Last straw.(Exercising The Right)

William Gates was born 67 years ago in the West Ashley, South Carolina, home where he and wife Yvonne currently reside. The house passed to him when his parents died.

Their street, according to Mr. Gates, was once a decent part of the neighborhood, but over the past decade it has deteriorated into a magnet for illegal drug dealing and other criminal activity. In 2001, Mrs. Gates recalls, someone fired a shot through a living room wall and couch (the bullet hole can still be seen). "The good Lord was with me that day because I had just moved my grandbaby from that couch."

On August 1, the couple was awakened at about 4:30 a.m. by gunfire outside their bedroom window. Mr. Gates heard his wife yell and drop to the floor. At first he thought she had been shot and was relieved to learn that she was not harmed. Gates told the August 6 Charleston Post and Courier that the gunfire was the last straw. When police had last been called to the residence, he had told them, "Bring the coroner and body bags the next time you come out here. Nobody is going to run me out of my home."

Grabbing a 12-gauge shotgun, he stepped onto his front porch and fired three blasts at three men standing in the front yard, striking two. The third man had been shot moments earlier by one of his fellow interlopers.

According to police, the gunfire heard by the Gates resulted from a dispute, likely involving drugs, between Kevin Hazel and Christopher Hampton, during which ...