PORT JEFFERSON, Long Island (WABC) — Police are investigating after a man with a samurai sword was shot and killed in a liquor store on Long Island Thursday.
The incident was reported at Port Jeff Liquors in the 150 block of East Main Street just after 2 p.m.
Police say 50-year-old Theodore Scoville walked into the store swinging dangerously close to the owner with a two-foot blade, and the owner shot him.
Scoville was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police say surveillance video matches what the store owner told them.
“He had a sword beneath a poncho, it seems to be without saying a word, he pulled the sword out, swung it three times — at least three times — at a very close distance to the person behind the counter,” said Lt. Det. Kevin Beyrer with the Suffolk County police.
We keep getting lectured about “sensible gun laws” and how the US should emulate Australia with respect to same.
What are the odds the store owner in this case walks away alive and uninjured if we had adopted similar laws and attitudes towards guns as the Aussie’s have.
This is a bit controversial. I feel like the article is making the owner out to be the bad guy, and fighting a guy with a sword with a gun might be questionable but, he really did the right thing. Someone’s life was definitely in danger; even if the katana guy didn’t intend to hurt the guy behind the counter, he could have miswung and caused an injury. I suppose the lesson here is, don’t swing or point a gun at someone in a joking manner. It could misfire, or they could take it as a threat.
Sad that he had to lose his life though. Maybe it would have been better if the owner had shot at a limb or a non-vital area of the body, instead of doing a “one-shot kill.” Then the guy would have been able to be questioned as well.
The question is pretty simple. If we implemented the onerous gun restrictions the anti gun left are pushing what are the chances this store owner would have walked away alive and unharmed?
Probably very little. It’s important to have the means to defend oneself.
I’ve always said that shooting up a place where you don’t know if they are armed is like playing Russian roulette. You don’t know what you’re going to get. Whereas if if you shoot up a gun-free zone, there is a higher likelihood that no one will be armed (except for the occasional stubborn veteran who insists that he have a gun to defend himself, which in reality is perfectly reasonable. There was guy like that at our community college in my Gen Chem I course, he was showing it off and everyone was fawning over his pistol. The instructor turned a blind eye because he, too, was a veteran and carried).
First, under stress it’a very difficult to make a precision shot so you are always trained (if you have competent instructors) to aim either for center mass/center of the thorax or high center mass/Upper chest to top of sternum.
Those are the highest percentage shots and most likely to immediately stop an attacker.
More importantly if you shoot to wound you’re probably going to end up convicted of some form of aggravated assault/assault with a deadly weapon on the premise that you didn’t truly have that reasonable fear of grave bodily harm or death and thus had no justification for the use of deadly force in the first place.
If you fire a gun at all, no matter where you aim you have just used deadly force under the laws of every state except FL that now makes an exception for “warning shots”.
If the threat is not so deadly and immediate that you must shoot for the torso or head to stop it there are a lot of prosecutors who will file charges on you and your odds of avoiding conviction are slim at best.
Not the wisest move and certainly defeats the whole premise of “concealed carry”.
Under TX law you can carry on college/university campuses but the weapon must be and remain completely concealed. To to otherwise exposes the carrier to felony prosecution.
At the college (which was here in OK), guns were not permitted, period. No exceptions for conceal carry, IIRC. But indeed, it’s pretty difficult to charge someone with violating gun-free zones unless you strip search them. All they’ll do is start concealing. And you’re right, it’s not smart. But what if another Kent State happened…?
To be honest, I’m more worried about being shot up here at ORU than at Tulsa Community College, with my school being Christian and the hate against Christians nowdays. Security aren’t always effective.
