable barrels, but . . . . $$$$$$$$ ! )
I don't think sexism had anything to do with it. The lady in the article and countless others use .25 and .32 caliber pistols for close defence. It just happens to be my opinion that a compact .22mag revolver would pack more of a punch.
Men, married or single, tend to think of handguns in different terms than women.
I think women tend to consider a personal defense handgun from a different perspective. I don't think they give as much consideration to the prospect of defending themselves against a crazed assailant high on PCP as men do. I also don't think they give as much consideration to the prospect of being involved in a gunfight where even if your first hit isn't immediately fatal, your opponent wouldn't immediately try to stop fighting and flee the scene.
From my observations over the years, a single woman will tend to consider a personal weapon as a deterrent and defense against being abducted, raped and or hacked to pieces by some serial killer.
A mother will tend to want a similar degree of protection extended to her family.
Notice how I said the woman fears being hacked to pieces. In such case, a .25 or .32 is adequate deterrence against a sicko out to get his jollies. From the predators standpoint, the prey has to be defensless and the predator has to be able to torture her to get his sick pleasure. Her small pocket pistol is a major deterrent in this case. He can't get his sick jollies by just shooting her, and running away. If she's able to land just a single non-fatal shot, he has a very major problem as the anonymous secrecy required by serial killers will be blown. The risk to the sicko at this point is too high. Having a pea shooter brandished at him by a person willing to use it will be sufficient deterrent to have him flee and search elswhere for a little lamb.
In the case of this story, the burglar didn't think the lady would use the gun, he advanced and got the surprise of his life.
The little .32 did it's job of protecting the homeowner. The assailant either went off and bled to death or is probably under arrest in a hospital.
A study came out a few years ago in which a citizen merely brandishing a gun regardless of caliber was significant crime deterrent.
All that having been said, the .22mag has a higher velocity and more than twice the energy of a .32. I still think a compact revolver in .22mag would be a better choice than a .25, or .32. I don't see any sexism in that belief.
When the discretionary funds allow, I believe I'll get a new "Lady Smith" version (it sports a tasteful silver and gray ensemble)... if some perp wants to laugh at my using it, that will simply be strike two for him.
If you want to create a FreeRepublic thread that goes on for hundreds of posts, copy and paste that question into a new post.
In choosing a primary or secondary personal defense firearm, numerous criteria must be given consideration. Before getting into make and caliber, let's think about how an ankle gun will be used. The need for concealment is obvious so, the gun will need to be compact. Just how compact depends on your husbands size and type of clothing he will wear over the gun. A revolver tends to be a little wider than an automatic of equivalent class.
What will be the general environmental conditions in which your husband might need to use the gun? For example, is he a city police officer or a game warden? Will he spend most of his time on relatively clean pavement or is he going to be in sand, mud, snow or water? Revolvers tend to be more reliable than automatics.
You don't want the gun to snag on his trouser leg when drawing it so, you will want either a hammerless revolver or hammerless automatic. By hammerless, I mean the gun doesn't have an exposed hammer. To further prevent snagging clothing, the gun, including sights, should generally have a rounded rather than angular appearance.
Assuming a backup gun will be quick-drawn at close range in a combat condition, either gun, revolver or automatic should be double action.
Will the need for reloading under combat conditions be a realistic possibility? If yes, extra magazines for an automatic could be kept on the same or opposite ankle. Speed loader clips for a revolver are a bit more obtrusive and would take away from the concealment aspect.
As far as caliber goes, much will depend on why your husband would need to use the gun in the first place. The larger the caliber, the larger the gun. As the gun gets larger, concealing it becomes more difficult. In order to achieve compact frames with larger calibers, manufacturers sometimes reduce the bullet capacity. Rather than a six shot revolver, they go to five. The same with automatics.
I'm not going to recommend a specific caliber as that would result in 100+ reply posts.
Also, could you read and let me know your opinion as a woman about my post #74 on this thread? I kind of got flamed for being sexist and I don't think sexism had anything to do with my post.
I agree that the .22WMR is a better round than the 25 (rock would be better) but not necessarily the 32. The 22WMR develops about the same velocity as the 38sp, but has far less cross sectional density and thus less "stopping power."Women need educating on self defense. The 9mm or 38sp is far better than any 22WMR. Can be just as small and (ugh) "cute." The MOSSAD uses a .22LR for assassination because they take the mark right thru the EYE everytime. A 6mm rifle can and HAS dropped a Bull Elephant...if you get him in the eye...like the famous "Karamojo" Bell, the Great White Hunter of turn of the century Africa. When you're talking a "mouse gun" SHOT PLACEMENT is all.
Most men and women are not going to be able to maintain their cool in a hostile encounter of the potentially lethal kind to stay calm enough to go for the eyeball and be assured of hitting the target! Therefore, you need a caliber with enough cross sectional density and ability to expand to a larger caliber in the flesh penetration to produce the needed hydrostatic shock and drop the bad guy; even if the bullet strike isn't an instantly lethal area....like the eye. Or if the round hits soft tissue that may eventually prove fatal due to hydraulic failure ie bleedout, it still must be big enough to incapacitate instead of infuriate.
I used to say to folks....: "Look, if you shoot somebody with this little 22....and IF HE FINDS OUT ABOUT IT....He's gonna be very M-A-D."
You never sold a gun to me! :-D Smallest gun I've ever carried was a PPK/S in 9mm kurz (.380 Auto) in a Bianchi Scorpion shoulder holster, and only because my Combat Commander "printed" too badly under my summer suit coats. Rest of the time I carried it or the stainless Officer's Model. My boss, a Marine Reservist, walked into my office without knocking one day while I was shrugging into my jacket - his eyes sure popped. I laughed it off . . . "Hey, if YOU had to park behind the Union Mission instead of in the partners' spaces under the building, you'd be carrying one too." The federal marshals at the courthouse when I was working my very first "real" job for a judge also thought it was extremely funny. For years after I quit working at the courthouse and was just going down there to file papers and try cases, the guys on the gate would ask, "Hey, got your cannon, honey?" ". . . not since I don't have to park under the Spring Street viaduct any more . . . " Speaking of which, I was talking to a friend on Wednesday, her husband got mugged under the Spring Street viaduct. (They are country club Republicans and wouldn't know which end of a gun was the naughty one.) So nothing in West Side downtown Atlanta has really changed in 20 years . . .
But I think that the expectation is that women want a "cute" gun. Women also tend to fear not the recoil but the noise. Probably due to lack of early training, which I had plenty of from my dad and all his huntin'-and-fishin' friends . . . and my kids are certainly getting it too. My daughter will shoot anything I own including the .41 Mag, the .45 Long Colt, my hubby's FN and my .303 Long Branch sniper rifle (she's 15), she's a big tall girl (takes after my husband.) My son is still small and skinny at 12 (he's a little guy like my side of the family) and he prefers the Ruger 10/22 still, which is fine.
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