“The persons inside [the home] heard the glass break, went to see what was going on and saw a person attempting to come in through the back window. Those residents of that house told that person to get back, get out, but that person continued to come into the home based on the information that we have so far.”
According to 2Action News, that’s when the North Philadelphia homeowners responded ballistically to repel the woman who kept crawling through their window.
“It appears that this is a case of a person defending oneself inside their own home,” [Philadelphia Police Inspector D.F. ] Pace said.
Yes. Yes it does. One of the residents fired multiple rounds at the home invader who won’t be invading any more homes again. Ever.
Then the inspector tossed out this tidbit:
Pace said the person who fired the fatal shots was licensed to carry.
He might as well have offered up a few facts about the state of the Argentine economy. Or China’s sinicization program in Tibet. Or the soaring price of vanilla beans in Madagascar. That’s how relevant the Inspector’s statement about the defender’s carry permit status was to the shooting of a home invader in the City of Brotherly Love.
This particular defensive gun use reportedly took place inside the residents’ home. For those of you who still wear N95 masks, that means the defender wasn’t carrying the firearm used outside the home…and therefore didn’t need a carry permit in order to stop a determined attacker.
The other good news for the defender in this case is that he lives in Pennsylvania, a state with a robust castle doctrine law. He was therefore entitled to defend himself in his own home with deadly force to repel the attacker without a duty to retreat.
That may seem like a given, but there are still a significant number of duty to retreat states, mostly in the northeast (surprise!), so it’s a really good idea to know the laws regarding armed self-defense in your state.
The lesson: have a gun, stay vigilant, and keep current on the laws where you live.