pro-gun comment on Dateline NBC

[Ukraine Train]

They did a segment on two teenage killers, their names escape me now. Anyway, they were plotting to kill someone to get their money so they can go to Australia. They pick a house and one of them knocks on the door pretending to have car trouble and asking for help. The other teen was hiding at the back of the house. The homeowner was suspicious, I missed why exactly, and took his Glock to the door with him, hiding it behind his leg. He made the gun visible to the teen after becoming more and more suspicious of what the kid was saying about having a breakdown. The homeowner then tells him he'll call a service station for the kid but when he goes to pick up the phone the line is dead. So the homeowner grabs his son and runs upstairs to hide. He spends the whole night awake with his gun but the teens ran off. Some time later the homeowner sees the kid's mug shot on the front cover of a paper after the duo had killed two other people. Eventually the teens are caught and said that they were scared off by the homeowner's Glock which is why they didn't break in. They had the homeowner re-enact the way he walked to the door with the gun and how he made it visible to the teen without actually pointing it at him. I was pretty surprised.

 

[ZeroX]

I had read the book about the incident (Judgement Ridge) and I loved that part with the man and his Glock. I figured they would just leave it out for TV but I was surprised when they showed it.

Another sobering fact about that night: Not only did they cut the house's phone lines before knocking on the door, they dug short graves nearby to dump the man and his son in afterwards.

The two boys were named Jim Parker and Robert Tulloch, BTW.

 

[DWS1117]

Good thing this man had a gun and, it would seem, that he was level headed enough to use it. That had to be one terrifying night.

If he didn't have one before, I'll also bet that he now has a cell phone and keeps in on him.

I hope his son learned a valuable lesson about self defense that night.

 

[mpthole]

The homeowner was suspicious, I missed why exactly, and took his Glock to the door with him,

I think he said he was suspicious because of the way the knock on the door sounded. It wasn't a friendly, tap-tap-tap, it was a bang-bang-bang, a very deliberate "hard" sounding knock - not something the homeowner was used to.

Maybe he had read The Gift of Fear? Good thing he listened to his insticts that night.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

You beat me to it. I was going to start this same thread. Yeah, that was unbelievable. They very clearly contrasted what happened to a liberal, and probably anti gun couple with what happened to a man and his son who is in the habit of carrying a handgun for self defense. He exercised proper caution when dealing with a stranger, and had his gun on him when in the house (as everyone should, in my opinion), and as a result he and his son were not murdered, but the liberal couple down the road was a month later using almost the same strategy. I am surprised that NBC would allow such a message to get out on their air ways. Good job, NBC. Finally some truth is allowed to slip out about the wisdom of carrying a weapon versus the fool hardiness of not being prepared to defend yourself at all times.

 

[Travis McGee]

The Dateline honchos must have been on vacation, to let this slip through their anti gun bias filter.

 

[Don Gwinn]

Amazing! I saw the teaser for that story here, but I assumed they weren't going to talk about that (I learned about it from a Massad Ayoob article some time back.) I actually ranted to my wife a little about how they would probably not tell people the whole story, and told her the story of the family you describe.

Well, good for them! Let's write to Dateline and compliment them on letting the facts speak.

 

[71Commander]

I stopped watcing MSM shows. I missed it.

 

[Norton]

Dang it....I wish that I had seen this episode. To be more precise, I wish that my wife had seen this.

If she goes to the door one more time for a stranger without access to a gun I'm going to....well, I'm going to....hmmm...have another stern discussion with her why it's idiotic to open the door for people we don't know. :banghead:

Good situational awareness on this guy's part.....

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Dang it....I wish that I had seen this episode.

If you are serious about that, you can buy a copy. At the end of each show they tell you a number to call (something like 1(800)DATELINE) to buy a copy of it, or a transcript.

 

[Ukraine Train]

If you want to send them a comment: [email protected]

 

[Ukraine Train]

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[dfaugh]

Watched it...

Not sure I wouldconsider it "pro-gun", but it was handled very objectively (surprise!), and favorably...They even stated at the end that were it not for the gun owners caution, and his gun, he would most likely have been a victim.

 

[HighVelocity]

Not sure I wouldconsider it "pro-gun",

The rest of your statement says exactly why it's pro-gun.

 

[chopinbloc]

i sent my comment. i encourage you all to send short, positive comments. i know anger motivates better, but they need to hear that they're doing a good job, too. please don't allow anything negative like "....for once" and try not to use gun activist language.

 

[newman32]

I was also amazed that NBC mentioned that the pistol probably saved their lives. These guys planned to kill! While I had heard of these killings before, I had not heard of the first attempt they had made on the New Yorker and his son at their VT cabin until I saw the show.

I pointed out to my wife that even in the relative safety of one's own home - evil people can still bring trouble to you. Never be in condition white, and listen to your gut. Its usually right.

I was really impressed with how he handled the situation - and when he felt it was getting too hairy, he retreated upstairs with his son and decided that he was going to do whatever he had to do for both to survive. He didn't do any ninja-recon stuff out the back window, or try to apprehend them for the police to pick-up. He did a great job.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

"Great job! I really appreciated seeing the private ownership of firearms presented in a fair and positive light. It is very rare to see that on network television these days and I appreciated your honesty in this. All too often we only hear the negative side of the gun ownership debate. I don't usually watch network television, as I feel that it is slanted too far to the left (I just caught the topic, which interested me, while channel surfing), but I will be sure to make an exception and plan to watch DatelineNBC again in the future. Thanks again."

 

[brlau]

Wife and I were watching this over dinner. Unfortunately, when this part came up we were in the kitchen washing dishes. I just happened to be free for a minute and walked to the TV to watch some more when I just caught the part about it being another initial attempt before the final murder. Then the brief interview with the homeowner, the pre-dug shallow graves, the cutting of power and telephone lines - and finally the pan view of the Glock. I didn't catch exactly how the homeowner scared the pair off so I came here, knowing someone would have caught it. Many thanks to those who posted.

This was a tragic reminder of how important it is to be prepared and be alert. Everyone being interviewed kept mentioning about how improbable the murder was - it was a small, affluent town, people were friendly, etc. Just like how you cannot "depend" on a criminal to merely take your valuables and leave you alone, you cannot "depend" on being in an affluent, low crime area to be 100% safe from harm.

I will have to fill in the details of that particular part of the story to the wife. She missed that one part while doing the dishes. Just about a week ago, Oprah was doing a story on domestic violence and had an expert on her show. The "expert" mentioned warning signs - one of which was "having a firearm in the house." The "expert" didn't qualify what she meant by that for whatever reason - I'm sure she was aware (yeah, right ) that there are millions of gun owners who would never even think about harming their spouses. Anyway, since we were both watching most of the Dateline last night she knows most of the story of the murders and my filling in the details of how the gun saved the homeowner and son's life would be great reinforcement.

Brian

 

[larryf1952]

I was also fortunate enough to see this installment of DATELINE. Coming from NBC, my jaw dropped and my eyes went wide open when they related the story of the man, his son, and his Glock. I was even more surprised when they included the clip where the guy showed precisely how he pulled back the door shade and raised his weapon so that the boy could see it, and then again when they played the audio clip of Parker admitting that they were scared off by the gun!

This morning, when I awoke and turned on my radio, there was a news story regarding a single mother of 4 little kids, who'd used a handgun to shoot a home intruder in the head overnight. She and the kids were OK, the BG was in the hospital in bad shape with a serious headache.

It's a good day.

 

[Andrew Rothman]

Here's the story larryf1952 referred to:

Posted on Mon, Jul. 18, 2005
Mother of four shoots man after break-in
The Kansas City Star

A mother of four shot a man in the head early today after she said he broke into her Kansas City home.

The man showed up at her home near 34th Street and Norton Avenue about 4 a.m. and banged on the door, police said. The woman refused to let him in, but he eventually broke through the door. The woman then shot him. Her children inside were not hurt.

Hospital staff told police they expected the man to survive. The bullet may have glanced off his head, police said.

Homicide Sgt. Keith Kirchhoff said the intruder was not a complete stranger to the woman. He said she "knew of him," but it was unclear what his intentions were this morning.

"We don't know the purpose," Kirchhoff said. "I could only guess."

(I started a new thread here for that story.)

 

[1557]

Not suich a great ending when you consider the sentences that the scumbags were given. If their crime didn't constitute the death penalty,then
where are we going?

 

[Double Maduro]

In "Judgement Ridge" ( a good read by the way), they said the mans dog allerted him to trouble before the knock on the door by his behavior.

That and he had a feeling he was being watched for some time before the knock.

DM

 

[jondar]

The segment of the man with the Glock came only in the last three or four minutes of the show. Just before it came on I sarcastically told my wife, "yeah, just like NBC not showing the man scaring off the boys with the pistol." I felt a little bad about that.