Texas Man Learns the Hard Way: When You Shoot an Armadillo, Bring Enough Gun
Jon Stokes 08.03.17
You read about this kind of thing periodically, but some people still don’t believe it happens. I’m talking about the one where the guy shoots at the armadillo and the bullet bounces off the shell and hits something or someone.
In this case, he shot the critter with a .38 and one of the bullets came back in his face:
DALLAS (Reuters) – An East Texas man was wounded after he fired a gun at an armadillo in his yard and the bullet ricocheted back to hit him in his face, the county sheriff said on Friday.
Cass County Sheriff Larry Rowe said the man, who was not identified, went outside his home in Marietta, southwest of Texarkana, at around 3 a.m. on Thursday morning. He spotted the armadillo on his property and opened fire.
“His wife was in the house. He went outside and took his .38 revolver and shot three times at the armadillo,” Rowe said.
Whenever I shoot a nuisance critter, I almost always reach for a .308, no matter the size. That’s definitely true of the last armadillo I shot.
Of course, I think armadillos should be left alone unless they’re posing a threat, and it’s not clear that this one was.
How could an armadillo pose a threat, you ask? In my particular case, the armadillo was burrowing in the garden right in front of our house, and our two dogs were periodically getting into it with him and biting at his shell. Armadillos carry diseases, including leprosy, so didn’t want the dogs biting at this armadillo’s shell and then coming back in the house and kissing my kids on the face.
So the ‘dillo had to go. I grabbed my trusty .308, an LMT LM8MWS with a Geissele trigger and a JPM silent capture spring, and shot him down in his burrow. Then the next morning I had to dig him out, which was super smelly and gross and not awesome.
At any rate, the lesson is clear: when shooting the Texas state critter, bring enough gun.
