A Clark County District Court jury has convicted a man who fired his gun to scare away alleged car prowlers, then later told reporters that he was just following the vice president’s suggestion.
Jeffrey C. Barton, 53, made international news when he told journalists: “I did what Joe Biden told me to do. I went outside and fired my shotgun in the air.”
He did this at about 3 a.m. on July 15, 2013, when he was alerted by a neighbor to people rifling through his vehicles, parked in his driveway in the 5800 block of Northeast 124th Street. Barton chased the alleged prowlers, punched one of them in the face and fired three rounds from his shotgun, according to accounts of the event.
Barton’s statement to reporters was a reference to the vice president’s answer to a question earlier that same year about home defense. Biden responded that Americans don’t need to own semiautomatic weapons, because a couple blasts from a shotgun will scare off intruders.
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