The Death of Ray McNeil/ Shotgun Safety

Was it Murder or Self-defense?  I talked to my baby brother Kevin about the Netflix series "Killer Sally."  Sally killed her husband Ray with a shotgun, in either a steroid-fueled act of vengeance or in a desperate act of self-defense.  Kevin and google taught me, when faced with a shotgun shooter, to run, hide and ideally conceal myself behind something impenetrable to shotgun blasts.

 Check out the video below for the Plan A and Plan B of shotgun safety.

https://youtu.be/cAcWJj6p_Qk

Transcript

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Hey everyone, welcome to True Crime Defense, the podcast that nerds out on true crime cases, gives you tips on how to stay safe, and never blames the target of any crime. Hope you enjoy the show! For this episode, we watched Killer Sally on Netflix and I consulted with my baby brother Kevin because he has military experience so, Kevin, are you comfortable with me talking into your ear holes? Yes. Perfect. So, I'm just going to start with the first episode. It's called, ooh, Valentine's Day, Kevin, this story is just so sad, tragic. It's an fdot mess. there's so much here. There's sexism, racism, egos, drugs, and worst of all innocent children. Yeah, just a warning. There's sexual abuse. The domestic violence is for sure. Everyone seems to, or at least the kids seem to corroborate that. Most of the key players, adults, children, whatever, they were all beaten as kids and present for abuse. So you'll hear some of that. amount of mullets too. Oh yes. And just the cheese strings and the spaghetti straps. Yeah, for sure. So yeah. Warning if that triggers you so in the opening sequence, we meet Sergeant Sally McNeil in a promotional video for private wrestling sessions. She's a blonde bodybuilder in amazing shape. She has ammo strung over her shoulder, and she's holding, it's a shotgun, right? Yeah, I think that actually may be the shotgun used in this, I think it's because they mention it later where she had a sawed off shotgun in the house, and it, describes basically that perfectly. I think they use that video in her court case, too, it looked like. Yeah, I think at least a poster of it. Yeah, for sure. she says she was in the Marines for 11 years. She's married to Ray McNeil, another bodybuilder who's described as one of the most muscular pros alive. We see some cuts of videos of her wrestling with men. She's wearing g string wrestling onesies. And then she says, it's not like I woke up and decided to kill my husband. So this was just a tremendous opening sequence. we get right to it with, Valentine's Day 1995. We hear the 9 1 1 call. Sally says, I shot my husband because he beat me up. And we see her being interviewed in prison right after. So we pretty much know what happens right from the get go. she says she wanted to get bigger so she was stronger and could protect herself. She does her first competition while she's in the military in 1987. She meets Ray, and just to say it tactfully, she's extremely attracted to him. They were married after two months, and she says, when I love somebody, I give them my all, you get all of me, which is something that I tell my kids to avoid in relationships all the time. It's clear that she's obsessive about Ray, and so we're really off to a bad start. We're one minute into this episode. There's a lot happening. Yeah. He's a mess. And this whole thing is a mess. I think it's interesting because I, this happened in, Oceanside and when I think I was probably 15 when it happened. And I don't remember ever hearing about this and you think you would have heard it in living in San Diego. Crazy. Yeah, I thought it was weird too, we watch the news all the time, so I don't know how we missed this one, so she has two kids who look elementary school age when she marries Ray, the daughter says there are a lot of good times, and her son says he hated everyone staring at them because they were so muscular, they kind of had, a show everywhere they went, over time, they started calling him dad. The daughter does say that she loved him. And then there's so much cutting back and forth. So they are the first married couple to win the armed forces bodybuilding competition. But the kids is that they in the beginning, it seemed like, Ray was this nice guy, they loved him and they keep bringing that up. And then when they go to the sun, he's like, I hated him. I wanted him to die. I wanted to kill him. it was interesting to hear it both ways from them. Maybe it was just, it started out that way and then it didn't end up that way. I think maybe he was a little bit not as hard on Santina the daughter too. I think he, I'm, from what I could gather from them, it seems like he was a lot harder on John. Yeah. So maybe that's why, Ray leaves the Marine Corps in 1991, Sally works as a cook in the Marine Corps to support the family. And then they were dumpster diving for cans to recycle for money. Which I felt really bad about, and then later I learned that they're using a lot of money to pay for steroids, but Kevin, can we please, please pay our military and veterans so that they're set up with excellent resources during their time in the military and after? Yeah, so you don't have to take your kids down to TJ to buy steroids. Hopefully there's no buying steroids anywhere regardless, but if we can just support our military would be fantastic. there's so much here. Ray and Sally tell their daughter bodybuilding is like artwork. It's how chiseled and perfect you can make your body. I kind of related, I like the athleticism and all that. It's just there's just such a mess with all of the drugs and everything. Yeah. There's a, I mean, you can see he has more than one neck, I'm almost three, just looking at him. They took it too far. And the funny thing to me is, they're, they're trying to build their bodies. They're getting healthy, or most people think of that as being healthy. But when you, really look at it, there's nothing healthy about them. He was eating five, what they said, five steaks at one point and they're doing steroids. There's absolutely nothing healthy about what they're doing. Yeah, it's five steaks a week, I think she said, and then 114 eggs a week or something. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's true. It's definitely not, I don't really have a problem with that aesthetic, but yeah, it definitely doesn't seem healthy. we see bodybuilding getting really popular with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and then Talking Heads are talking about everyone getting into it, and women quote unquote invading gyms, which I thought was interesting. Yeah, that movie Pumping Iron that they talk about. It totally reminded me of that. Is it, are there women in it? I don't remember it. No, it's all men. I think it's probably filmed in the late seventies. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno and just a bunch of bodybuilders from that era. And it just follows them around, as they compete against each other. It's probably One of the first things that brought building like muscle mass into, culture, where people actually saw it up front. so the head of the bodybuilding association or whatever puts together a women's bodybuilding event. Linda Murray is interviewed and she is amazing. She says she won Miss Olympia, Ms, excuse me, Ms. Olympia eight times and Arnold only won Mr. Olympia seven times. She's very proud of that and I'm proud of her too. Sally really admires her, and I think this is an important part of the movie. It lays down a foundation for Sally, being seen as man like and attributing power and strength to her, and it's used against her later. and then we get to the drugs, the steroids. So, Dianabol, which is what Ray was using, along with many others. I looked this one up, it's really, it was hard for me to find reputable sources for the side effects. The magazine Inside Bodybuilding vaguely says it can cause decreased well being. So apparently Ray beat his wife because of his decreased well being. They found five steroids in his system and one in her system. Do you know what the f he had was? The other ones? Yeah, what was the one that she had? did they mention So she Yeah, I'll talk about that one. The only one I could find for him was Dianabol, and then she's on Anivar. It seems very similar side effects, but I'll get deeper into it. According to Addiction Center, withdrawal from anabolic steroids can cause anxiety, insomnia, and depression. and then everyone was on steroids, according to Sally. And then apparently the head of the bodybuilding contest because fans didn't want to see substandard physiques contestants had when they were not using steroids. He says one person says it, but I don't know. Yeah. So yeah, Sally uses Anovar to help with lifting competitions that pay a lot of money. And from what I could tell, Anovar has stopped using steroids. Similar side effects, to other, they're all anabolic steroids, it also can cause a decrease in well being. Apparently withdrawal from Anivar can cause irritability. And I wonder if that's like when your doctor says you'll feel some discomfort and then they come with you at a scalpel to your face and chop out the skin cancer and you're screaming and like you just stabbed me in the face. It's not discomfort. And like maybe they could replace irritability with murderous rage and then people would take it seriously. I don't know. So she's like you were saying like she drives to Tijuana to buy steroids. She brings the kids. She recognizes it was bad parenting and then she says she just doesn't want to talk about it in the documentary. And then it gets really sad, Ray tells her he's the superior bodybuilder and she also wants to compete, but she says that Ray wants her to stop and fully support his career. And that's really rough to hear from your partner. It feels really unfair. It's his steroids. Yeah. and then Bill Wick is a female wrestling promoter and he starts filming and promoting Sally's career as a private wrestler. I don't know, what would you, it's not necessarily We call it married hugging on this podcast, but it's heading in that direction. It feels the relationship between her and the men that she would wrestle. I mean, they're wearing some clothes. Yeah. And she said that there was never, none of the guys ever propositioned her for anything. It was all for just men that want to be manhandled by a woman, basically. that was the whole thing. That was the whole point of it. And it was interesting too, brought up that nobody brought money from any other source for her during her trial, but like all of the men that were part of this. These videos were in total support of her. Yeah, yeah. Right, the bodybuilding community didn't stand behind her, but the wrestling community did. Yeah. So Sally's making good money doing this. She clearly says, why should I let these men exploit me when I can exploit myself? And I just, she's very sharp and smart in a lot of ways. And then she's just very simple in a lot of ways. feel like that sentence really sums it up, so she starts her own production company, which is really forward thinking and smart, but I don't think she's really realizing what exploit means in the sentence. Even said that, like she, there was a part of her. Where I think she said she felt icky, but at the same time, like the money trumped that icky feeling. And so that didn't last for very long. Yeah I think that's for most of us with jobs, that we don't like some parts of it and we love some parts of it and we like the paychecks. So yeah. Ray qualifies for Mr. Olympia and places. 15th Sally talks about him taking his frustrations out on her. She talks about his history of poverty and sexual his own sexual abuse. His friend says that he was a gentle giant. And then there's a pause and he says, with a short fuse, and you have to be cautious. his daughter says he was Jekyll and Hyde. she was there when Ray came home from a bouncing job and he had blinded a guy with his fingers in order to get away and she said he was panicked and the panic seemed to be like he was panicked about having been attacked by someone was how I took it. And then the story is backed up by his friend DJ, who was there and I guess he didn't get arrested because yeah, nothing happened. It didn't sound like anything happened. He made the guy go blind. And DJ explains that because the cops knew them. Yeah, I was just so overwhelmed and blown away by this. I just didn't get it. Yeah, so it sounds like there's just no consequences for the violence the kids confirm he's very physically abusive to Sally. She says he choked her often. And I just want to say Kevin in an earlier episode my cause Radhika and I talked about strangulation. And a lot of the studies indicate that someone who's been choked by a partner are at anywhere between my understanding is 50 percent chance of being killed by that partner in the next year. And then I saw other studies that said you're seven times more likely to be killed if someone's put their hands on your neck. and I actually do wonder, if they had stayed together, if he hadn't, fallen in love with Marianne. I think someone was destined to die. I think he definitely could have killed her. She says he punched her in the face on the third day they were married. He broke her nose in front of the kids. She reported it to her sergeant and Ray was put in the brig, but then they released him and he beat her until she dropped the charges. She talks about being beaten by her stepdad and Sally's son John says Ray would beat him and then this killed me like the kids are just so vulnerable and helpless like this just broke my heart. Yeah, that son said he was the devil, yeah, so sad. He said that Ray would spank one of the kids and then make the other one watch. Of course, yeah, John said that. and then Peggy is the only person that Sally talked to about the abuse. Peggy would ask about the bruises and her arm in a cast. And then DJ also says that he saw bruises on Sally and he saw Sally getting into Ray's face. And DJ says that that's when he left because he was uncomfortable. And then I just wanted to ask you, Kevin, as a man, what are your thoughts? I'm constantly telling both of my kids, but especially my son, when you see abusive behavior, please step in. DJ knows what's happening and what's stopping him from intervening. What could you do? Yeah, walk away. Just leave the situation and get yourself away from it. That's what I thought was interesting is DJ was Ray's best friend and just continued to go over there and almost. be ignorant to the fact of what was going on. and he could have just, he got lucky when he left, right? He did leave because he could see things were getting hostile and he left to go get food, he said. And then that's when she shot him. Run away. And I think that kind of comes back to the battered woman syndrome that they talk about a little bit is there's so many of us that cycle that just keeps happening. And women don't leave. They stay with the man. And you can see the daughter, the same thing they said happened to the daughter where she was in an abusive relationship, like almost it sounded almost identical where there's just this vicious cycle. So you see it as a kid and then You continue that behavior. You think it's normal as a kid and it continues throughout your whole life until hopefully it ends at some point. Yeah. But like he even DJ would say that even before the shooting, he would see the bruises. And as soon as they started getting into it, he would just bail. Yeah, it just feels is there some Do you feel like there's something you could do? I was actually asking, we were talking about this on the podcast a few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine. And I'm like, if you saw Craig, dragging me across a parking lot, if you saw someone you didn't know, being dragged, you would intervene, right? But I'm like, what if you saw my husband put his hands on me and drag me somewhere. Like would you do anything? And he really, he's like, I don't think I would it's your business. And I'm just it's terrifying to think that no one's going to help you as a woman. That's true. If there was a way to, I'm sure there's some program within some police departments in some cities where you could anonymously report it, that would be the best thing to do, but outside of that, you're right, you also don't want to ruin relationships within your family. I don't know. It's, that's a hard question. Yeah. Do you feel uncomfortable? If you saw that happening and it's someone, I feel like you would jump in if you saw some guy like beating someone you didn't know, but. But yeah, it would, if it's a family member it makes it harder. it's probably easier, like, if you see it in the act happening, I would definitely do something. Yeah. I just I keep trying to tell Will, at least if you're hearing. Boys and men saying things demeaning about women like I feel like that's the easier thing like hey, man, that's not cool Yeah, but yeah when it comes to violence I do. Yeah There's it feels scary for me as and my daughter If she's screaming for help, but the other person knows her attacker. They're just like, oh, what do I do? I don't really want to get involved in this And then DJ says, before anything even happens, he's like, Oh my God, they're going to kill each other. Yeah. And he, yeah, he knew from the very beginning and the, just how eerie that must've been when he went, a few blocks away to get food. And then here's sirens and everything, police helicopters swooping in and comes back to the house. And it seems like he almost knew exactly what it was for. Yeah. He called it. Sally talks about Ray sexually abusing her, and now we're back to the 911 call after she shot Ray. And it's it's so awful. Shantina is there and she's just screaming, ugh, it's just tragic. And we're only to the end of episode one, and there are two, three more, two more episodes. So, sweet lord, we're on episode two, the death of Mr. California. They were married eight years, she says the beatings got worse around competition time, he was on steroids, and her friend around, I, I'm not sure when this happened, but she said her friend was strangled to death by her boyfriend, and she starts to think to herself, he's gonna kill me, and so she makes plans to leave. She starts saving money to go back and live with her mom in Pennsylvania, and John says, later as an adult, they almost made it out of there, and then, they all call it the incident. Sally can't find Ray. It's Valentine's Day. She asks him where he's going and there's a fight. Sally says that at the time Ray was on five different steroids. Shantina, her daughter, goes to her room and hears choking and gasping for air. Sally says she knows he's gonna kill her and she scrambles away and grabs the shotgun and she had one bullet at that time She shot him with one and then she had to run. To the back of the house to get another shotgun shell and then Loaded it up and went back and that's right. she tells him to get out and he says no. And so she shot him. Shantina comes running out with a baseball bat. I just wanted to cry. she sees her mom shoot him the second time. These kids, my gosh, they have just been through it and seen just horrors. Sean wakes up to Shantina screaming. Ray is moaning and crying. You can hear it on the 911 call. Shantina is yelling, Dad, John says that it was a relief because even if he lived, he would never be able to beat anyone up again. and then the kids are separated from their mom. Shantina says, my dad's too big to hit my mom. It's recorded in that interrogation room. Yeah. Sally and the kids are unprotected and there's no one there to help them. And I've just, I'm sure you've seen it too, Kevin, so many police interviews where people just get led down a road. And I think, Sally did do it, but there's a reason for it. And she definitely gets led into saying things she probably shouldn't have. Yeah. I was surprised that they arrested her as quickly as they did with, I we only saw a little bit of the tape in the documentary, but it seemed like they had basically. wrapped up the case in two seconds and didn't do a whole lot of investigation outside of that. they knew what they were going to do going into it. she admitted to it, but also, they didn't take into the battered woman syndrome, any of that kind of stuff, before placing her under arrest. Yeah, I feel like they just need trauma counseling and mental health services, and they're, being interrogated. Ugh, gosh, that's so sad. This really shows Sally, she really loves the kids, and she's really doing her best. considering the situation, she's very coherent, she's very good with the kids. So she also, is a Jekyll and Hyde. John is so young and he's saying remember that police officer said it's self defense if you had all those marks on you he's really trying to defend her Shantina says that he was a bad man. Oh my gosh. You were saying to just prior to that she was this great mom would take them to do stuff like really great and then she also the one kid did something messed up, the neighbor kid, and she went over and just beat the crap out of the dad. Yeah. A bunch of times. Yeah. So she seemed a little bit, had a little bit of Ray in her as well, that would just make her snap. And I wonder what she would have been like without steroids. Would she have been somewhat normal? Yeah, we'll talk about that later on. I have some backstory. Now we get to the prosecutor, who is Dan Goldstein. He's right up there on my list. I cannot stand him. He says to the camera, he's all about reputation. He says he's aggressive and he's the top gun. Which, yeah, that movie filmed in San Diego, so good job, Dan. He has no concept of abuse. He says because Sally took a nap in the interrogation room, she's guilty of first degree murder, which I didn't put two and two together like that. Bill Raphael is her defense attorney. She gave the appearance of someone who could take care of herself physically, but Ray was way bigger than her. Yeah, and then we talked about the wrestling community supported her and helped pay her bail. And then DJ, Ray's friend, talks about the racial part of this. Sally's white and Ray is black. And he says the big black guy who attacked his wife, so he deserved what he got, he was really afraid that that's what was going to happen. and DJ really does play down the abuse. Yeah, he was a little, obviously he was Ray's friend, but he didn't really acknowledge a lot of what was going on. she had, we were just saying, Sally threw dumbbells on his car from the balcony and he was in the car at the time. The prosecutor says she was a fighter, and then her son, John says, my mom wasn't the perfect housewife. And, but I do wonder,, if she looked different, how, if this would have gone down differently in court, in the media, you don't want to look like you're a strong woman. Yeah, I didn't get like the details on how big Ray was, but you can see when they're next to each other. He's, she's big, but she's only five foot three, but he's huge. He's just giant compared to her. She was still capable of being beaten, but they made it kind of seem like she wasn't, but also she beat up the mailman she attacked another competitor for sleeping with Ray and was punching her because she wanted to break her nose the way Ray broke her nose. At this point, kind of near the end, Ray is dating Marianne, and they're in a serious relationship. Ray loved her. Sally sees Marianne's number on her phone bill, and she calls Marianne to tell her if she comes to Ray's gym again, Sally would beat her up. This kind of pushed me over the edge, because Sally is paying that phone bill with her own money, and Ray's not really doing anything besides just... Taking steroids at that point. I know he's working, but he's not making any money. It's infuriating. Yeah, so this is the confluence of events and emotions before Ray's death. DJ says Ray calls him to meet him at the house. He says Sally wants him there, and she's acting funny, he says. He knows Sally wants him there because things are more calm with him there, but he decided to leave and get dinner, and that's when the murder happens. The prosecutor says it was premeditated murder because Ray was going to leave her. and then we get back some backstory. Sally is raised by her stepdad who treats her worse than his biological children. She says he beats her and doing athletics was the only thing that allowed her to shine in the family and have approval from her family. We get so much backstory on killers, I'm kind of over it from both sides. I think at this point we can just say violence begets violence for everyone in this story. Sally doesn't have enough money to continue college and has to go into the Marines. She says she was afraid Ray was going to kill her and the kids. I really actually liked Sally, she's a woman in a male dominated profession. There's so much judgment and she's forced to do wrestling in order to support Ray. And that looks really bad in the media. And I don't know if they were allowed to show anything beyond just the wrestling poster. Do you know? I don't think they were allowed to do the videos. Talked a little bit about what was admitted and what wasn't, I think, but I, yeah, I don't know whether they admitted that much more besides that, because it would have been damning I feel like, even though I think that showed one side of her, but they weren't going to show the rest of, her being a decent mom and like all this other stuff. They just were glamorizing the violent side of her. Yeah. Dan Goldstein, the prosecutor, says Sally was a bully and a thug, and you can't be a violent person and a battered woman, and he said it was a jealous rage, and now we get the media talking about this whole, pumped up princess, the brawny bride, and the, somebody from, I can't remember, like a current affair, she says this was the time of the quote unquote angry woman, so Amy Fisher, Lorena Bobbitt, Tonya Harding, and women not staying in their place. I wrote down this quote, instead of pumping iron, she was pumping bullets. The lady even she wanted to apologize to her for how crazy she was to her in the press. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting that they're like recognizing it now. What do they say week and weeping emotional wreck. Oh my gosh, so she just can't win. She's both strong and violent but also a week and weeping. mess. according to the prosecution, Ray was shot from a slug from eight feet away and then shot again in the face. based on the shell placement, she shot and then went back to the bedroom to get another shell, reload and shot him again while he was on the ground, which shows premeditation. Also, can we please never have a gun that isn't safely locked in a house with kids? who do I talk to about that? that is just unacceptable. I think that's where she got, she kind of screwed herself. She probably would have got away with it if she did it once, but the fact that she went back and did it again, I think that's what. I did think about that because I do feel like she already, Ray was put in the brig for strangling her, and then he was let out, and then he beat her to the point that she didn't, you know, Yeah, charges. I wonder if they brought that up in court. Yeah, I don't know. I did think about that though. You know, she says she felt like she was an eminent danger and the kids were too. So she shot him, but he was still very much alive. And so I think, you may be thinking to yourself in that situation. what if he survives this? he will kill me, next time. so I, maybe that explains it, I don't know. And then she says he was coming after her, and that's why she reloaded, and she says she didn't think she could get away from him. And she didn't want people to know about the abuse, so there's only one friend who can corroborate it, and there's a lot of witnesses on Ray's side. She makes the massive mistake of testifying in her own defense. The prosecutor asks her, if she's known as Killer Sally, and she says no, which to them means that's a lie. her lawyer says that she took that question literally, and she didn't think about being called Killer Sally as a character. She played as a wrestler, and that allows the prosecution to show the jury a promotional poster showing Sally holding the shotgun with the title Killer Sally. she's found guilty of second degree murder, because jurors believe there was no imminent danger and she's sentenced to 19 years to life and then she was released in 2020 after 25 years in prison. She gets a job in a warehouse in Northern California. She meets up with Shantina and Shantina's son. Both her kids joined the military. Shantina was physically abused by her boyfriend and stayed for three years. Sally talks to John on the phone once or twice a week. He has PTSD and falls into drug addiction. He seems to be, in recovery now. but he does imply, he doesn't say it, but he implies that he was also abusive to his wife. She's dating Stuart, I guess is his name. And they're trying to take it slow. And then it seems like she marries him within six months. Did you get that too? Okay. So three times longer than before when she married Ray. cause they only dated for two months before getting married. I had a really hard time gauging my response to this one, just staying impartial because we just don't hear from Ray at all. And I had a hard time forming an opinion. I really liked Sally if she hadn't been on drugs, she hadn't had this terrible childhood. She seems like a smart, kind with it person who is, seems like a really good mom when she's not having. A breakdown and an inability to control her anger. Yeah. But we don't really see like we see some things about Ray. the only thing got from, DJ and his other friend really loved him. And then in the courtroom, you can see she's seated on the right. I didn't see supporters for her. They just weren't on film. But then, the courtroom on. Ray's side was full of people. So obviously he was loved, but there's, there wasn't any, anybody else beyond the two friends that were interviewed. That's true. I don't, it's weird to not hear his side of it. you mean maybe opens his mouth a couple of times in the documentary. Maybe I can't remember, but a lot of video footage of them, but you can't really. gain an opinion on him besides what they tell you and what police reports from him beating her Yeah I mean he seems sweet on Christmas he's giving gifts but then he also talks about this is a name tag that says dad so that means that I can spank you of course it's cut that way but he seems like charming I mean I think there's a reason why she was so interested in him and in love with him, and that's why a lot of people stay. All right, so I did want to talk about specifically how to stay safe when someone points a shotgun at you. I did some research, but anything else you want to say about this story? Thing is they did a brain scan on her and said that she had the same brain as like somebody that was a POW. so I thought that was pretty interesting. Oh, the, it was basically the same, same syndrome as the, Nicole Brown, same, very similar is kind of like what they described it as, situation there. If she hadn't have done it, how it would have ended up. Okay, so do you have specific information on how to stay safe if someone has a shotgun? in particular a shotgun, if you can try to calm someone down, but otherwise try to get out because it's the, it's super dangerous if it has buckshot in it, which just sprays everywhere. It's the best home protection weapon you can have for a reason. it's hard to get away from, I can't think of a way to get away from it other than trying to tackle somebody and go all out or try and run as fast as you can and get behind some. Get behind some. Yeah, let's just talk about just some general ways to avoid violence. And these are just my opinion. Please don't take anabolic steroids. Unless they're prescribed for weight gain and legitimate reasons other than bodybuilding. So maybe stay within the recommended dosage if you need them for your health. Also, if we can get the military and just society to offer reasonably priced therapy for people who are obsessive and in unhealthy relationships, and for abusers and those who are abused, and for the children and unstable homes. And on and on and on. Can we just please, Also, please don't ever feel like if your partner leaves you, your world will collapse. You can move on. It's gonna be alright. If that's the reason she shot him, I don't know. I don't really have, I think a lot of factors were in play. Yeah, I read, okay, this is everytownresearch. org, guns and violence against women, in their article, I just couldn't really find an aggregate study on female gun violence against men. I think it's relatively uncommon. It did say that 80 percent of intimate partner firearm homicide victims are women. So I guess 20 percent of them are men. access to a gun in the house makes it five times more likely that the abusive partner will kill his female victim. and I, yeah, just having a gun in play in the house makes it more likely for anyone to kill anyone. And then I found this article and I had accidentally gone on to Microsoft and she doesn't know me that well. So she was giving me really interesting things cause google kind of knows I'm a little bit liberal, so they'll give me certain things. But I thought this was an interesting article. It says it's called how to not get shot the 10 secrets of shot avoidance. And it's from personal defense network. com. Lieutenant David L. Williams, whoever that is. It was very poorly written, but also interesting. and I just typed in how to not get shot with a shotgun, and it says, and in his article he says, follow the old adage, quote, an armed society is a polite society, and then it follows up with the next adage, be polite to everyone you meet, and have a plan to kill them if necessary. Politeness is not a sign of weakness, and I both hate and like this, like I don't really know how to feel about it. That, statement you see when you go into a classroom and it has a picture of an empty chair and it says, when you miss school, you miss out. Well, any Marine base, you will see that everywhere. That statement, have a, be polite and respectful to everybody, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet. that's, one of those just signature things. And I think General Mattis, he's a... popular general in the Marine Corps is he may have been the one that first said that but you see that all over the place. Wow see and so we're in this massive like mass shooter I think in 2023 every single day we've had a mass shooting. And my understanding of, why that happens is because, number one, there are a lot of guns, but also, we're not taking care of mental health, but then, being polite to people, I suppose it can help. Yeah. Not, making somebody angry. I don't know. What do you think? I, I take it from the side of, That being more of a military or a police situation, right, you want to be respectful to your community. You want to be nice to everybody, but also keep in the back of your mind that that person may not have the same thought and they may turn on you at any second. So. that's how I take it is,. Best friend, worst enemy. Yeah. he recommends, don't be in situations where you could be shot, mmkay? Do not engage in illegal or immoral activities, and be surprised if someone wants to victimize you. Just situational awareness, avoid violent people. He also, just like you said, he said run away. I've been interested in looking at guns. Was just doing some research. So maybe she is onto something because she took me to this sort of gun website. It says carry a good quality defensive firearm and then a pop-up ad for a pistol came up. it said train for a gunfight. And I do agree. If you have a gun, you should actually know how to responsibly use it. and then we get to shoot first and end the fight quickly. And then I knew I walked into a party that I maybe hadn't been invited to by reading this article. he actually says avoid political rallies, which seems I mean, I guess you could shot there. it says scan the area and move, he says criminals expect victims to freeze and moving can be something they're not prepared for and, to get you to cover, like you had said, which is a place where bullets can't penetrate. And then I would think you would have to go for something pretty serious to have cover from a shotgun blast. I don't know what you would, what would you would be safe behind? From a, if you're at a distance, it's not, it's not like a bullet that actually can penetrate something as easily. So if you're behind like a brick wall or a cinder block wall or even a car or something, it's probably going to stop a majority of it. It's not like an armor piercing round or anything that's going to go directly through. if you're at close range, that's not going to be the case, but you don't have to. You get as far away from a shotgun as you do for a bullet, to have as much impact on you. And then what about, cause she had a sawed off shotgun, right? Yeah, and she shot him with a slug, which is like a bullet. It's like a big piece of lead. A lot of times with a shotgun, it's used for bird hunting or buck hunting. And so it sprays out a massive little pellets, so if it's a buckshot, it's going to be a bigger pellet. If it's a birdshot, it's going to be a smaller pellet. it looks like a little BB that's got, it's packed inside of a shell. But that's why hers was so deadly because it was just like a big fat piece of metal. It's just a solid piece of metal, basically. It's not like a normal shotgun shell that has a bunch of pellets that spray out. I had no idea. I'm so glad I had you on the podcast, because I did not know that there was a difference. Okay, so that makes a little more sense,, so he differentiates cover from concealment. We talked about cover so that protects you. Concealing is hiding but bullets may still impact. Like a wooden door or something and the ideal is to get both get cover and concealment so you're hidden and You're protected. Yeah. Yeah, I actually, I read a while ago, Sergeant Rory Miller's book on meditations on violence. And he talks about even law enforcement get really inaccurate in their shooting once you're further away and moving. So if you're able bodied and in a situation where you can run, do that. And so what about like a slug from a shotgun? how would that be different from, maybe, I don't know, a pistol? It's probably gonna... It'll travel probably the same. It might not be as accurate though. It's coming out of a bigger barrel. So yeah, the more distance you can get the better, the closer you are, the more damage it's going to do. So you, you want to put as much distance between you, but it's probably, I mean, it depends on what size bullets you're getting with it too. If you get shot at a distance with a slug, it's probably going to go into you and not go all the way through you. If you get shot with like a. AR 15, which is what a lot of the mass shooters are using right now. It'll, it'll just, most likely it'll go right through you. The tip of the bullet basically, you're, if you think about it, it's almost like a tip of a pencil. It's got a smaller point to penetrate all the way through you with a slug. It's a piece of metal. So if you shoot close range, it'd probably go through you. But if it's far enough away, it'd probably just hit and stop or move around in your body somehow. Wow. Yeah. I'm just learning so many things about guns. Fascinating. It was a double barrel shotgun though, right? She could have had. It wasn't a single, but she can, I didn't look too close to the shotgun. Most shotguns underneath. There's another tube, with the chamber. So you can feed some of them like up to eight shells in there. So you can pump it, shoot it, pump it, shoot it, pump it, shoot it. Or it'll be semi automatic where it automatically, basically instead of the pump action, it just loads in a new round for you. And you can just. Pull the trigger until you run out basically. Oh my gosh. So semi automatic shotgun. Semi automatic. And now the military even has a automatic shotgun. So you just pull the trigger and hold it down and it'll shoot until you run out. Wow. That's insane. Anything else you want to tell the people? I think that, well, not that I can think of. It's an interesting story, sad story, but I'm glad I watched it. It was definitely eye opening. It was a thinker, for sure. I think it's really useful. So thank you so much for sharing all that information. Awesome. It's really good to see you. You too. See you soon. All right. Bye. Bye.