OK I over-reacted...home invasions Questions

[gregormeister]

Now to clean my image a bit let me explain that my post did seem a bit extreme...I would never ever ever shoot a running thief in the back regardless....but at the time I saw not one soul in my driveway , just dark woods and my car alarm going off......so I figured the best form of expressing myself was to describe what was possible of me to do if they ever came back, which wasn't a claim to shoot them in their back just a few dozen F-words and what nots I can't share here.

I am a mature adult who takes pride in his gun ownership and would never do anything to wreck that, but at the same time I got a wife and a son who I dont care to see harmed. So I post this little story to see if anyone would care to shed some lights on this and I throw some humor in there to lighten it up a bit and not bring on the paranoid pro-gun whack-job persona that I did anyhow. For that I apologize......but I asked a couple honest questions about home invasions and how to prepare....

I get answers about tigers, go-away mats and even a kind soul who suggested maybe I was dabbling in para military magazines a little too much and that type of humor....good to see vets get that image thrown at their faces and only one person cares to answer seriously. Now for anyone who would care to answer me in a serious question, WHAT IS A GOOD WAY TO PREPARE INCASE HOME INVASION OCCURS? I.E. WEBSITES? BOOKS? INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS? HONEST OPINION....PLEASE DON'T REPLY WITH SMART ass COMMENTS. THANKYOU

[K Frame]

I've done you a favor and thrown in some paragraph breaks.

You can put those into your own messages by occasionally hitting the key marked "enter" on your keyboard.

It makes your post easier to read and helps increase the effectiveness of your overall message.

Now...

The reason you got so many "smart ass" answers is because your initial post seemed to be so over the top.

There are no sacred cows here. We'll roast anyone.

Now that you've backed off a bit from your wild eyed "I'LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU BASTARDS IF YOU TRY TO COME IN HERE AND GET ME!" stance, we can talk.

The best way to prepare for a home invasion is to craft a plan to keep them the hell out of your home in the first place.

The best way to do this is create a layered defensive perimeter, and it doesn't have to be expensive, just intelligent.

Things like proper landscaping that won't hide someone trying to either case or enter your home.

GOOD locks in properly prepared doors.

Locked doors and windows.

Good lighting.

An alarm system or territorial dog.

Things like that.

[Brad Johnson]

Mike pretty well covered all the bases.  There's only so much you can do without turning your home into an ungainly and inconvenient-to-live-in urban fortress.

Brad

[Nick1911]

I'll add that fairly bright motion-lighting tends to be effective.

[Perd Hapley]

No smarty-pants answers, you say?  Trust me, you are on the WROOOOOONG forum.   

[gregormeister]

OK...thanks Brad, Mike and Nick...I have almost all of that except the protective dogs...the one is a easy going mutt who would lick Yugo Chavez's cheek if presented and the other is a deaf chow....will work on that.

Now say an invasion is attempted on the house? I keep only one loaded gun in the house on account of my son and its my 357. snubby  held via magnet on the inner closet ceiling. All other handguns are unloaded and in a lock box as well as rifles. Is it practical "if safely stored" to have more guns in various locations around the house loaded. My wife knows I'm safety concious about the loaded guns and all but even if forced at gun point to the bathroom I'd like to have a piece of mind..

I don't know if you get where I'm going with this but...any suggestions?

[mike]

Keep your gun on your person at all times. That way your son can't get it but it is ready to go at all times. You can't be much better prepared than this. Keep flashlights close by so you can see what's going on in case they turn the electic off on you. Also keep a cell phone nearby in case they cut the phone lines. As Mike said a good dog is very handy.

[AZRedhawk44]

Now say an invasion is attempted on the house? I keep only one loaded gun in the house on account of my son and its my 357. snubby  held via magnet on the inner closet ceiling. All other handguns are unloaded and in a lock box as well as rifles. Is it practical "if safely stored" to have more guns in various locations around the house loaded. My wife knows I'm safety concious about the loaded guns and all but even if forced at gun point to the bathroom I'd like to have a piece of mind..

I don't know if you get where I'm going with this but...any suggestions?

CCW.  Keep a good gun on you.  Get the gun out of the stash hole and put it in your pockets or on your belt.

And, I'm not a metallurgist or anything, but I don't think I'd want to expose a firearm to extended magnetic fields strong enough to suspend it on a wall in a hidey-hole.  The firing chambers are forged which compress and align the structure of the steel in a desired way.  Extensive exposure to magnetic fields will re-align the metal structure of any object to complement the magnet, resulting in creating its own magnetic field.  This "could" result in weakening your gun, either at the cylinder or at the barrel/frame juncture.

Maybe I have an over-active imagination regarding that, but that's my gut feeling on it.

Also, if the gun picks up a magnetic field it will attract metallic shavings from places you didn't even know HAD metallic shavings to share.  That'll get into the chambers, the trigger works, and the bore.  Can't be good for it, and hard to clean out if the actual gun parts are magnetized.

[Manedwolf]

WHAT IS A GOOD WAY TO PREPARE INCASE HOME INVASION OCCURS? I.E. WEBSITES? BOOKS? INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS? HONEST OPINION....PLEASE DON'T REPLY WITH SMART ass COMMENTS. THANKYOU

Training. From a professional, not a mallninja DVD. I mean in-person training.

Check at your local range to see if any instructors offer courses like Defensive Pistol and Defense with Shotgun. They do at the ranges here.

Some areas have larger training places like SIG Academy and the Lethal Force Institute here. Nothing substitutes for a live instructor telling you what you're doing wrong before it becomes a habit that is hard to break.

[never_retreat]

You can never go wrong with motion lights.

I just put 2 gigantic halogens on a friends house last weekend. They look like the 500 watt type on roids.
They are 1500 watts a piece. The only draw back is they require a 240 volts, and you can't get a motion sensor that can handle the voltage or the wattage of one let alone 2. So I wired a standard motion sensor to a large relay mounted in the basement to handle the current of the lights.

Let me tell you when they come on you think the yard is ready for an NFL night game.
The only way a perp would stay around now would be if he wants to work on his tan.

[Leatherneck]

Greg, I haven't read the post where you apparently (as a new guy here) stepped on your crank. So my mind is pure as my soul, and I say first: welcome to APS. My Brudders and Sisters sometimes forget their manners.

I did pick up that: (a) you have a .357 "hidden" but accessible, and (b) you have a Son. Bad Juju there, my friend. Sons are incredibly curious and nimble. You do not want a tragedy. Secure the weapon in a way only you and your wife can unloose and put into use. Please.

TC

[cambeul41]

A  home invasion discussion? Didn't anyone refer him to http://thehighroad.org/ -- or did I miss that somewhere?

[Balog]

I referred him to THR in the first thread. Good for the archival material, but last I checked home invasion and SHTF threads are emphatically not welcome anymore. Could be wrong, don't go there much these days.

[The Annoyed Man]

Your brain is your best defense. Start with Situational Awareness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation_awareness)

Secondly have a plan and practice it. Learned motorskills do not require upper level cognizance and as such just happen when presented with a environmental trigger (home invasion). Play scenarios over and over in your head. Mental imaging will coalesce the physical with the mental and like Tiger you will be hittin the long ball every time.

Good luck and Remember "Training mistakes are written up in post action reports. All others are written in HEADSTONES" Rommel

Jim

[Perd Hapley]

A  home invasion discussion? Didn't anyone refer him to http://thehighroad.org/ -- or did I miss that somewhere?

I was about to, but with all due respect to Master Greg, I thought better of it.

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

Mike pretty well covered all the bases.  There's only so much you can do without turning your home into an ungainly and inconvenient-to-live-in urban fortress.

Brad

I don't know, an urban fortress sounds pretty awesome to me.

[Antibubba]

PLEASE DON'T REPLY WITH SMART ass COMMENTS. THANKYOU

You should have lurked a bit longer--smartass is our specialty.

[seeker_two]

PLEASE DON'T REPLY WITH SMART ass COMMENTS. THANKYOU

You should have lurked a bit longer--smartass is our specialty.

If it wasn't for smartass, we'd still be posting on THR.... 

[xavier fremboe]

There is also an excellent book written by Gavin De Becker called The Gift of Fear.  Not so much for tactics, but for situational awareness out of the home.  It's also good for getting SWMBO interested in pistolcraft.

Thanks for a better second post. 

[Lennyjoe]

 My suggestions.

1. Select an area to withdraw to.  This can be somewhere defendable and has a secondary exit like a window that's not on the second story.  Or, if it is, a way to get out and down to the ground safely.   For my family, it's my bedroom.  The room is set up to where I can use the closet and the wife the bathroom.  We have good field of fire directly to the entrance door.  Only way in for the bad guy is the door. (window too but not as easy to get into) Once inside your sanctuary, call 911 and don't let anyone in without confirmation first.

2.  Children, teach them to withdraw to the same location as you and the wife are or a secure/hidden location within their bedroom if access to that location is cut off.  You and the wife need to be cognizant of the angle of fire should the child go to the secure/hidden spot.  Dry wall doesn't stop bullets very well.

3.  Two firearms are better than one. One for each and a shottie for back up. I have my .45 and my wife her .357.  Keep your firearm on your person when not in bed.  Close by when you are snoozing. Have a shottie sitting somewhere in the bedroom that you can access.  Keep it unloaded but have the shells somewhere close so you can load after you withdraw to the safe location.  This keeps the kid from getting to a loaded firearm but one that you can load if need be.

4.  Your withdrawal location should have the door mounted to where it would take a battering ram to knock down.  The door itself should be solid in nature, not one of them cheap, flimsy door used on normal houses. 

5.  Cell phone should be kept on hand or in withdrawal location. 

6.  Practice your withdrawal plan with all family members, not just you and the wife. 

That sums up my inputs.  Others may vary but that seems to work best for us.  Thank God I haven't had to actually use it yet, but at least we're ready if need be.

[Manedwolf]

  Keep your firearm on your person when not in bed. 

That seems a bit extreme and borderline paranoid to me...

[Lennyjoe]

So I'm assuming that when your home you don't CCW? 

[Manedwolf]

So I'm assuming that when your home you don't CCW? 

Uh...um...Let's see.

No? 

If your home is that insecure, go drive down to Home Depot and buy a steel front door with a good deadbolt. Then call a security company and have this new invention called an "alarm" installed. It makes a noise if someone tries to force a window. Magic of technology.

[MicroBalrog]

As far as I know, when you're carrying a pistol in a proper holster, it's light enough for you to forget about the weight of the weapon.

There's no discomfort at all involves. So why not just continue carrying a pistol (which comes with no added cost or discomfort to you), rather than spend extra on more security features?

[For the record, my appartment has a steel door]

[xavier fremboe]

As far as I know, when you're carrying a pistol in a proper holster, it's light enough for you to forget about the weight of the weapon.

There's no discomfort at all involves. So why not just continue carrying a pistol (which comes with no added cost or discomfort to you), rather than spend extra on more security features?

[For the record, my appartment has a steel door]

Did you furnish that, or was it supplied?  Just curious as to the cost...