An attack late at night in a seemingly peaceful suburb . . . a home-owner who deploys an AR-15 rifle to deadly effect, shooting fast and accurately . . . I wonder what the backstory was? I can't imagine those drive-by shooters chose the house at random, and I certainly can't imagine that the home-owner was standing by ready for combat with a fully loaded AR-15, just in case!
Was this a case of mistaken identity? A drug deal gone bad? A feud between gangs, or between gang members? If you can provide more information, please do so in Comments.
Thanks.
Peter
13 comments:
Houston Chronicle states "According to KTRK, arson investigators were called to the same address on Friday about someone attempting to set the home on fire. The next-day shooting is believed to related the previous incident."
http://www.chron.com/houston/article/Resident-shoots-back-in-northside-drive-by-11126419.php
The original story was a bit over a week ago. I did some quick searching through the Chron and didn't find any follow-up stories.
I did a bit of goggling. Some of the shooting was after three perps left the vehicle and continued the assault. If they got closer to him before getting hit, it was less impressive than hitting a moving car.
Still impressive, though.
Also, the whole AR-15 thing is based on what reporters say that family members say. I'd wait until I heard more, and I couldn't find any more, which is odd.
The close up of the spent casings looked like straight-walled pistol cases to me, but they didn't show all of them clearly.
I live on the Northwest side of Houston and the number, and intensity, of armed robberies, has increased in the last few months. Businesses in areas that you would not consider to be targeted are getting hit. Also, homes in middle/upper-middle class have been targeted in broad daylight.
This is 20-25 miles from downtown Houston. I noticed yesterday that in a couple of areas, underpasses, homeless people are collecting. I'm sure the "pickings" are better but man, you really have to be more observant and careful.
Lots of details missing... One wonders...
The one case I could see appeared to be a bottle-necked pistol case. It seems to have a line circling the case about 1/3 back from the mouth, which is what I'm going by. Not good video quality.
For the record, my AR- is kept handy. 28 rounds in a mag with the bolt locked to the rear. And I live on a golf course. Be Prepared.
America! F- Yeah!
My AK-74 with 30-round magazine is propped next to the bed.
Much bloggery has been committed about the need to wear a gun around the house.
While I recognize the validity of that practice, I have elected instead to maintain proximity to an AR-15 indoors and reserve the gun-wearing for those times I am outside the house and unable to easily maintain close contact with an AR.
I find little handicap in moving a rifle room-to-room, to my mind, much less than the accommodation required for the attachment of a full-size, major caliber pistol and two spare magazines (the alternative, sans rifle or holstered pistol, seems to be littering the house with handguns on what are intended to be "convenient" surfaces and locations. I question for whom may they be "convenient").
I would suggest, however, for those contemplating such things, a two-point sling is a necessity (or, perhaps, a single-point, as is one's preference, but my experience leans toward the two-point being more practical), as there may be circumstances in which the rifle needs to be close at hand and both hands available for other purposes. It should be noted I do not advocate "slinging up" for room-to-room transport, but should the festivities commence there are such activities as dialing phones, installing handcuffs (or securing with wire ties, as fashion dictates), or displaying empty hands in the surrender position to suggest the local gendarmes refrain from shooting, that are best performed with both hands.
To those of similar persuasion, may I suggest two accessories: the Mag Link Coupler, with which one can more easily maintain a second full magazine adjacent to the magazine well on one's AR, and; a Hornady Rapid Rack (the Rapid Rack comes in two flavors - 5.56 and 7.62 and performs two functions: it, first, secured by a not completely closed bolt, acts as an empty chamber indicator and, second, allows extremely rapid chamber charging with the right hand while the left hand on the handguard maintains rifle position in the shoulder pocket.
Other accessories, completely optional, are a good weapon light and a set of electronic ear muffs, for two reasons: first, should one be forced to discharge one's firearm (pistol or rifle, it doesn't matter) indoors, one will hear likely nothing after that first shot and subsequent shots will do nothing to improve the situation, and the amplification provided by good e-muffs can be an asset in the prelude to any confrontation. Since battery life is a consideration, I leave mine off, hanging over the inserted magazines. As for the weapon light, it's very much not a general illumination tool - we've learned enough to use a flashlight for that, haven't we - but a Target Illumination Device to provide final ID for what we're going to shoot just before we have to shoot it.
Pro tips 1 and 2: with dummy ammunition or at the range, practice with the Rapid Rack. Properly executed, the Rapid rack will fall to the ground after use, leaving one's right hand in proximity to the trigger location, ready for whatever comes.
And, check the brightness of one's attached red dot optic periodically. I find it useful to adjust to different brightness for daytime and nighttime use, and have found some value in painter's tape to hold the brightness knob in position. And, replace the batteries frequently; Aimpoint claims 8K hours, but they're cheap enough quarterly isn't too frequently. YMMV.
Alphonse
And here I thought I was going to have trouble writing scenario stories for PCC class IDPA stages.
Well, I missed this when it was in the news.
I used to live, and still own property near there. I have a workspace near there as well... (less than 2000ft away)
I would not even transit THRU that area at night. I avoid working late and I leave in plenty of time to pass thru before the sun sets.
If you look at the map, Independence Heights is just to the south. It's an economically depressed area and historically black. In practical terms that means a history of poverty and violence. IA is the type of area where adult men are sitting on the porch drinking beer from 40oz bottles at 8am. This may change as the gentrification of the "inside the loop" area moves north, and we see a bit of 'urban homesteading' in that area but the residents are resistant and there is still a ton of crime.
On the north side of the bayou (where the attack happened) it's a different neighborhood, but still not nice. Airline Drive in that area is a hotbed of prostitution, and all the little dive bars are where the shootings and assaults in the city typically take place. NOT where you want to be at 3am.
One factor at work is hispanics moving into the neighborhoods in the area and displacing blacks. Over the last 13 years the 'northside' has shifted from predominantly black to predominantly hispanic (NOT mexican.) This has causes a lot of strain on the residents. Magic Johnson sold and bulldozed the Magic Theaters that were in the strip mall where the Walmart is now a few years ago.
BTW, there are some clues when looking at the video to estimate the sort of neighborhood from the video. You can see window air conditioners. Anywhere nice in Houston has central air. You see LOTS of pickup trucks, and many driveways with multiple vehicles. This generally means 'working class' (hispanics, not blacks) and more than one adult or family sharing a rental house. This is especially true if you see more than one pickup in the driveway. The yards have grass, and no one is parking on the lawn, so those are positives. The homes are smaller, with one car attached garages, probably mostly 1200 sq ft 3 bed, 2 bath. This is a typical smaller neighborhood, surrounded by sh!tty neighborhoods, but probably filled with hard working people.
No idea why the event took place, or what hardware was employed, but there is a lot of crime, gangs, and poverty in the surrounding areas. Looking at the crime map, there were two assaults with a deadly weapon on the same street within a block of the intersection in the last 2 weeks and half a dozen more if you expand out a block or two.
I think it only made the news due to the AR15 angle and the number of shots fired. Otherwise, it's just a typical night in that area.
nick
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