Elderly man protects his home with a .22 revolver

[Pirate]

Conclusive evidence that, as long as you're prepared to use it, having A gun (even a .22 revolver) is better than having NO gun! Good on the oom, for getting shots into the BG before the wrestling started, that is probably what gave him the advantage.

:- P

[Capt. Oblivious]

The only way to make this Outoppie more awesome if he blaased that BG with a voorlaaier shouting Afrikaans obcenities that would make a pirate blush.

Well done Oom!

[Skaaphaas]

Conclusive evidence that, as long as you're prepared to use it, having A gun (even a .22 revolver) is better than having NO gun! Good on the oom, for getting shots into the BG before the wrestling started, that is probably what gave him the advantage.

:- P

Agreed. It also shows us that just shooting won't always make them (even a single unarmed attacker) run away, and that weapon retention training is important.

[Bimini]

Happened in Nelspruit. The security company advised the "oom" to not give a police statement immediately.

One of the very senior ranked police officials called the manager of the company and gave him a hard time for giving the oom that advice!!

The facts:
1 It is an old man
2 It happened inside his house
3 He was almost killed and badly wounded
4 The old man's licensed weapon was found on the wounded bg

That is a slam dunk in my books.

Even a clear cut case of self defence wich results in you ending up in hospital does not exempt you from police pressure to give a statement in wich you might say something that can incriminate you in some way or the other.

That oom is no murderer. He had no ambition or intention to "kill someone one day"!

In many ways it is a sick and twisted world we live in...

[treeman]

.22 -- killed the one guy - hurt the other, not joking here,but that just goes to show the .22 inability and ability.

[Lian]

Wahey! .22 is lethal, but anything else is more lethal. Glad he scored 1 badguy, now please go get a bigger handgun Oom!

+1
at least he got one. where's that article of the american lady that put 5of6 revolver rounds into a BG and he was found crying on the sidewalk.

this old tough bastard, put a couple well aimed holes into the BG... calmly told him "dont worry, i'll wait" and now enjoys some quality time with the ladies at the hospital just to wrap up his knuckles :P

[ikor]

He done good...REAL good! Now, let's see if we can get him a better gun for next time...if there is a next time.

[Optimistix]

On Facebook there is some discussion amongst the lady hunters about arming one self. What worries me is the strong statements that .22 (although they do mostly talk .22 magnum) is THE choice for the girls. I agree that any gun is better than no gun (as the above article demonstrates) , but clearly a bit of education amongst the ladies (and even some of the men) will go a long way ...

[mozart]

Here is however a reminder regarding the effectiveness of the calibre, as after he shot the intruder he was over powered and wounded with his own firearm which was later recovered next to the lifeless body of the suspect.

I think that's a bit speculative. The robber died after being shot in the chest - if this was a hit in the lungs then the calibre would not likely have made a huge difference to the rate at which the robber died (as eg. a lung shot doesn't kill in the order of seconds, but minutes), so if it was a lung shot the robber could easily still have had time to fight back in the same way, and given his gun was then used to shoot Mr van den Berg in the hand and head, a higher caliber could have been more likely to kill him (the good guy) ... counter-intuitively, it is possible that the lower caliber could have saved his life. Again, speculation, but quite possible. (There are two factors though, a .22 round is less likely to penetrate your skull in the first place, but at close range it can sometimes do more damage as it may bounce around inside the skull instead of exiting.) If the bullet had grazed very close to the BG's heart here, then a higher caliber might indeed have caused more rapidly debilitating damage to the heart, but we don't know.

Anyway, in general, yes, a .22 is a BAD CHOICE for self-defense (it is too weak) (much better than nothing, but don't use it for self-defense if you have a choice), but studies show that in higher calibers, aim is of much more importance.

The following is a very worthwhile read on this: http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf

[Killian]

A friend sent the link to me...
http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/handgun-stopping-power