TX: Domestic Defense? Son Shoots Father

Michael told Eyewitness News that his dad was violent, and that he shot his father to save his mom and himself.

"It was the only way to guarantee my mom and I's safety," Michael told Eyewitness News. "I had no way of knowing what he was capable of or what he was armed with. He could have done some very terrible things to us."
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FL: Robbery Suspect Shot by Armed Victim

According to detectives, Kelly and another suspect attempted to rob two victims in the apartment complex and during the struggle that ensued, Kelly was shot by one of the victims. He was taken to Blake Medical Center to be treated for his injuries.
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CA: Gunfight, Victim Shoots Assailant, Investigation Ongoing

The two men live in separate buildings on the same lot in the 8400 block of Wells Street in Rosemead, according to Sheriff’s Homicide Lt. John Corina. He said one man is 55 and the other 51.

The shooting took place in the bedroom of the younger man, Corina said.

The two got into an argument on Wednesday. Corina said the older man, who might have been under the influence of a drug, thought the other man was spying on him.

The 51-year-old denied the accusation and was shot in the leg, Corina said. He said the wounded man shot his assailant who died at the scene.
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How to shoot Wolves from an Airplane Video of Interview with 100-Year-Old Roy Eykamp

Roy's friend, Pete Peterson holds up a couple of wolf hides in Canada

Roy Eykamp is 100 years old and living in NSW, Australia. Shortly after WWII, Roy hunted wolves from a light, ski-equipped airplane in Ontario, Canada. He had tremendous success. He partnered with Harley Rauch, a famous South Dakota pilot.  Hunting wolves from an airplane while mere feet off the ground was a dangerous undertaking. Roy nearly died in a crash.

I was fortunate enough to interview Roy. In the video, he explains the technique used to hunt wolves from the air, how the crash occurred, and how he survived.

Link to Video  The video is 12:01 minutes long.



Minimum wage in 1951 was 75 cents an hour. Roy Eykamp and Harley Rauch received a $25 bounty on each wolf, and sold each wolf for $25 to native Canadians. They pocketed $50 a wolf. They brought in 51 wolves in two weeks, or over $2,550 dollars. It does not sound like much, but in 1951, gold was $35 an ounce. $2,550 was 72 ounces of gold, or the equivalent of $84,600 today.


John Macfie corroborates the story with a blog post from his duty as a wildlife management officer in Ontario at the time. Unfortunately, he mixes Harley Rauch and Cliff Foss in a few details. It was Foss that flew solo, not Rauch, and Rauch flew the Aeronca, not Foss.

Roy Eykamp was Rauch's gunner when they racked up the big score of wolves in 1951.

Roy details much of the hunt in his auto-biography, "Oh, What Have I Done"

The number of wolves harvested by Roy and Harley brought media attention. A newspaper article was syndicated across the United States and Canada. It was titled something like "2 South Dakota Hunters Get 51 Wolves", and probably was published in February or March of 1950, 1951, or 1952.  The Ontario papers might be the best source for the article. I have not found it.

If any reader finds the newspaper article, an image would be appreciated, or at least a date and a source. Contact Ammoland if you find it. Such history is being written out of the modern schools. We can preserve it on the Internet.

Roy explains some of the flying skill involved. The pilot would attempt to get close to the running wolf, often just a few feet off the ice of a frozen lake.  Flying low and slow is very dangerous. It is better to be a bit faster, to give you a chance to avoid obstacles and gain altitude. Roy almost lost his life because of a pilot without sufficient skill.

Crash where Roy Ekamp was almost killed in Canada while hunting wolves.

Harley Rauch was considered one of the best pilots of his day.

Roy was not flying with Rauch when the crash happened. A less experienced pilot stalled out his plane at low altitude, and caused the crash. Roy and the pilot survived what should have been a fatal circumstance. They were 25 miles from any help. Roy says his guardian angel was looking out for him.
Wolf bounties are derided today. They are part of the strategy that worked for a hundred years in the United States and Canada.  Valerius Geist, a Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Calgary, explained how the myth of the "harmless & romantic" wolf was created. He believed in the myth for all of his career, but reality forced him to change his views.

Wolf bounties, trapping, shooting, and snaring of large predators, was an integral part of wildlife management for over a hundred years.

There were reasons that large predators were not tolerated in populated areas.  There were reasons why large populations of predators and other game animals are incompatible. If you wish to read all the details, read Professor Geist's paper. Those reasons are as valid today as they were 150 years ago.

Roy Eykamp has lived a remarkable 100 years, so far.



©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

PA: Legislator Had gun Ready to Stop Intruder, Armed Neighbor Held Man for Police

“At 4:00 AM I woke up to pounding somewhere on the side of the house, followed by frantic bell ringing of the kitchen door bell,” Ward wrote in a “totally true, almost” Facebook post just before 7 a.m. Sunday. “As any red-blooded American woman would do I jumped out of bed (and) grabbed my gun... When I got to the kitchen I knew the situation was under control because my brother was standing by the kitchen door aiming his cane and ready to pounce.”

Soon after the scare at Ward’s mother’s home, Anthony M. Buchanan, 24, of Washington, was arrested at another house nearby. He’d allegedly forced his way into the attached garage, where the homeowner held Buchanan at gunpoint until a township police officer spotted them.
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TX: Security Guard Shoots Car Burgler who Pointed Gun at Him

Police say multiple suspects were breaking into cars at an apartment complex when a guard spotted them. The guard approached, and that’s when one of the suspects pulled a gun out and pointed it at him.

The security guard also pulled his gun and shot the suspect in the leg. The other two suspects ran to a maroon car and got away.

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OR: Homeowner Shoots Intruder, Police Investigating

TIGARD, Ore. (KOIN) -- An intruder was shot to death by the owner of a small townhouse in Tigard early Wednesday while 2 teenagers were at home.

Tigard police said the homeowner called 911 around 7 a.m. to report the trespasser. When officers arrived at the home on SW Sage Terrace, the suspect, later identified as Jose Luis Gonzalez Jr., was dead.

Gonzalez was 41.
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Followup CO: No Charges for Felix Gallegos in Self Defense Restauant Shooting

ANTONITO — A Colorado restaurant owner who shot an intruder inside the business will not face criminal charges for the man’s death.

Prosecutors say a jury likely would find Felix Gallegos was entitled to defend himself under Colorado law and they could not prove otherwise.
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Followup OR: Audio Tapes of 911 Call Detail what is Known of Murder and Self Defense Shooting

Bend Police say the former G5 employee, who had no criminal record and had recently gotten a puppy, stalked strangers in his east Bend neighborhood with an AR-15 rifle, killing Kyle Adams, 33, before being shot by 31-year-old Brennan Pebbles after entering the neighbor’s bedroom.

Pebbles has declined to discuss what happened. The 911 emergency call he made moments after shooting Herrick, offers a first-person description of the deadly encounter and fills gaps in its murky timeline. The Bulletin obtained the audio file, which was split into Part 1 and Part 2, from authorities.
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Followup GA: Shooting in Park was Self Defense

A man acted in self-defense when he fatally shot another man at a northwest Atlanta park Saturday night, police said.

Based on the investigation, police are treating the shooting as self-defense and have not made any arrests, police spokeswoman Lisa Bender said Wednesday in a statement.
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WA: Store Owner Pulls Gun, Knife Man Runs Away

The owner of Hai's Mini Mart on N. Market tells kxly4 exactly what he did after a robbery suspect pulled a knife on him Tuesday night.

"He said, 'Give me money!', and then I knew exactly what to do," said Tan Ho, the store owner who happened to be behind the cash register Tuesday night. "I pulled out my gun - like this - and I pointed it right at him, and he ran."
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OK: Domestic Defense, Tulsa Woman Shoots Ex who Assaulted Her

The homeowner told officers her ex-boyfriend knocked on her front door. When she opened it, he pushed his way inside her house.

The woman told police he physically assaulted her, so she grabbed her pistol and shot him.
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Followup IL: Fatal Shooting of Henry Ratcliff Jr rulled to be Self Defense

An investigation into a shooting that fatally wounded a man Sunday night during a domestic-related altercation in the Austin neighborhood has been closed after investigators determined it was committed in self-defense.

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CA: Domestic Defense? Intruder killed and Homeowner may have Known Same Woman

An Alhambra man shot and killed an intruder in his home Sunday night, police said.

Investigators on Monday continued piecing together the circumstances surrounding the deadly shooting, which took place about 11:20 p.m., the Alhambra Police Department said in a written statement.
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Study: Media Coverage Doubles Number of Mass Shootings

A paper presented to the American Psychological Association (APA) found the number of mass killings, rampage killings, or "mass shootings", may be doubled by irresponsible  media aggrandizement of mass killers. The desire for fame was found to be one of the main motivators of these rampage killers. From apa.org:

“Unfortunately, we find that a cross-cutting trait among many profiles of mass shooters is desire for fame,” she said. This quest for fame among mass shooters skyrocketed since the mid-1990s “in correspondence to the emergence of widespread 24-hour news coverage on cable news programs, and the rise of the internet during the same period.”

She cited several media contagion models, most notably one proposed by Towers et al. (2015), which found the rate of mass shootings has escalated to an average of one every 12.5 days, and one school shooting on average every 31.6 days, compared to a pre-2000 level of about three events per year. “A possibility is that news of shooting is spread through social media in addition to mass media,” she said.

“If the mass media and social media enthusiasts make a pact to no longer share, reproduce or retweet the names, faces, detailed histories or long-winded statements of killers, we could see a dramatic reduction in mass shootings in one to two years,” she said. “Even conservatively, if the calculations of contagion modelers are correct, we should see at least a one-third reduction in shootings if the contagion is removed.”

She said this approach could be adopted in much the same way as the media stopped reporting celebrity suicides in the mid-1990s after it was corroborated that suicide was contagious. Johnston noted that there was “a clear decline” in suicide by 1997, a couple of years after the Centers for Disease Control convened a working group of suicidologists, researchers and the media, and then made recommendations to the media.

“The media has come together before to work for good, to incite social change,” she said. “They have done, and they can do it. It is time. It is enough.”

Media personalities such as Don Lemon often decry these rampage murder events, and claim more restrictions on guns are needed. But the latest rampage murder in California took place in a polity where the restrictions were already in place. Those restrictions failed.

In contrast, armed citizens can stop rampage killings. In Tennessee, a young black father stopped a rampage shooting, using his legally carried self defense pistol. More than two dozen rampage killings have been stopped by armed citizens.

The FBI found  8% of active shooter attacks during 2014-17 were stopped or mitigated by concealed handgun permit holders. John Lott reports the FBI only recorded half of the cases where armed citizens stopped mass killers during that period.

The number of people with carry permits is increasing. In 2017, 7.14% of adults had carry permits.

Don Lemon, of CNN, is part of the problem. By aggrandizing rampage killings, he is, in effect, promoting more of them.  He could reduce rampage killings by calling for restraint on the part of the media.

The media benefits from rampage killings. They obtain ratings and money for aggrandizing rampage killing and rampage killers. They satisfy their political desires by calling for more restrictions on law abiding gun owners, even though the evidence shows those restrictions are not effective in stopping rampage killers.

Will Don Lemon and other media outlets work to reduce rampage killers by toning down the rhetoric? It seems unlikely. Reducing the killing is not to their financial advantage.

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

PA: Barber Shot Man who Assaulted Him

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A fight inside of a North Philadelphia barbershop ended in gunfire on Monday, but authorities say the owner of the shop claims the shooting was in self-defense.

Surveillance video from an adjacent business shows the man who was shot stumbling down the 2600 block of Germantown Avenue, with the assistance of a woman.
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TX: Domestic Defense, Wife Shoots Husband who was Beating Her

Earlier, a woman called an area constable’s office saying her friend’s husband threatened them both with a handgun. She said she was able to run away to safety but that her friend was still at the home.

While deputies were on their way, another woman called from that home requesting help, saying she’d shot her husband.

Deputies found that woman bleeding from her face, while her husband Theus was bleeding and unresponsive in the master bedroom.
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IL: Suspect Shot, Charged with Aggravated Battery, for Incident on the Red Line

 The suspect, Roy Lee, was shot. He managed to disarm the shooter, who had a concealed carry permit. Lee then pistol whipped the shooter with the shooter's gun. This all occurred on the Red Line in Chicago.

On Sunday, police said the man who was shot, Roy Lee, 38, was charged with aggravated battery/use of a deadly weapon.

Police said the other man had a concealed carry license. It's not clear if that man will be facing charges.

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TX: Nicholas Daniel Shot, Killed During Fight at Another Man's Residence

The homeowner said he observed Daniel open the front door of the residence while looking for him. The homeowner then allegedly came from behind his house and both men got into a physical altercation.

Deputies say the man shot Daniel several times with a handgun.
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WA: Domestic Defense, Grandpa Shoots, Kills, Grandson

A 78-year-old grandfather shoots and kills his grandson after he reportedly got physical with his mother, said the Renton Police Department.
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