Good Guy with a Gun #24: Knightdale, NC
Original incident: November 29, 2023. Some people, no matter how many chances you give them, can't help but make themselves a threat. And threats get shot.
This is the kind of content featured in the 2026 Good Guy with a Gun one-page-per-day desk calendar.
Knightdale is a growing suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina. It must be a pretty polite area — not just because an armed society is a polite society, but because a homeowner there gave a would-be home intruder plenty of opportunity not to get shot.
This happened at around 11:20 PM November 29, 2023, when Juan Acevedo broke a window and tried to enter a home.
The home was occupied by “a legal gun owner.”
Let’s pause for a moment to ponder those words. Shouldn’t the default position be that most homeowners aren’t felons? And doesn’t that mean our presumption should be that a homeowner in this situation is a “legal gun owner?” Places with laws that make gun ownership extremely difficult might be an exception, but they’re horrible exceptions that have tried to turn a right into a privilege.
I’m not mad at the police, because this is information they need to have, and I’m not mad at the reporters, because they’re just repeating what the police said. Nevertheless, I see this kind of language all the time, and I’d love to see an adjustment away from it.
So back to the homeowner, a normal American citizen exercising normal American rights. He confronted Acevedo as he tried to enter the broken window, repeatedly advising Acevedo not to proceed.
Acevedo apparently doesn’t like to take good advice, even from someone pointing a firearm at him. Maybe he was high; he was definitely stupid. The homeowner fired a single round that struck Acevedo in the face.
Police came and took Acevedo to the hospital, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Maybe he’ll be reminded not to be stupid when he looks in the mirror. And maybe, hopefully, that mirror is in a jail: He was charged with felony breaking and entering with intent to terrorize, which (according to Sam Hoober at USA Carry) is a Class H felony in North Carolina, carrying a sentence of up to 36 months.
The homeowner wasn’t charged. News reports of home invasion shootings rarely receive follow-up, so it’s nice to see multiple stories reporting that the police and Wake County DA would not press charges against the homeowner.
Sources
As noted, there was plenty of local coverage of this one.
Local CBS affiliates WNCT and WNCN apparently tag-teamed on this story, giving the initial report and the follow-up that noted that no charges would be filed.
I didn’t see a follow-up from local ABC affiliate WTBD 11, just an initial report.
The News & Observer used this story as one of four examples of firearm-based self-defense, laying out what the law says in cases like these.
Coverage from the pro-gun community included Sam Hoober at USACarry and Cam Edwards at Bearing Arms.
There was also a summary with a lot of editorializing by C. Douglas Golden at The Western Journal.
That thing that never happens, happens every day.
Like the idea of a Good Guy with a Gun story every single day? Get the 2026 calendar! All 365 pages feature a news story from 2024.
In addition, this Substack will feature Good Guy with a Gun stories every day of the year, all taken from news stories so you can verify them yourself and share them around. They’ll generally be from about two years prior, which gives time to make sure there aren’t any legal or fraud issues to worry about.
Starting in 2026, we’ll open up paid subscriptions, and all paid subscribers will get seven posts per week. (People who bought a calendar will be eligible for a free full subscription.) Unpaid subscribers will still get two GGWAG stories every week.