Long Island man Arrested For Defending Home With AK-47 reads the headline.

Although the picture shows AKM rifles, not ’47s. And the video clip shows a shotgun. With no photo or video of the actual weapon, who knows what the “high-powered AK-46” really consisted of. Knowing the media’s pathology with firearms, it could well have been a Daisy.

Anyway, George Grier found some gang members gathering on his lawn. He asked them to leave, but they threatened him. While his wife called police, he presented a weapon at them when they threatened to kill his family; upon sight of the weapon, more gang members arrived and beckoned him to fire. So he fired into the lawn, scattering them.

As you expect from the headline, he was arrested for reckless endangerment. The case seems pretty slim, since his attorney correctly points out that he knowingly fired away from gang members. Incidentally, none of the gang members were arrested for trespassing, aggravated assault, or any other crimes they blatantly committed.

MC writes in:

Hopefully the Nassau County DA is up for reelection and decides not to press the felony charges. The guy defending his family even had the presence of mind to fire his warning shots into the ground, not the air. I think I might have been debating head shot (create a spectacle), center of mass (high percentage), or gut shot (much screaming so as to convince others to leave and thus reduce number of targets to below magazine capacity) rather than air vs. dirt

Well, 7.62mm x 39 ammunition is pretty cheap now, and likely a lot cheaper than gang attorneys filing a civil suit against him. In the Czar’s experience, the charges will likely be dropped; however, it should be added, the Czar is confident that the police department likes this guy for exactly what he did. Police would rather respond to a responsible, sober, armed homeowner than a group of gang members.

Ah yes, the Czar remembers when he had to deal with a rabble of hoodlums on the lawn of his Muscovy estate. Revolutionaries, all. The Czar, too, had his okhrana fire into the ground. Eventually. When the bodies landed there.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.