Was hoping for Advice/input about a bad situation.
A family member lives out in the countryside -
He was walking through some woods late in the day on his land with his 11 year-old daughter when he spotted a small pack of dogs (3) off in the distance down the trail, maybe over a football field away. He slowly tried to turn away to go back home, but the dogs sniffed him out and started barking aggressively and chasing him up the trail. He thought about running but he was worried for his daughter and frankly about rabies also which has been fairly common in his county in recent years. As he stood his ground, the dogs started getting closer - they were a couple of pitbull mixes and a Chow mix dog, fairly large and menacing dogs. He took out his Sig 228 and fired a warning shot into the ground between him and the dogs, now about 50 yards away. The dogs briefly halted, then started racing full speed at him and his daughter. Without thinking twice he emptied the magazine into the 3 dogs, hitting each one at least once before they got to him. He was able to drop 2 of them dead and maimed the third enough that it was spinning wildly and making a lot of noise along the trail. As the third dog lay dying, he realized his daughter had been screaming the whole time.
Very shaken up by the whole incident he rushed his daughter home and thought about what to do. He wondered if his neighbors (maybe about 6 families spread out maybe hundreds of acres all around him) heard the screaming and the gunshots and called 911. His wife came home after dark and he told her what happened and it frightened her very much also but she was about to call the police when he stopped her. He was worried that his concealed carry license would be taken away at least during the investigation, and possibly for good. They live out in the rural parts of the county, the area with the highest rate of drug crimes (mostly crank) in the state. Without guns, he and his family are sitting ducks for many antisocial elements living all around him.
In the early morning in the dark after a sleepless night, he went back with a flashlight & a shovel to the trails where the dogs' corpses lay and he dugout and buried all 3 dogs. He says none of the dogs had collars, but this is fairly common for even house dogs in that area. He also managed to find 11 of the 13 brass casings he had fired earlier.
This was about a week ago. After trouble sleeping for several days, he asks me whether he should go ahead and notify the authorities as to what happened to him (and possibly lose his concealed carry permit for good?), or whether he should just keep this quiet. Being a devout Christian, he's probably going to end up turning himself in and surrendering his CCW license. I worry about what the legalities of this situation is. Any advice or ideas on the laws surrounding a likely self-defense episode against a pack of dogs? The 1 week wait before reporting it probably looks bad also I assume? Does he stand a chance of retaining his CCW license?
