Utah Guns Forum banner

Good guy 1, bad guy 0

4662 Views 27 Replies 18 Participants Last post by  Huge29
Here's a link to a local story.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2864560
1 - 20 of 28 Posts
And the story to go with the link:
Man shoots intruder
March 15th, 2008 @ 6:02pm
(KSL News) Police are commending a man who shot another man who broke into his apartment. It happened near 3800 South 700 West.

Police say the man was jolted out of bed when he heard his door being broken down by Daniel Larson. What Larson didn't know was that the man carried a concealed weapons permit and had a gun.

Gary Keller, with the South Salt Lake Police Department, said, "This is really a story of survival. He retrieved his loaded handgun and met the criminal, or the suspect, in the hallway. He fired one shot center mass and the suspect at that time turned and went over back into the living room."

The man tried to hold Larson while he called police, but Larson jumped out a window. He ran across the street and collapsed in a driveway, where he was caught.

Larson is being held at the hospital, awaiting possible charges.
Awesome!
This might get more people thinking positively about getting their permits (even though this was in the person's home).
I thought that was so funny. They mentioned that he was a CFP holder. Like that is some sort of prerequisite to using a gun in your home! :lolbang:

So many people out there just don't understand, yet they try to pass themselves off as "reporters" or "law-makers" or "voters". I mean honestly, how can you make an educated statement or action about something you don't understand.

Good on this man for defending himself. :gun9: Good on LE for arresting this perp. :cop:
And this sort of thing is why I keep my gun close to me, even at home.
This response is due to the written ABC 4 article and video here: South Salt Lake couple wake-up to an intruder in their home.

--------------------- copied from other thread to maintain fluidity ----------------------

OK, so not to be negative, but I did work for a paper back in college. What's up with this writing in the ABC4 article? Who wrote this? It's terrible! In one place s/he doesn't capitalize Patty's name, in another s/he forgets a period. Sheesh... amateurs.

Anyways, good to get more information on this. I still don't know why Phillip waits until Daniel attacks his wife to shoot. Uh... stupid. Oh wait... this is why:

“I got my gun pointed straight at his head but I'm waiting for him to do something before I pull the trigger,” said Phillip.

Um... Phillip, dude... I'm glad you and your wife are OK, but I really think you need to take a few self-defense classes. This freak was in your house, he broke through your door, why did you wait until "he starts attacking her"? Why are you aiming for a small target like his head? Why, if you were aiming at his head did you hit him in the torso? Oh, yeah, why did Patty block the door and get in the perp's way? That's just not smart.

Anyways, I wasn't there and it's hard to say what any one of us would have done, but I sure hope we would have stopped the threat (Daniel) as soon as possible and not wait "for him to do something before I pull the trigger."

I guess it just irks me that the "Police say Patty Knepper and Phillip Reinhardt did everything right when confronted by a violent intruder." I don't agree. Had Phillip acted earlier his girlfriend wouldn't have been assaulted in the first place. If he had fired more than one shot at this perp, they may not have felt the need to detain him. Gratefully Daniel didn't attack Patty again in an attempt to get away. This is not the "victory" I think we all hope it to be. Granted, the good guys lived, but I don't think it was a success by any means. With Phillip's "Army training" and "concealed weapons permit training" you'd think he'd have done a better job.
See less See more
Outstanding
I don't blame Phillip for waiting to fire -- everyone has to make their own decision about at what point they'll potentially kill someone. Legally he was in the right from the moment the guy entered the apartment, but I can think of lots of situations in which it would be legal for me to shoot but I wouldn't do it. Others would, and I don't blame them for that, either.

Referring back to a discussion on another thread, I would like to know what ammunition he had in his gun. It really overpenetrated, passing through the attacker's torso and then the wall behind. Luckily it didn't hit anyone else. It also obviously didn't do a good job of stopping the attacker, since he was still able to break out the window and run away. Not what you want in a defensive round.

In any case it's a good that Phillip had a gun and easy access to it, and good that we live in a state where the police response to a man shooting an invader was "He did everything right".
Regarding the article - sometimes the articles are taken from the captioning of the live newscast and often the captioners get things wrong and mess up capitalization, etc. Even if this is the case, posting it like this is very unprofessional.

It's easy to second guess this guys actions, but the outcome was mostly good. His wife was still assaulted and I'm sure he wishes that could have been prevented. We don't have any idea about the bullet wound. Over-penetration isn't necessarily a bad thing - two holes to leak out of is usually better than one. But you don't want too much over penetration. They showed where the bullet hit the opposite wall on one of the news channels and it barely made a dent, so I generally think it did the trick.

Remember, shooting someone is about stopping them, not killing them. In this case, the guy stopped on his own after being shot, but if he was intent on killing someone, this wound alone was clearly not sufficient to stop him quickly.
apollosmith said:
Over-penetration isn't necessarily a bad thing - two holes to leak out of is usually better than one.
I'm not so sure about that.

I would agree with you if the context was hunting, where the goal is to kill and it doesn't matter if it takes a few minutes, you just want the animal to bleed out, and a bigger blood trail helps to ensure you don't lose it. In a self-defense situation, I think you want all of the shock energy delivered into the target to increase the "system shock" effect. Making the target bleed out twice as fast isn't that helpful, since unless you happened to hit a major artery it will take minutes for the attacker to lose consciousness.

Also, based on the video of the blood spots on the floor, the attacker wasn't bleeding very much.

apollosmith said:
They showed where the bullet hit the opposite wall on one of the news channels and it barely made a dent, so I generally think it did the trick.
I just rewatched the video and I didn't see a dent in the wall, I saw a hole.

I'd really like to know for sure, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Phillip fired FMJ -- overpenetration and a small wound (based on the light blood flow and the attacker's ability to break free and escape).

Luckily, the attacker did stop when faced with a gunshot, and even with FMJ I'm sure that if Phillip kept pumping rounds through the attacker he could have stopped even a more aggressive attacker.
See less See more
i think i agree with scott on this that it is everybodys decision when to fire. But from what i learned yesterday in the advanced pistol course, that guy would not have gotten anywhere near my wife. He would be facing two guns and at least twenty hollow points. I would also like to know the round he was shooting since FMJ's are not the desired self defense round. But at least him and his wife are safe and another bad guy is going to jail with a hole in his gut.
Wow! I got a lot more out of that video than I did from any of the articles. The perp assaulted the girlfriend and tried to fondle her. She showed the scratches that were on the inside of her mouth to the camera, where his finger nails scratched when he grabbed her cheek.

The hole in the wall does not look like a dent to me. It's a hole, and the reporter said quite clearly that the round went through the wall.

We can armchair quarterback all we want to, but the end result was that an attack was stopped by the legal use of a gun. What would the result have been had they not been armed?

Here's another article on the attack, this one from the Deseret Morning News: Resident shoots intruder
Does anybody know if there was a connection between the residents and the intruder? Or was this totally random? Either way, I'm glad the resident was prepared and shot the creep. :gun9:
Dustin WJ said:
Does anybody know if there was a connection between the residents and the intruder? Or was this totally random? Either way, I'm glad the resident was prepared and shot the creep. :gun9:
News said it was random.
My wife and I had just got back from our UCC.com lunch and saw this on the 5:30 news. My wife kind of laughed and said something about the timing of just getting back from our concealed carry meet. My wifes comment was why would you block the door. My comment was 1 bullet only? Man I would have shot until the threat was stopped. Continuing to rampage through the house and break out a window does not sound like the threat was ever stopped! I also thought the aiming at the head comment was stupid. I don't know that I would have been so eager to talk with the media after an event like this. I think I would have holed up and talked to my attorney.
I don't know whether the guy was using FMJ or JHP ammo, but it might be worth while to note that even JHP ammo can go through a person. Hence always know what's beyond your target...
XD_EE said:
I don't know whether the guy was using FMJ or JHP ammo, but it might be worth while to note that even JHP ammo can go through a person. Hence always know what's beyond your target...
This is very true. If you will look at the FBI expansion tables you will see that clothed gelatin gets higher penetration for this very reason.

http://demigodllc.com/~zak/firearms/fbi-pistol.php

One of the great problem with JHP is that the holes my become plugged with fabric skin or what ever and then you have a FMJ equivalent. In my estimation a JHP is good if they work, but they don't always work.

An un-expanded .45 is so often better than a fully expanded 9mm.
Tarzan1888 said:
One of the great problem with JHP is that the holes my become plugged with fabric skin or what ever and then you have a FMJ equivalent. In my estimation a JHP is good if they work, but they don't always work.
Just because JHP may get plugged and essentially becomes a FMJ, that isn't a very good argument for just shooting FMJ to begin with. I think the only time this might really be an issue is if you're dealing with enough clothing that the velocity and usefulness of a JHP decreases well below that of FMJ.

An un-expanded .45 is so often better than a fully expanded 9mm.
Yes, if bullet size is the only thing you're concerned with. But, I think this was recently beat to death in another thread. :lol:

Also, in watching the video again, it clearly is a hole in the wall, not a dent as I previously thought. It really does look like FMJ and major over-penetration.
Tarzan1888 said:
An un-expanded .45 is so often better than a fully expanded 9mm.
Since .45 is only 27% larger than 9mm, this is only true if you have a poorly-expanding round. According to this test, an expanded 147 gr 9mm Federal HST was .78" in diameter -- 73% larger than an unexpanded .45. Of course, the expanded .45 HST was .86".

A .45 generally carries about 25% more energy than a comparable 9mm round, so whether an unexpanded .45 would be better than an expanded 9mm would depend (IMO) on whether or not they overpenetrated and, if so, how much velocity they had left when they left the target.

Edit: Fixed quote attribution.
1 - 20 of 28 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top