In a story from the (Austin) statesman.com, eighteen-year-old Hollan Dyer has been charged with assault with injury. Dyer was a passenger in a car with two friends. One of them, John Hanne, later said that when Dyer saw a bicyclist on the road ahead, he stated that he hated bicyclists. He fired the pellet gun, striking the unidentified rider in the back. The victim was not seriously injured, though the pain made it difficult to retain control of his machine, and he did not get the car's license number.
Dyer was identified as a suspect in the case when a corporal with the Austin Police Department, who is identified in the affidavit as a family friend, found the pellet gun in his car. According to the affidavit, the corporal loaned his car to Dyer, and when the corporal's wife found the gun, the officer asked Hanne about it.
If convicted, Dyer face up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.
Contrast this to the case of Charles Alexander Diez , who entered a plea of guilty to a charge of assault with intent to kill after he shot at Alan Ray Simons with a handgun, striking his helmet without hitting his head. Diez was sentenced to 120 days in jail. Chances are that with credit for time served and good behavior, he'll be out before those 120 days are up.
Comments
Notice that charges have been made, but not an arrest in spite of knowing where the perp is staying in Louisiana. If he comes back to TX before the statute of limitations runs out he might get arrested and tried, but then again he only shot a cyclist so this is about the best we can hope for.
Where was this miscreant on Tuesday August 18th of this year? Could he be the moron who shot me that day? In a shameless effort to drive traffic to my blog, all the sordid details can be found by googleing "chipseal, a funny thing happened"
I've used a pellet gun for rat control when they come in after our dog's food. A pointed 'hunting' pellet at about 400 feet per second penetrates completely through a rat. It could be expected to penetrate several inches of human tissue as well. I have some higher power pellet rifles too, but they're too apt to ricochet. One of them will send a pellet downrange at about 1000fps. Remember, kinetic energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed squared. Doubling the speed quadruples the energy.
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