A “CUT-LUNCH commando” who fired a military-grade rifle to “scare the s---” out of some hoons tearing up a neighbour’s paddock has been found not guilty despite telling police he knew it was “illegal” to go around shooting a firearm.

Former infantryman Eric John Davidson faced a two-day hearing at Wyong Local Court last week, charged with firing a gun in a public place, failing to store ammunition safely and assault.

About 6pm on July 24 last year the 54-year-old was watching Judge Judy at his semirural Palmdale property when his wife alerted him to some young men in four-wheel-drives tearing up a paddock across the road.

media_camera Former infantryman Eric John Davidson had weapons charges dismissed in Wyong Local Court.

The vacant block was a known burnout location and Mr Davidson went out to “tell them to bugger off” before picking up some gravel and hurling it in the direction of the cars.

In his recorded police interview, shown in court, Mr Davidson told detectives he gave the youths a spray and copped a barrage of abuse when one of the vehicles “drove straight at him” with its high beams or spotlights on.

He fled back to his property, with one vehicle pulling into his long driveway and one of the occupants yelling: “We’re going to burn your house down.”

Mr Davidson ran inside, found the keys to his gun safe and went into his garage to pull out a .22 calibre rifle and some “rat shot” to scare the hoons off, but could not find the ammunition.

Instead, the court heard, he pulled out a high-powered German military rifle and loaded it with two bullets.

Believing the four-wheel-drives had left, he walked down to the corner of his property to make sure, only to find two of the vehicles had returned and again drove straight at him.

He turned and fired a round into a clay mound behind him as the first vehicle whizzed past and another round into the air over his other neighbour’s vacant scrubland acreage towards a sandstone embankment.

“They’re idiots, I know I did the wrong thing, but never at any stage did I point a weapon at anyone,” he told detectives.

“Yep, I did it to scare the s--- out of them. I don’t know what else I could have done … I’m not bloody Rambo.”

However, Mr Davidson’s solicitor Samar Singh-Panwar discredited the young hoons in the witness stand, getting one to admit he lied to police about the weapon being pointed at them.

Mr Singh-Panwar said the isolated location of the property, which meant police would take a while to respond, and the serious threat of having his house burnt down by an unknown number of assailants, made Mr Davidson’s actions “reasonable” in self defence.

media_camera Mr Davidson wanted to grab a .22 calibre rifle similar to this but could not find the ammunition so he grabbed a high powered military rifle instead.

Magistrate David Day said Mr Davidson was a “cut-lunch commando” who engaged in “vigilantism”.

However, he found the evidence provided by the young men doing “circlework” in the paddock as “unsatisfactory” and that Mr Davidson’s actions were a “reasonable response, as he perceived it”.

Mr Day found him not guilty of firing in a public place and using the weapon to assault, by way of causing fear to the victims.

He found him guilty of failing to go back and lock his ammunition safe, but recorded no conviction against him because he returned the gun to the safe and was arrested before securing the bullets.