Man Videotapes Himself Shooting Neighor, Claims Self Defense *Updated*

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**Bromsy**

I want one of these. No use for it. Too expensive to play with. But, Thor's bristling beard I want one.

**sebster**

Crablezworth wrote:There's a similarity to the zimmerman case in that they both feel like victims and have this sorta "they're not gonna get away with it this time" attitude which only makes it worse. What's really sad though is if all we had was the 911 call of the incident, every gun nut would be supporting this a***ole.

Yeah. Guns don't kill people, paranoia and general silliness about declining societies and other myths leads idiots to want to make a stand, and that gets people killed.

**dogma**

Frazzled wrote:
Only three? Just like a Yankee.

But one is this, the hipster of guns.

**Frazzled**

dogma wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Only three? Just like a Yankee.

But one is this, the hipster of guns.

Oh wow, someone actually bought one of those. How does it shoot?

**Hordini**

dogma wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Only three? Just like a Yankee.

But one is this, the hipster of guns.

My interest is piqued. Are they expensive? And yeah, how does it shoot?

**Frazzled**

Oh, should note he was just found guilty (the BG, not Dogma...this time....)

**d-usa**

Post from the AP:

HOUSTON (AP) — A retired Houston-area firefighter was convicted of murder Wednesday for gunning down his unarmed neighbor during a dispute over a noisy house party, with jurors rejecting his argument that he was within his rights under Texas' version of a stand-your-ground law.

Raul Rodriguez, 47, faces up to life in prison for the 2010 killing of Kelly Danaher. The trial's punishment phase, which will include further testimony, was scheduled to begin Thursday.

Rodriguez was angry about the noise coming from Danaher's home, where the family was having a birthday party for Danaher's wife and young daughter. Rodriguez went to the home and got into an argument with Danaher, a 36-year-old elementary school teacher, and two other men who were at the party.

In a 22-minute video he recorded the night of the shooting, Rodriguez can be heard telling a police dispatcher "my life is in danger now" and "these people are going to go try and kill me." He then said "I'm standing my ground here," and shot Danaher after somebody appeared to grab his camera. The two other men were wounded.

Rodriguez's reference to standing his ground is similar to the claim made by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who is citing Florida's stand-your-ground law in his defense in the fatal February shooting of an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin. Rodriguez's case, however, was decided under a different kind of self-defense doctrine.

Danaher's wife, Mindy, said she cried tears of joy and sadness after the verdict was read.

"I'm just glad that he can't hurt anybody else. That's my main thing," she said outside the courtroom. "I love my husband and I miss him so much."

Rodriguez's attorneys left the courtroom without speaking to reporters. His family, who sobbed after hearing the verdict, declined to comment. His attorneys did not present any witnesses in his defense.

Jurors deliberated for about five hours after having received the case following closing arguments earlier Wednesday.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Kelli Johnson said Rodriguez started the confrontation when instead of calmly asking Danaher to turn down the music he armed himself with a handgun and a camera and proceeded to harass people at the party.

Johnson said Rodriguez lured and provoked Danaher and two other men to come out onto the street and threatened them by brandishing his gun. Rodriguez did have a concealed handgun license. She said Danaher and the two other men were unarmed and that Rodriguez's life was never in any danger. Danaher's widow had told jurors her husband was not a confrontational person.

"This is not what stand your ground is," Johnson said. "Stand your ground is something the law takes very seriously. The law makes it very clear" when the law can be used.

Texas' version of the law, which is known as the Castle Doctrine, was revised in 2007 to expand the right to use deadly force. It allows people to defend themselves not only in their homes but also in their workplaces or vehicles. Legal experts say the expansion also gave people wider latitude on the use of deadly force.

The law also says a person using force can't provoke the attacker or be involved in criminal activity at the time.

Johnson said Rodriguez can't hide behind the stand-your-ground law because he provoked the confrontation and then brandished his weapon against an unarmed individual, which is a crime.

But defense attorney Neal Davis said he doesn't believe Rodriguez did anything illegal. He said Rodriguez went to complain and was confronted by Danaher and the two other partygoers, and that he didn't pull out his gun until he was standing in the street and Danaher approached him in a threatening manner.

"He had a right to be (in) the street. He was not provoking anybody. He was not engaged in any criminal activity. The (stand-your-ground) law is not only for home invasions. That's why the law was changed," Davis said.

An acquittal of Rodriguez would not "say everyone in the city of Houston is going to turn into the wild, wild west," Davis said.

Johnson told jurors prosecutors don't have any problems with guns in Texas.

"But with that comes a lot of responsibility. It has to be used as a last resort," she said.

Grant Scheiner, a Houston criminal defense attorney who was not involved in the case but who followed it, said a conviction in a case like Rodriguez's might prompt some clarification of Texas' stand-your-ground law that would more clearly define what it means to provoke someone. But he said the outcome of the case, conviction or acquittal, would not lead to major changes in the law.

**AustonT**

Hordini wrote:
dogma wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Only three? Just like a Yankee.

But one is this, the hipster of guns.

My interest is piqued. Are they expensive? And yeah, how does it shoot?

They were expensive. I remember dogma saying he got that one on the cheap.

**KingCracker**

Nice firearm.

OT - What a shocker, the jerk off is guilty. Hope he gets some hard time for being an idiot and making the rest of us look bad

**Frazzled**

Help me out, why would you want a self cocking revolver? IU thought the last pistol that had that was a.455 British pistol at the turn of the (last) century. Whats the appeal bro?

**d-usa**

You said cocking

**daedalus**

Yeah, I'm not a gun nut, but I thought one of the advantages to using a revolver was that you could just keep pulling the trigger if it misfired rather than needed to clear the breech.

Seems like a revolver requiring the recoil of a shot would somewhat defeat that purpose.

**Kilkrazy**

**AustonT**

Kilkrazy wrote:

Technically Togusa's Mateba isn't an automatic.

**Kovnik Obama**

Hum. I don't know if this is so OT that it should warrant it's own thread, but as a prospective handgun owner, what would be a good first buy? If I want something good to learn with and not too expensive?

**treadhead1944**

Kovnik Obama wrote:Hum. I don't know if this is so OT that it should warrant it's own thread, but as a prospective handgun owner, what would be a good first buy? If I want something good to learn with and not too expensive?

Smith & Wesson Police Special, 6" barrel, .38 super. Easy to shoot, ammo is cheap, and there are a lot available on the used market for cheap.

**d-usa**

A good starter gun that is reliable is a Glock 19. Tough as nails, 9mm ammo is abundant, also should be able to get it used.

Of course the most important question would be "what are you planning on doing with it?"

Sports shooting? Just burning rounds at the range? Home defense? Concealed carry?

**Vaerros**

Kovnik Obama wrote:Hum. I don't know if this is so OT that it should warrant it's own thread, but as a prospective handgun owner, what would be a good first buy? If I want something good to learn with and not too expensive?

I would definitely start a new thread for this. There's quite a few people on the forum that are into guns and would be willing to give input.

**AustonT**

treadhead1944 wrote:
Kovnik Obama wrote:Hum. I don't know if this is so OT that it should warrant it's own thread, but as a prospective handgun owner, what would be a good first buy? If I want something good to learn with and not too expensive?
Smith & Wesson Police Special, 6" barrel, .38 super. Easy to shoot, ammo is cheap, and there are a lot available on the used market for cheap.

Did you mean 38 special. 38 supers are neither cheap nor plentiful.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kovnik Obama wrote:Hum. I don't know if this is so OT that it should warrant it's own thread, but as a prospective handgun owner, what would be a good first buy? If I want something good to learn with and not too expensive?

A Glock is normally a no brainer, but learning to shoot on a DAO vastly steepens the learning curve. Look for a single action or DA/SA The aforementioned SW model 12 is a good choice. My personal preferance is the Sig 226, its a solid shooter for learning and a good carry gun.

**d-usa**

My usual carry gun is a Ruger LCP, .380 is not too pricy when it comes to ammo and it is easily hidden. Kicks a bit though.

**AustonT**

d-usa wrote:My usual carry gun is a Ruger LCP, .380 is not too pricy when it comes to ammo and it is easily hidden. Kicks a it though.

Im not a huge supporter of 38 ACP, it takes the anemic 38SPc and cuts its power by something like 20% IIRC (off the top of my head) and your return on investment is a hellacious kick and less than impressive terminal effect. You can stuff anywhere from a 9mm to a 45ACP in a similar package for a small size increase like say a LC9 or a Kahr.

**d-usa**

I got it before the LC9 came out, or I would have gotten that.

**AustonT**

d-usa wrote:I got it before the LC9 came out, or I would have gotten that.

kel tec had theirs out before ruger copied the P3at.

**d-usa**

Just never been the biggest fan of Kel Tec stuff for some reason, although I couldn't really tell you why.

**AustonT**

Gritty triggers and unfinished frames. Lack of a slide catch on the P3AT. Kel Te delivers an acceptable machine at an affordable price. Ruger has ripped them off in the blatant fashion only SW had dared to before but I can't blame you for not liking Kel Tec. In the long run they need to have done to them what happened to magpul and get bought up by a large manufacturer who will protect their patents and up their quality assurance. The Forward ejecting bullpup they have is a stroke of genius.

**dogma**

AustonT wrote:
They were expensive. I remember dogma saying he got that one on the cheap.

Really cheap, I paid 100 USD, they go for something like 2000 now. Basically bought it because it was cheap, looked cool, and I knew they were rare-ish so I figured I could turn a profit eventually.

Frazzled wrote:
Oh wow, someone actually bought one of those. How does it shoot?

Hordini wrote:
My interest is piqued. Are they expensive? And yeah, how does it shoot?

The grip feels great to me, might be the most comfortable I've ever shot. Really heavy trigger in double action, still pretty heavy in single action. Also there's an issue where you can burn yourself with the discharge from the cylinder. Good recoil though, surprising from my .44.

**Frazzled**

Kovnik Obama wrote:Hum. I don't know if this is so OT that it should warrant it's own thread, but as a prospective handgun owner, what would be a good first buy? If I want something good to learn with and not too expensive?

Well if you didn't live in Canada you'd have a variety of options. Your options are generally rifles and shotguns. Thats not hostile - I have a bunch of Canadians here and a few were shooters.

Otherwise there are a plethora of inexpensive pistols, as I think thats what you were asking. Avoiding the 9mm vs. .40 vs. .45ACP brush wars and Glock uber alles/Glock sucks threads I'd look at a nice 9mm from S&W, Glock, Walther, Springfield, HK, Ruger, Beretta, and Sig Sauer (thats pronounced SIG SAWYAH! SIG SAWYAH!). Playtesting is required as grip angle and personal preference matter over all.

If looking for a shotgun or rifle thats a completley different and cool ball of wax and can be discussed separately.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

AustonT wrote:
d-usa wrote:I got it before the LC9 came out, or I would have gotten that.
kel tec had theirs out before ruger copied the P3at.

Yep. In fact I read an article comparing the two side by side. Its almost like Ruger's engineers just phoned it in...

**Hordini**

dogma wrote:
AustonT wrote:
They were expensive. I remember dogma saying he got that one on the cheap.

Really cheap, I paid 100 USD, they go for something like 2000 now. Basically bought it because it was cheap, looked cool, and I knew they were rare-ish so I figured I could turn a profit eventually.

Frazzled wrote:
Oh wow, someone actually bought one of those. How does it shoot?

Hordini wrote:
My interest is piqued. Are they expensive? And yeah, how does it shoot?

The grip feels great to me, might be the most comfortable I've ever shot. Really heavy trigger in double action, still pretty heavy in single action. Also there's an issue where you can burn yourself with the discharge from the cylinder. Good recoil though, surprising from my .44.

I guess I'll have to keep my eyes open for a deal if I want to get one. The burning issue sounds unfortunate. How do you keep from burning yourself? Just wear gloves or something?

**Frazzled**

The burning issue sounds unfortunate. How do you keep from burning yourself? Just wear gloves or something?

Quit picking up people in bars?

Thats weird actually. I've never had that from my .44mag or even the old blackpowder .44.
On the positive, my new S&W pops the cases into the air and right onto the bill of my hat about every second time I fire. It was very disconcerting at first (plus I got splattered with a lot of oil as I was lubing it like a 1911 originally) but after awhile I have to force myself to keep from laughing.

**dogma**

Hordini wrote:
I guess I'll have to keep my eyes open for a deal if I want to get one. The burning issue sounds unfortunate. How do you keep from burning yourself? Just wear gloves or something?

Gloves, and don't put your finger near the cylinder. Basically you need to adjust your left index finger downward about 3/4 of an inch, then your fingertip and the ball of your hand are out reach.

I didn't say this first, but its a collector gun, not something for actual carry, so these issues aren't huge.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
Thats weird actually. I've never had that from my .44mag or even the old blackpowder .44.

It is weird, but I'm not the only person to have this complaint. Might be a technique thing?