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Thought exercise, home break in...
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So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,

Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,

I usually lay there for a while, just listening. Generally, I lay there long enough to conclude that if it were a murderer, he would have killed me by now, and I go back to sleep. I have a pistol under the bed in a pistol safe; I’ve yet to actually get it out and wander around the house with it. If I heard glass breaking, voices, or something obvious like that, I’d probably grab it.

___________________________________________________
Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [spot] [ In reply to ]
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I usually remain asleep unaware of the noise. What usually wakes me up is my wife hitting me and saying, did you hear that. What was that. Go downstairs and see what that is. Should I call 911.
I'll usually wait a minute and if I don't hear anything I'll go back to sleep. If I do hear something, I'll make a bunch of noise figuring if it's someone in the house they will hear me and take off.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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I just keep listening until I figure it out or it stops.

I have a security pump shotgun loaded with buckshot and slugs, assault rifle, and Glock model 23 (.40 caliber) under the bed just in case.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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When we moved in to our house, it had an unfinished basement, a basement door, and a door to the garage which didn't lock. Within the first week or so we were awaken by a very, very loud sound of a door slamming shut right under our bedroom.

I grabbed a knife, locked the door from upstairs to the basement, and quietly ran around to the basement door from the yard. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to trap the Intruders in the basement rather then come down the obvious way (stairs) and be an easy target. It was also strange being so new to the house I felt no sense of home field advantage, knowing where corners and the right angles to conceal oneself are, where the squeaky floor boards are, etc.

Anyways, turned out the storm door to the basement didn't shut well and the wind just opened and slammed it shut, and the sound reverberated really strongly in the empty basement.

Our house is old, and now that we've been here a while I know every sound in the place. Every door squeaks, there are squeaky floors everywhere, and an intruder wouldn't make it 2 feet in any direction without me knowing exactly where they are!

Long Chile was a silly place.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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I have a pump shotgun and buckshot readily grabbable. I loaded it once when the front door slammed open in the middle of the night. It was pretty scary. I pumped the gun and yelled GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE as menacingly as possible as I ran out of my room with an EMHO. Was probably quite the sight. There was no one there, the door wasn’t locked, doesn’t close well, and the wind blew it open.

I know a guy who shot his wife about 20 years ago thinking she was an intruder. She survived and they’re still married. Guns don’t play. I have a healthy respect for them and hope to never point one at a person.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Open the door. Tell them they are fucked. Go back to bed. Clean up the pieces in the morning if any are left.



I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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On the wall of my bedroom I have a foot long knife I got in Nepal that is made for hacking through bamboo. It is heavy duty and very sharp. A couple times I’ve been woken by strange noise and have grabbed that knife off the wall and walked around the house. I know the angles and creaks well enough that I’d have a pretty good chance even if an intruder was armed, and that knife could take a hand off at the wrist with a good swing.

Truth is though, my dog is going to hear and alert to anyone trying to get in long before I do. We had a drunk person come up the walk in the wee hours one night thinking he was at a different house, and the shepherd was at the door sounding scary as hell before the dude even had started trying his key in the lock.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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If the strange noise is a creaking sound, I go back to bed. If it's my alarm siren, shit's about to get real.

I'm gonna put on a little Johnny Gill, light some candles, and hope the intruder is up for some ass play.

Have you seen Pulp Fiction?
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [JSA] [ In reply to ]
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JSA wrote:


TheForge would approve !

"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [BCtriguy1] [ In reply to ]
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BCtriguy1 wrote:
When we moved in to our house, it had an unfinished basement, a basement door, and a door to the garage which didn't lock. Within the first week or so we were awaken by a very, very loud sound of a door slamming shut right under our bedroom.

I grabbed a knife, locked the door from upstairs to the basement, and quietly ran around to the basement door from the yard. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to trap the Intruders in the basement rather then come down the obvious way (stairs) and be an easy target. It was also strange being so new to the house I felt no sense of home field advantage, knowing where corners and the right angles to conceal oneself are, where the squeaky floor boards are, etc.

Anyways, turned out the storm door to the basement didn't shut well and the wind just opened and slammed it shut, and the sound reverberated really strongly in the empty basement.

Our house is old, and now that we've been here a while I know every sound in the place. Every door squeaks, there are squeaky floors everywhere, and an intruder wouldn't make it 2 feet in any direction without me knowing exactly where they are!
Reads like a scene from a wannabe horror flick.


_____________________________________
DISH is how we do it.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [ In reply to ]
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I usually just get up and start wandering around in my underwear, unarmed. This winter I heard some noise outside at ~2 am and went to check things out with a flashlight for defense...luckily for me it was just a large buck eating my cedar hedges (f--king urban deer!). I've been meaning to put a large knife or something in my nightstand but haven't gotten around to it. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe today's the day.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [re-fresh] [ In reply to ]
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re-fresh wrote:
I usually just get up and start wandering around in my underwear, unarmed. This winter I heard some noise outside at ~2 am and went to check things out with a flashlight for defense...luckily for me it was just a large buck eating my cedar hedges (f--king urban deer!). I've been meaning to put a large knife or something in my nightstand but haven't gotten around to it. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe today's the day.
Forget the knives and hide a hammer. I keep a hammer behind my mattress in the event that some asshole tries to creep through my bedroom window. Smashing hands and fingers is more painful than cuts.


_____________________________________
DISH is how we do it.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Several years ago I was the sole tenant in a 4-plex apartment that my friend recently purchased and renovated. My girlfriend and I were sound asleep and awoke to the sound of someone at the front door. Other than my friend, I was the only one with a key to the building and my apartment, so I knew something was amiss at 2AM, jumped out of bed, and hustled to the living room, where the door was. I intended to grab my large chef’s knife from the kitchen, but was too terrified and physically somewhat frozen. All I could do is yell as the door opened, “Get the fuck out of here!!” Ten seconds felt like an hour, every breath felt like it might be my last, but I was stuck in concrete, like a deer staring at the oncoming car knowing something terrible is about to happen. And as quickly as it started, the guy became apologetic, seemed frightened himself, pulled my keys from the front door, held them up as a token of submission. Turns out that he was drunk and got the buildings mixed up, and my girlfriend happened to forget the keys when I carried groceries in. I’m still unsure about how the exterior doors were also open, but one may have been propped a little when we came in.

No idea what I’d do today if there were an actual intruder. I hope I’d protect my kids without freezing, but I learned that you never know how your body will react in that situation. It seems that I excel better in the types of stressful situations you can plan your reactions to, like household crises when something breaks or like my wife’s recent loss of income (~40% of the household income...) and am cool under that pressure, but the crisis that requires an immediate response without planning is one that I’m ill equipped for.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [travelmama] [ In reply to ]
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travelmama wrote:
re-fresh wrote:
I usually just get up and start wandering around in my underwear, unarmed. This winter I heard some noise outside at ~2 am and went to check things out with a flashlight for defense...luckily for me it was just a large buck eating my cedar hedges (f--king urban deer!). I've been meaning to put a large knife or something in my nightstand but haven't gotten around to it. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe today's the day.

Forget the knives and hide a hammer. I keep a hammer behind my mattress in the event that some asshole tries to creep through my bedroom window. Smashing hands and fingers is more painful than cuts.

Perhaps. But it's pretty easy to take the hammer away from a person who is physically outmatched. My wife, who is easily in the top 10% of females when it comes to strength, wouldn't get more than one swing with the hammer before I had it out of her hand if so inclined. She's a beast, I'm nothing special, and I'm still dramatically stronger than she is.

I think it's somewhat tragic that women are the ones who seem most opposed to firearms when they are the ones who have the most potential benefit from owning/using them...

To answer OP. I grab my CCW pistol from the biometric safe and go take a look around.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I would be extremely pissed off that my alarm did not go off. I set it to the "STAY" setting every night when I go to bed and it's loud AF.

clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [travelmama] [ In reply to ]
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A 28 inch baseball bat would work pretty well.

I keep one of those handy too.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [travelmama] [ In reply to ]
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travelmama wrote:
BCtriguy1 wrote:
When we moved in to our house, it had an unfinished basement, a basement door, and a door to the garage which didn't lock. Within the first week or so we were awaken by a very, very loud sound of a door slamming shut right under our bedroom.

I grabbed a knife, locked the door from upstairs to the basement, and quietly ran around to the basement door from the yard. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to trap the Intruders in the basement rather then come down the obvious way (stairs) and be an easy target. It was also strange being so new to the house I felt no sense of home field advantage, knowing where corners and the right angles to conceal oneself are, where the squeaky floor boards are, etc.

Anyways, turned out the storm door to the basement didn't shut well and the wind just opened and slammed it shut, and the sound reverberated really strongly in the empty basement.

Our house is old, and now that we've been here a while I know every sound in the place. Every door squeaks, there are squeaky floors everywhere, and an intruder wouldn't make it 2 feet in any direction without me knowing exactly where they are!
Reads like a scene from a wannabe horror flick.

It kind of felt like one. But, I remember feeling more angry then scared. Probably a mix of being pissed off for being woken up and startled, and "oh hell no you're not getting in here without a fight" type anger. I have no clue what actually would have transpired had there been someone in the basement with me between them and the only exit, seeing as I had locked the door to upstairs (not that they would have known that immediately).

Long Chile was a silly place.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [travelmama] [ In reply to ]
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Google tactical tomahawk.

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Grab Glock 22 and tactical flashlight in the nightstand.

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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I sleep through it, always do. My dog will wake everybody in the house except me. Eventually, I'll get up and calm everyone down (the intruder will have fled).
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]
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I like the bit where zero replies have said "I'd call the cops"...

Murica: Shoot first and ask questions later.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,


Absolutely! I have a plan.

I have alarms and cameras. But occasionally I forget to set the alarm. Recently, we heard something crash downstairs. Hair raising. I grabbed my gun. Turned on the red laser. Turned on the light (I have a switch next to my nightstand). Grabbed my phone and checked my security cameras. Nothing.

Then I eased to the door. Turned on lights upstairs. Swept the room with the gun/laser then checked the alarm. Damn it, it wasn't on. Turned on all the lights in the front (7) and back (10). Then eased down the stairs. Swept the rooms down there. Then went to open the door to the storage area (which also has a door to the outside) but it was blocked. Pushed it open. A piece of pegboard I had leaned against the wall had fallen. Still, I swept the room and checked the door. It was locked. I think the sound was the pegboard had fallen.

I checked every room, closet, nook and cranny in the house with the gun/laser. Nothing. So I set the alarm and returned to bed. My wife had remained in the bedroom with her cellphone ready to call 911 in the event things escalated.

Yes, I have a plan. Yes, I am comfortable executing it. Now I ask you, why would I not have a plan?

Knife? A knife? Reminds me of Sean Taylor. It didn't work for him. I don't rely on something like that. I am shocked so many apparently do.
Last edited by: Harbinger: Mar 13, 18 4:00
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

Try to get the god damn dog to stop barking.

It's never gone past that. I have an old small aluminum bat at hand if it ever came to that.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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The dog would have gone crazy if someone other than the family was in the house at night.

If the dog is ignoring it, so am I.

If the dog is going nuts, tell wife to call to 911 and sweep the house.

Suffer Well.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
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Harbinger wrote:

Yes, I have a plan. Yes, I am comfortable executing it. Now I ask you, why would I not have a plan?

Do you live in the DMZ? I'm 53 years old. I've never had an intruder in my house. Nobody I've ever known has had an intruder in their house. I sleep soundly with the doors of my house unlocked.

I've never felt the need for a plan beyond dialing 911. An airplane or meteor could crash into my house too, I don't have a plan for that either. Turn off the evening news and go to bed.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Thom] [ In reply to ]
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Thom wrote:
Harbinger wrote:


Yes, I have a plan. Yes, I am comfortable executing it. Now I ask you, why would I not have a plan?


Do you live in the DMZ? I'm 53 years old. I've never had an intruder in my house. Nobody I've ever known has had an intruder in their house. I sleep soundly with the doors of my house unlocked.

I've never felt the need for a plan beyond dialing 911. An airplane or meteor could crash into my house too, I don't have a plan for that either. Turn off the evening news and go to bed.

I think shows like Crime Watch Daily with Chris Hansen play into this as well. Crime rates keep dropping, people keep getting more worried.

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [MattyK] [ In reply to ]
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MattyK wrote:
I like the bit where zero replies have said "I'd call the cops"...

Murica: Shoot first and ask questions later.

I'm not American, and dont think of calling the cops, even though there is a very, very slim chance an intruder would have a gun here.

If it is an intruder, what are the police, who are 10 minutes away, going to be able to do for you in a situation where seconds matter?

Long Chile was a silly place.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Thom] [ In reply to ]
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Thom wrote:
Harbinger wrote:


Yes, I have a plan. Yes, I am comfortable executing it. Now I ask you, why would I not have a plan?


Do you live in the DMZ? I'm 53 years old. I've never had an intruder in my house. Nobody I've ever known has had an intruder in their house. I sleep soundly with the doors of my house unlocked.

I've never felt the need for a plan beyond dialing 911. An airplane or meteor could crash into my house too, I don't have a plan for that either. Turn off the evening news and go to bed.

Me too. Well I'm a year older and I lock the front, but not back, door. But I was thinking the same thing as you -- or in other words: let's assess the risk first before we spend time worrying and planning about something.

So far the collective experience is: 2 wind intruders, one drunk cause keys left in door, and one wife shot.

________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [ In reply to ]
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We have a big lovable lunk of a pitbull/lab mix and a small Australian cattle dog. Any kind of sound that is "unusual" will startle me awake, but the dogs have much better hearing than half-deaf me. Altho normally placid, when the pitbull decides something's wrong, say it's that suspicious mailman at the mailslot again, she becomes a raging beast. In "protect mode", she'd frighten a dumptruck.

With young teenage boys bringing their friends to the house routinely, I've long since lost easy access to firearms. I can see the charm of a biometric safe under the bed, but I'd have to bolt it to the floor and Mrs. RG wouldn't go for that.

All weapons are in the attic except for a pistol locked inside a faux book in "the library". In order to clear the grounds I'd have to go fetch that and, letting the dogs scout in front of me, take a tour of the AO. It wouldn't occur to me to take a knife or a club to what could be a gunfight.

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Thom] [ In reply to ]
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Thom wrote:
Harbinger wrote:


Yes, I have a plan. Yes, I am comfortable executing it. Now I ask you, why would I not have a plan?


Do you live in the DMZ?

No, I don't. Are you arguing that only those who live in the DMZ are burglarized?


Quote:
I'm 53 years old. I've never had an intruder in my house. Nobody I've ever known has had an intruder in their house. I sleep soundly with the doors of my house unlocked.
I have had my home burglarized. Once, when I was a teen and lived in the country. Once when my I had young children and lived in the suburbs. Neither time was I home at the time.

Last year, my sister-in-law had an attempted burglary during the daylight. She was in the shower. Someone rang the door, she didn't answer, so they went around back and removed a screen and broke a window. She was out of the shower and they saw her walk across the living room and ran. They were about to enter the house. This was at 10am. She lives in suburbia. It was all captured on their security cameras.

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I've never felt the need for a plan beyond dialing 911. An airplane or meteor could crash into my house too, I don't have a plan for that either.
Good fucking luck with that. Hope they get there in time since an intrusion will likely last less than a couple of minutes. I am the first line of defense at my house. LEOs are the second. I now live on a lake. Not in town or in a city. The 911 response time would not be as quick.

BTW, a quick google shows that over 10,000 burglaries occur every day. Over 700 of them result in assault of the homeowner. And google also shows that no one in the last 1,000 years has died from being struck by a meteorite. So maybe, just maybe, you should rethink your rationale.

And the Q was whether you had a plan for a break in. I do. Your plan my be to be a victim. My plan is to actively defend my home and family. I also live in Texas and we have a different view of whose responsibility it is to protect your home and family than other parts of the country or world. None of your postings are going to change that.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [MidwestRoadie] [ In reply to ]
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MidwestRoadie wrote:
Several years ago I was the sole tenant in a 4-plex apartment that my friend recently purchased and renovated. My girlfriend and I were sound asleep and awoke to the sound of someone at the front door. Other than my friend, I was the only one with a key to the building and my apartment, so I knew something was amiss at 2AM, jumped out of bed, and hustled to the living room, where the door was. I intended to grab my large chef’s knife from the kitchen, but was too terrified and physically somewhat frozen. All I could do is yell as the door opened, “Get the fuck out of here!!” Ten seconds felt like an hour, every breath felt like it might be my last, but I was stuck in concrete, like a deer staring at the oncoming car knowing something terrible is about to happen. And as quickly as it started, the guy became apologetic, seemed frightened himself, pulled my keys from the front door, held them up as a token of submission. Turns out that he was drunk and got the buildings mixed up, and my girlfriend happened to forget the keys when I carried groceries in. I’m still unsure about how the exterior doors were also open, but one may have been propped a little when we came in.
I can't think of a time when I thought we'd had a home break in.

But your story reminded me of a night in a hotel while I was in the USAF. We were deployed to Jever AB in northern Germany in 1983, and we took a field trip to check out the inner German border (IGB). I'm sure someone justified the cost of the bus by pointing out we'd need to know what the terrain looked like when WW III broke out. We spent a few minutes at the border, waved to the East German guards, and then got back on the bus and headed into Hamburg in order to spend the night there.

We checked into the hotel, with two guys to a room to save a few Deutsche Marks. Lots of things to do in Hamburg, including a trip to the Reeperbahn, the red-light district. I went back to the hotel fairly early, turned out the lights to go to bed, while my roomie was still out on the town. My roomie (named "Maz") stumbled in a bit later, went to use the bathroom, and then someone else entered the room. My first thought was, "Dang, Maz brought a hooker back to the room." Then I got a look in the dark at the third-party person, and it was a naked guy. I said (sort of loudly). "Gosh all fishhooks Maz, what the hell are you trying to do!" Maz came out of the bathroom, turned on a light, and the third-party naked guy starts some drunken mumbling in German. Eventually we figure out he'd gotten lost and had stumbled from his room across the hall into our room. (Maz hadn't locked the door to our room when he came in.) Drunk German guy left and I locked the door.

"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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This happened to me this past summer.

I woke up to what sounded like our back sliding glass door breaking. It was a huge crash at 3:05AM. I immediately thought someone was coming in the house. I jumped out of bed and just ran down the stairs letting out a war cry like I was ready to kill anyone I found. My wife thought it was pretty funny.

Turns out it was a tree taking out my back deck. It did some damage to the roof but didn't break the glass in the door. I realized at that time that I have no real plan of action. I have 2 kids so all my firearms are locked away and not easily accessible and I'm okay with that.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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When I was a kid our house had a big closed-in porch that had stairs from the front at the driveway and stairs at the back from the back yard, with easy access to a dining room window that was usually locked. One night my dad woke up because he heard noises coming from the dining room, got up and got a baseball bat out of his closet and slowly tiptoed down the hall. He could see someone who was halfway through the window, raised the bat over his head with one hand and flipped a nearby light switch with the other.

Turns out it was one of my older brothers who came home late shitfaced and had gotten locked out (not the first time) so he had unlocked the dining room window earlier in case he got locked out so that he had a way in. He literally came within an inch of his life where my dad was about to bash his head in with the bat, and he was lucky that he flipped the light switch on. My dad was so pissed that he's lucky he didn't get the bat anyway.



"You can never win or lose if you don't run the race." - Richard Butler

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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
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I live in a nice neighborhood, but we have had some burglaries and thefts over the years. One night my neighbor woke up to his dog barking and he noticed a van parked on our dead end road. He called the cops and they checked him out - the guy lived in a nearby subdivision, but was a registered sex offender.

I keep all of my firearms locked in a safe. But we do keep all of the doors locked.

As to the threat of someone breaking in being remote. Sure, for most people it is remote. But there are a lot of people in cemeteries because someone broke into their house and killed them. There was an article yesterday about an elderly couple in NC. Some guys broke in, took the guy to his ATM while another watched his wife. When the man and the bad guy got back, the bad guys tied them up and set their house on fire. The woman lived, the man has 2nd degree burns.

I'm sure they had probably lived a long time without ever having any troubles like that and probably thought they were safe - until they weren't. But then it was too late to do something about it.

I remember the story about the young pregnant wife who was raped and killed while her husband was out running. She had a toddler upstairs at the time. The guy raped her, then shot her in the head. She was safe, until she wasn't.
Last edited by: rick_pcfl: Mar 13, 18 7:38
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
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Harbinger wrote:
I also live in Texas and we have a different view of whose responsibility it is to protect your home and family than other parts of the country or world. None of your postings are going to change that.

Of your three examples, none would have been improved by a homeowner with a gun. I'm not trying to change you, if you want to run around your house playing commando at 3 am putting extra holes in your peg board, go for it.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [jimatbeyond] [ In reply to ]
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jimatbeyond wrote:
A 28 inch baseball bat would work pretty well.

I keep one of those handy too.

What is this, TeeBall? My 10 year old swings a 31" bat ;)

~Brad
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Check the dogs, if they ain’t moving I go back to sleep...
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Agree with others, dog is the best deterrent to random intruders.

Alternatively, you could just buy the biggest dog bowls and leave it by the door along with some beware of dog signs.

Some long range defense spray could be a good final resort as I doubt many intruders wear goggles.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,

If it was confirmed someone was in my house, I would call the police. They would be at my house within 2 minutes.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [MattyK] [ In reply to ]
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MattyK wrote:
I like the bit where zero replies have said "I'd call the cops"...

Murica: Shoot first and ask questions later.

The average police response time is 11 min. The Florida school shooting lasted 6. If you want to wait it out and take zero responsibility for your safety no one is stopping you.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Years ago, when I lived alone, I woke up to a noise that I was certain was someone trying to yank open my sliding door. I got my gun and a flashlight and waited silently and I heard the noise again. I took a couple deep breaths and cleared the house. Thankfully it had snowed and there were not any footprints near any of the doors. I have no idea what I heard, but I was thankful I was prepared.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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<<In "protect mode", she'd frighten a dumptruck.>>

This made me laugh out loud, and it's a perfect description of my Belgian Malinois too. When we first brought my son home after being born I was worried how the dog was going to react to him. Shouldn't have been, the dog loved him to pieces from first sight. But walking around with the baby in the stroller the first few times with the dog in tow, and people would try to come up to coo at the baby, and the dog turned into a raging hellbeast, like took a lot of my strength to restrain her as she was lunging and basically saying in dog-speak "another step toward my baby brother and I will rip your fucking nuts off...." A serious dog in serious mode is a serious thing.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Thom] [ In reply to ]
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Thom wrote:
Of your three examples, none would have been improved by a homeowner with a gun.
I disagree.

Quote:
if you want to run around your house playing commando at 3 am putting extra holes in your peg board, go for it.
I didn't shoot my pegboard. It wasn't even at risk. I would have shot a fucking intruder though.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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I have no plan, it's not something that I think about.

One time I heard a banging downstairs so I quietly went down the stairs (which creek and Shirley would have alerted my awakeness to anyone down there) and the back door was wide open.

I hadn't closed the door properly and the wind blew it open.

It was snowing outside, which also meant it was snowing inside. And the main floor was freezing.

Upstairs, however, it was a tropical oasis as the furnace was running full steam trying to keep the house warm.

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Thom] [ In reply to ]
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Thom wrote:
Harbinger wrote:


Yes, I have a plan. Yes, I am comfortable executing it. Now I ask you, why would I not have a plan?


Do you live in the DMZ? I'm 53 years old. I've never had an intruder in my house. Nobody I've ever known has had an intruder in their house. I sleep soundly with the doors of my house unlocked.

I've never felt the need for a plan beyond dialing 911. An airplane or meteor could crash into my house too, I don't have a plan for that either. Turn off the evening news and go to bed.
In the 70's, in our small OR logging town, we didn't bother to lock the doors either. I don't recall ever hearing of a burglary, or a robbery that occurred in the home. The fact that most every rural house had dogs and guns might have helped people behave.

Fast forward to now. Within a couple hundred yards of our house are some pretty crappy neighborhoods with big crime problems. Our house got burglarized some years ago. They were probably leaving by the time the alarm company decided to call the police. Wasn't happy about that.

It's fascinating to hear the different comments, from cultures around the world, re. the issue of defending one's self. I don't mean hearing it here, I mean hearing different POVs on the issue in many ways. Most Western nations seem to encourage a pretty passive response to self-defense. Like, if someone breaks into your house or attacks you, the amount of force you use to protect yourself/family/home can become an issue. I mean along the lines of....bad guy breaks into your house while you and the misses are sitting on the couch. Bad guy has a knife. You whack him in the head with a bat. Then there's questions re. "why did you attack?", "couldn't you have just let him have what he wanted?", "why did you happen to have a bat by your couch? Were you laying in wait for him?", "was the bat an unreasonably deadly weapon?", "was it really necessary to hit him in the head with it? Maybe you could have just hit him in the knee?" I've even read expressions of sympathy for the robber, for crying out loud.

I see a lot of those attitudes in American urban dwellers and I wonder how they became so different then us rural types? The latter subscribes to a far more active role in defense. There's no "call the police and cower". It's more "shoot the robber, than call the police." Where did this cultural difference come from?

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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We have a security system but law enforcement would take at least 15 min to get there. We have a bullmastiff but she is crated at night due to hubbies disability(double amputee). I have a handgun ready and know I would be the one protecting our home as it takes hubby a while to get his legs on:) by then, we are dead.
We have been broken into once, both of us not home-dog in garage. Twice cars broken into in the driveway.
A couple weeks ago, late at night there was a car parked at the end of our long driveway stalling there for 15+ min. I turned on the flood lights etc-no movement. Yes, I got the hand gun out as hubby got in the car and drove down-really long driveway). Thankfully, it was a neighbor and they drove off.
I have not heard a noise in the house but I am prepared-yes, grab the gun before I get out of the bedroom. I would let the dog out of the crate before I searched each room. Wake up hubby and tell him to get his damn legs on!!!! Call the cops. In that order.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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RangerGress wrote:
I see a lot of those attitudes in American urban dwellers and I wonder how they became so different then us rural types? The latter subscribes to a far more active role in defense. There's no "call the police and cower". It's more "shoot the robber, than call the police." Where did this cultural difference come from?

Are you assuming I'm an, "urban dweller"? I grew up out in the country and live in the country now.

I don't believe I will ever need to use deadly force in my own home to protect myself, it's that simple. Sure, it could happen, but it's pretty unlikely that I will be in a position that having a gun handy will make things better.

The last thing I would ever want to do is kill another person for a petty property crime, I have homeowners insurance. If some 14 year old breaks into my garage to steal some beer on a dare, I wouldn't be able to live with myself for killing him. Sure there are instances where having a gun could save my life, but there are also instances where it could start a fire fight I may or may not win.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Thom] [ In reply to ]
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Thom wrote:
RangerGress wrote:

I see a lot of those attitudes in American urban dwellers and I wonder how they became so different then us rural types? The latter subscribes to a far more active role in defense. There's no "call the police and cower". It's more "shoot the robber, than call the police." Where did this cultural difference come from?


Are you assuming I'm an, "urban dweller"? I grew up out in the country and live in the country now.

I don't believe I will ever need to use deadly force in my own home to protect myself, it's that simple. Sure, it could happen, but it's pretty unlikely that I will be in a position that having a gun handy will make things better.

The last thing I would ever want to do is kill another person for a petty property crime, I have homeowners insurance. If some 14 year old breaks into my garage to steal some beer on a dare, I wouldn't be able to live with myself for killing him. Sure there are instances where having a gun could save my life, but there are also instances where it could start a fire fight I may or may not win.
Re. making assumptions about you. Nope. Not about you. My point was general.

Re. killing a kid that just wants a beer. A normal person wouldn't kill for breaking into a garage to steal a beer. One of the problems with this kind of discussion is the mild mannered types tend to imagine no-account non-threatening scenarios and are mortified that the homeowner would kill the intruder. Meanwhile the active-defense types are imagining far more threatening scenarios and are puzzled by the mild mannered types saying "should just call the police".

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Perseus] [ In reply to ]
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Perseus wrote:
Years ago, when I lived alone, I woke up to a noise that I was certain was someone trying to yank open my sliding door. I got my gun and a flashlight and waited silently and I heard the noise again. I took a couple deep breaths and cleared the house. Thankfully it had snowed and there were not any footprints near any of the doors. I have no idea what I heard, but I was thankful I was prepared.

All this proves is that ghosts don't leave footprints. Next time shoot them so we know if they are affected by bullets.

The only time either my wife or I ever thought there was someone in the house was one time soon after we got together. I was at work delivering pizza. She was at home with the dog. We lived in a semi-rough neighborhood. The dog started going nuts and would run part way up the stairs barking and growling then come back down. She called me at work all worried. I went home and put the vacuum cleaner away that was sitting at the top of the stairs.

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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If it was just a kid stealing my beer, I would roundhouse kick them for waking me up and send them along their way. Only serial killer/rapist/home invaders get shot in my house.

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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RangerGress wrote:
Re. killing a kid that just wants a beer. A normal person wouldn't kill for breaking into a garage to steal a beer. One of the problems with this kind of discussion is the mild mannered types tend to imagine no-account non-threatening scenarios and are mortified that the homeowner would kill the intruder. Meanwhile the active-defense types are imagining far more threatening scenarios and are puzzled by the mild mannered types saying "should just call the police".
Somewhere y'all morphed from someone breaking into your home to a kid breaking into a garage to steal a beer. That was not the Q.

Since I don't keep beer in my garage, that line of justification is moot. Now I do have 3 refrigerators, but they are all inside my home.

My alarm system covers all doors and has glass break sensors in every room. High end equipment. So I highly doubt you would actually enter my home unless I both left a door unlocked and failed to turn on the alarm. But assuming you did manage to enter, I wouldn't know your intent, I would still defend myself and my home. When confronted it would be wise to lay on the floor. If you moved aggressively or towards me you would be shot. Further, in Texas, we have the Castle Doctrine. You cannot be prosecuted for shooting burglars in your home.

Bottom line. I have a plan. But I also expect never to implement it. My security system is very strong and when triggered would cause you to exit. Further, I have landscape lighting from the street to my dock. The area is really well lit at night.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
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Harbinger wrote:

BTW, a quick google shows that over 10,000 burglaries occur every day. Over 700 of them result in assault of the homeowner. And google also shows that no one in the last 1,000 years has died from being struck by a meteorite. So maybe, just maybe, you should rethink your rationale.

So a 0.00055% chance. Better get extra ammo.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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Personally, I would don tactical gear. Secure automatic, military style killing device. Pursue. Capture. Waterboard.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
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Last year, my sister-in-law had an attempted burglary during the daylight. She was in the shower. Someone rang the door, she didn't answer, so they went around back and removed a screen and broke a window. She was out of the shower and they saw her walk across the living room and ran. They were about to enter the house. This was at 10am. She lives in suburbia. It was all captured on their security cameras.

Sorry to hear about your SIL. But it gives me a great idea. Rather than me have a gun handy, how about you send me a naked picture of your SIL. I'll blow it up to life size, and if someone breaks into may house I'll unfurl it.

________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [FishyJoe] [ In reply to ]
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We were broken into while we were both home, along with 150# of weimaraners (1 male, 1 female). House is a split-level with 5 floors - finished basement contains a small Computrainer studio and Mrs. Ti runs early a.m. workouts down there. The next level up is the garage and a large sunroom w/ a sliding glass door out to the backyard. For years, we had a dog door panel inserted in that door, which was braced shut w/ a chunk of lumber. To install the panel, I had to remove the locking mechanism from the door. Winter was coming on and the flap in the dog door was beat up and not sealing properly - a replacement had been ordered, but in the meantime I had removed the panel and slid the door shut without fixing the lock or bracing the door. Figured it'd only be a couple of days 'till I got the replacement flap and had it squared away. One morning around 5 a.m., Mrs. Ti was down in the basement vacuuming the room for her incoming athletes (5:30 a.m. ride) and I was up on the top level sound asleep w/ both dogs. She had come up from the basement and up one level to the kitchen/living room and saw someone in a dark hoodie peeking through the French doors that open onto the back patio. She hauled ass upstairs yelling for me to get up, clearly shaken. Ran downstairs w/ the dogs and called the cops, but he/they were gone along with our wallets off the kitchen counter. Guessing that one of them came in through the unlocked door and up the stairs to the kitchen - wife didn't hear anything w/ the vacuum running and me and the dogs were 3 floors up. Could have still been in the house w/ his lookout out back and high-tailed it back the way he came when she went upstairs. F'n scary. Little asshole(s) got lucky and happened to catch us w/ our door unsecured and very lucky that the dogs didn't hear anything. I have a baseball bat, a .22 and a 12 ga. up in the bedroom but didn't even think to grab any of them on the way out the door.

Now, we have a pit mix and his sister, a boxer mix - together, about 100# of fuck you when they get riled up. Think I'll grab the .22 if they happen to go ballistic in the middle of the night, although my guess is that I'll just end up cleaning up the blood after the dogs are done.

_________________________________________________
"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare" - Juma Ikangaa

http://www.litespeed.com
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [spirogeek] [ In reply to ]
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spirogeek wrote:
Harbinger wrote:

BTW, a quick google shows that over 10,000 burglaries occur every day. Over 700 of them result in assault of the homeowner. And google also shows that no one in the last 1,000 years has died from being struck by a meteorite. So maybe, just maybe, you should rethink your rationale.


So a 0.00055% chance. Better get extra ammo.

Hey, you could break that % to an even less number if you calculated it by the hour.

Since there are 3.7 million burglaries every year, and there are 126 million homes in the U.S., that means 2.9% of the homes were burglarized in any given year.

Do you have fire insurance on your home? There were only 352,000 fire claims in 2016. 0.28%.

Seems that if you are 10 times more likely to have a burglary than a fire you would have a plan if it happens while you are there.

I have fire insurance. I have burglary protection. I have a plan if I wake in the night and the house is on fire. I have a plan if I wake in the night and a burglar has broken in.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
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I'm guessing that you're being a little loose with that number of 3.7mil burglaries and 126mil homes. Are you sure that those are only burglaries in personal domiciles or overall burglaries in this country, inclusive of personal residences, business/commercial buildings, and automobiles? I have a hard time believing that nearly 3% of homes are actually burglarized in any given year. Can you cite a source for that claim?



Harbinger wrote:
spirogeek wrote:
Harbinger wrote:

BTW, a quick google shows that over 10,000 burglaries occur every day. Over 700 of them result in assault of the homeowner. And google also shows that no one in the last 1,000 years has died from being struck by a meteorite. So maybe, just maybe, you should rethink your rationale.


So a 0.00055% chance. Better get extra ammo.


Hey, you could break that % to an even less number if you calculated it by the hour.

Since there are 3.7 million burglaries every year, and there are 126 million homes in the U.S., that means 2.9% of the homes were burglarized in any given year.

Do you have fire insurance on your home? There were only 352,000 fire claims in 2016. 0.28%.

Seems that if you are 10 times more likely to have a burglary than a fire you would have a plan if it happens while you are there.

I have fire insurance. I have burglary protection. I have a plan if I wake in the night and the house is on fire. I have a plan if I wake in the night and a burglar has broken in.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Kay Serrar] [ In reply to ]
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Kay Serrar wrote:
DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,


If it was confirmed someone was in my house, I would call the police. They would be at my house within 2 minutes.

First, how would it be "confirmed?" Second, 2 minutes??? Where do you live?

https://www.creditdonkey.com/...e-response-time.html

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [MidwestRoadie] [ In reply to ]
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MidwestRoadie wrote:
I'm guessing that you're being a little loose with that number of 3.7mil burglaries and 126mil homes. Are you sure that those are only burglaries in personal domiciles or overall burglaries in this country, inclusive of personal residences, business/commercial buildings, and automobiles? I have a hard time believing that nearly 3% of homes are actually burglarized in any given year. Can you cite a source for that claim?

I googled it. At least half a dozen sites had the stat. Here is one. https://absupply.net/...RL_GSB15_Catalog.pdf
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [JSA] [ In reply to ]
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JSA wrote:
Kay Serrar wrote:
DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,


If it was confirmed someone was in my house, I would call the police. They would be at my house within 2 minutes.


First, how would it be "confirmed?" Second, 2 minutes??? Where do you live?

https://www.creditdonkey.com/...e-response-time.html

Confirmed, as in it's not just the dog knocking over its bowl or a door that slammed shut, but rather hearing footsteps or voices. If I had any doubts I would just call the police because they would have absolutely no problem coming over.

I live in a town in northern NJ with a population of about 30k with a full time police force of about 50 officers. So about 17 officers per 10k population, which ranks pretty high nationally. Residents can't park on the streets at night, which makes it somewhat easier for the police to spot any suspicious vehicles. The other day I had cause to call the police and they arrived in about 2 mins. That was mid-morning on a weekday for something pretty minor so I didn't call 911, just the station number. I would think in the middle of the night with no traffic with a 911 call they could match that time pretty easily. They always have a number of vehicles patrolling and it only takes a couple of minutes to drive across the town.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
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Do you live in a high crime neighborhood? Percentages are hugely affected by that. Here is a county break-down of crime rates. A neighborhood breakdown would be even better.


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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Like others here, I live in a rural development that would require response by the sheriffs department and no telling how long it would be for them to respond to my alarm system call.

Also like other stories already posted I had a similar occurrence of a false alarm. My teenagers have a curfew and the alarm is set to automatically arm at that deadline. If they aren’t home they know to send a message to Mrs ChrisT or me that they are late, and they can disarm the panel from their phones prior to entry. One night after we confirmed all the mush-brained family members were tucked in, my alarm was active and launched into intruder mode. I shot out of bed and grabbed the laser equipped Glock from the biometric wall safe (that only the Mrs and I have access to by the way) and methodically started to clear the 3 story house room by room all while the siren wailed. Only when I had determined that the kitchen door had not been latched completely and the house was only occupied by the proper people did I disarm the system and call in a false alarm. That was probably 15 minutes later and no deputy had arrived. So Plenty of time for a full assault by an intruder if one would have existed.

The after action report at breakfast the next day determined that the last teen home tried to quietly enter without waking us and didn’t fully close the door. They know now to make sure it is closed. My plan was also updated to include a second weapon for my wife as she waits it out in the master closet in case someone slips by the sweep and grabs her before I get back.

If you want to put your faith in the police or believe in humanity of people, good for you. I won’t criticize your lack of a plan, or even if you have one but are frozen I. The moment and unable to execute. There is one word to describe you if something did happen - victim.
Last edited by: ChrisT: Mar 13, 18 13:20
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
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The numbers directly contradict from that source and it just says "burglaries," with no references to what kind. Here's what it says:

3.7million burglaries per year from 2003-2007

and

A home burglary every 15 seconds in the U.S. (which is 2.1million/year)

and

20% of homes will be victimized by a burglary or violent home invasion

Those are useless numbers without context or explanation and they directly contradict each other. Conveniently, their goal is to sell a product for home security, so opaque, misleading numbers are helpful in that endeavor.

I did a quick search myself and the numbers overall appear to be somewhat murky. It looks like the total number of all burglaries in the States is that 3.7mil amount, most of which are in residences but it does include businesses and what actually constitutes a burglary isn't defined. However, around 2/3 of those in homes are perpetrated by someone the homeowner already knows, very few are violent, and even fewer result in injury to the residents. The average amount of loss is just over $2k.

I guess what I mean is this -- it sure doesn't seem to be a significant enough issue for me to spend a bunch of time worrying about it. In the vast majority of cases, it's just "stuff" that's lost to a burglary, which is all replaceable, albeit inconvenient. It sure doesn't seem like a big enough issue for me to worry about having a weapon around to mitigate against it, particularly since the statistics show that someone in your household is far more likely to be injured or killed by the weapon than the weapon is to be used against the burglar. And if the worst happens and someone is killed in a home invasion, they were bound to die anyway. In the scheme of things on this floating orb, our lives don't actually matter much if at all so it makes more sense to me to enjoy life as it is and appreciate the moments for what they are instead of being terrified to the point that we have to be on vigilant watch against everything, including things that are statistically unlikely to effect us in a way that would really impact our lives.



Harbinger wrote:
MidwestRoadie wrote:
I'm guessing that you're being a little loose with that number of 3.7mil burglaries and 126mil homes. Are you sure that those are only burglaries in personal domiciles or overall burglaries in this country, inclusive of personal residences, business/commercial buildings, and automobiles? I have a hard time believing that nearly 3% of homes are actually burglarized in any given year. Can you cite a source for that claim?


I googled it. At least half a dozen sites had the stat. Here is one. https://absupply.net/...RL_GSB15_Catalog.pdf
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [MidwestRoadie] [ In reply to ]
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Well to be fair, you already admitted that if your home was invaded, you would lock up like a nun at a brothel. So do whatever research you want if it makes you feel better.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [ChrisT] [ In reply to ]
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Touche.

But I didn't do any research, short of ~10 minutes of quick Google-fu to refute Harbinger's dubious statistics and check his biased source, short of the knowledge I already had that having a gun in the home for protective purposes is statistically far more likely to cause harm to someone who lives in the home than it is ever to be used for protection. If that's what gives you security, great. But I'd rather keep my guns in a place where it's damn near impossible for anyone in my home to get at them, which also means that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to get to one in the event of a home invasion...and that's if I didn't lock up like I did before when the drunk guy came in. And even if I didn't lock up, I don't think the material things someone would want to steal would be worth me shooting them anyway. It's just stuff, as worthless in the long run as we are to the cosmos.




ChrisT wrote:
Well to be fair, you already admitted that if your home was invaded, you would lock up like a nun at a brothel. So do whatever research you want if it makes you feel better.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Harbinger wrote:
RangerGress wrote:

Re. killing a kid that just wants a beer. A normal person wouldn't kill for breaking into a garage to steal a beer. One of the problems with this kind of discussion is the mild mannered types tend to imagine no-account non-threatening scenarios and are mortified that the homeowner would kill the intruder. Meanwhile the active-defense types are imagining far more threatening scenarios and are puzzled by the mild mannered types saying "should just call the police".

Somewhere y'all morphed from someone breaking into your home to a kid breaking into a garage to steal a beer. That was not the Q.

Since I don't keep beer in my garage, that line of justification is moot. Now I do have 3 refrigerators, but they are all inside my home.

My alarm system covers all doors and has glass break sensors in every room. High end equipment. So I highly doubt you would actually enter my home unless I both left a door unlocked and failed to turn on the alarm. But assuming you did manage to enter, I wouldn't know your intent, I would still defend myself and my home. When confronted it would be wise to lay on the floor. If you moved aggressively or towards me you would be shot. Further, in Texas, we have the Castle Doctrine. You cannot be prosecuted for shooting burglars in your home.

Bottom line. I have a plan. But I also expect never to implement it. My security system is very strong and when triggered would cause you to exit. Further, I have landscape lighting from the street to my dock. The area is really well lit at night.

Your replies fascinate me. How many home invasions happen in your city/twp/ local a year? The outside lights and security system you describe, sound very expensive. I have 3 lights outside my house and they really only light up maybe 5% of the outside area.

Last year it was a big thing in our city when 2 houses got broken into. Just different perspectives I guess.

Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [bradword] [ In reply to ]
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Yep, tee ball bat.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [MidwestRoadie] [ In reply to ]
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MidwestRoadie wrote:
I did a quick search myself and the numbers overall appear to be somewhat murky. It looks like the total number of all burglaries in the States is that 3.7mil amount, most of which are in residences but it does include businesses and what actually constitutes a burglary isn't defined. However, around 2/3 of those in homes are perpetrated by someone the homeowner already knows, very few are violent, and even fewer result in injury to the residents. The average amount of loss is just over $2k.

I guess what I mean is this -- it sure doesn't seem to be a significant enough issue for me to spend a bunch of time worrying about it. In the vast majority of cases, it's just "stuff" that's lost to a burglary, which is all replaceable, albeit inconvenient. It sure doesn't seem like a big enough issue for me to worry about having a weapon around to mitigate against it, particularly since the statistics show that someone in your household is far more likely to be injured or killed by the weapon than the weapon is to be used against the burglar. And if the worst happens and someone is killed in a home invasion, they were bound to die anyway. In the scheme of things on this floating orb, our lives don't actually matter much if at all so it makes more sense to me to enjoy life as it is and appreciate the moments for what they are instead of being terrified to the point that we have to be on vigilant watch against everything, including things that are statistically unlikely to effect us in a way that would really impact our lives.
It's kind of in the mindset. To continue the fire insurance analogy, is paying for home insurance synonymous with "worrying about it"? We all come from different backgrounds. We all have our quirks. Starting with being small and hassled a lot in school, and then continuing on to my career choices, my default mode is to be kind of wary. I don't want to be caught off guard, and being unable to defend my family and myself fills me with a special kind of horror all out of proportion with the actual likelihood of something bad happening. Just seeing some stranger get hurt in front of me, or needing help, and me unable or failing to help that person would take me a long time to get over.

I don't "think" about being wary, nor quick to render support or aid to others if need be. It's just autopilot. If Dale Archibald and Chris Smith had been whacking you around every damned week from 7th-10th grade, you'd be wary about being defenseless too. And good looking. And charismatic. And really funny. Awesome to have a beer with. The Best.

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Kay Serrar] [ In reply to ]
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Kay Serrar wrote:
JSA wrote:
Kay Serrar wrote:
DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,


If it was confirmed someone was in my house, I would call the police. They would be at my house within 2 minutes.


First, how would it be "confirmed?" Second, 2 minutes??? Where do you live?

https://www.creditdonkey.com/...e-response-time.html


Confirmed, as in it's not just the dog knocking over its bowl or a door that slammed shut, but rather hearing footsteps or voices. If I had any doubts I would just call the police because they would have absolutely no problem coming over.

I live in a town in northern NJ with a population of about 30k with a full time police force of about 50 officers. So about 17 officers per 10k population, which ranks pretty high nationally. Residents can't park on the streets at night, which makes it somewhat easier for the police to spot any suspicious vehicles. The other day I had cause to call the police and they arrived in about 2 mins. That was mid-morning on a weekday for something pretty minor so I didn't call 911, just the station number. I would think in the middle of the night with no traffic with a 911 call they could match that time pretty easily. They always have a number of vehicles patrolling and it only takes a couple of minutes to drive across the town.

17 officers per 10k puts you right at the average. Certainly not "pretty high."

http://www.governing.com/...ity-departments.html

I would not bank on your n=1 experience with a 2 minute response time.

Average response time is 10 minutes and your department is quite average in terms of available officers per 10K residents.

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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<<To continue the fire insurance analogy, is paying for home insurance synonymous with "worrying about it"?>>


At risk of putting words in MidwestRoadie's mouth, I think where the fire insurance analogy breaks down is the fact that you don't have to worry about accidentally shooting yourself or a family member with your fire insurance policy in a high stress situation, you don't have to worry that you'll forget to secure your fire insurance policy and have a child start playing with it and shoot himself or sibling/playmate, you don't have to worry about bad people learning you have a fire insurance policy in the home and seeking to break and in and steal it (the very thing people are worried about in this thread), and so on. The potential downside of a fire insurance policy is paying for it when you never end up having to use it. The downsides to a loaded weapon in the home are considerably different.


<<I don't want to be caught off guard, and being unable to defend my family and myself fills me with a special kind of horror all out of proportion with the actual likelihood of something bad happening.>>

Fair enough, and good on you for recognizing how your background and 'quirks' (to use your word) have shaped your perspective on this. I think MWR's point (and that of others) is that the horror is out of proportion to its likelihood of something happening, and the horror may actually manifest in a different way if someone you love gets hurt with the weapon that you've got at the ready to protect them.


In the end, to each his own, and I certainly won't tell others how they should protect their family in their own home. But the insurance and seatbelt analogies always seem significantly flawed to me in this kind of discussion.




Last edited by: wimsey: Mar 13, 18 14:31
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [JSA] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
JSA wrote:
Kay Serrar wrote:
JSA wrote:
Kay Serrar wrote:
DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,


If it was confirmed someone was in my house, I would call the police. They would be at my house within 2 minutes.


First, how would it be "confirmed?" Second, 2 minutes??? Where do you live?

https://www.creditdonkey.com/...e-response-time.html


Confirmed, as in it's not just the dog knocking over its bowl or a door that slammed shut, but rather hearing footsteps or voices. If I had any doubts I would just call the police because they would have absolutely no problem coming over.

I live in a town in northern NJ with a population of about 30k with a full time police force of about 50 officers. So about 17 officers per 10k population, which ranks pretty high nationally. Residents can't park on the streets at night, which makes it somewhat easier for the police to spot any suspicious vehicles. The other day I had cause to call the police and they arrived in about 2 mins. That was mid-morning on a weekday for something pretty minor so I didn't call 911, just the station number. I would think in the middle of the night with no traffic with a 911 call they could match that time pretty easily. They always have a number of vehicles patrolling and it only takes a couple of minutes to drive across the town.

17 officers per 10k puts you right at the average. Certainly not "pretty high."

http://www.governing.com/...ity-departments.html

I would not bank on your n=1 experience with a 2 minute response time.

Average response time is 10 minutes and your department is quite average in terms of available officers per 10K residents.

Better gets me sum firepower then...

I'll take my chances. It's a very low crime town.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]
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What's up with that county in North Dakota? Is there a local meth head breaking into everywhere?

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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Bam. Spot on.

A little once-removed personal experience with this -- someone I know had a friend who was bragging about the pistol he was keeping for home protection. He was taking a strong stance about his 2A right to defend his property during a conversation. The person I know brought up the point that I did, mentioning that the statistics show that someone in the home is more likely to be injured with a gun in the house than it is to be used for protective measures. The person dismissed that as nonsense. Less than a year later, that person's teenage son got ahold of his poorly-secured handgun and accidentally shot himself in front of his friend.

Another kid I knew in middle school, a couple of years younger than me in my brother's class, accidentally shot and killed his friend in a similar circumstance.

Have at it if the pistol brings comfort, but the statistics show otherwise and I have no comfort with relying on one for protection when the greater chance is that someone I love or know gets shot instead. I'd rather have the security of knowing my kids will be safe and that my rifle & shotgun will be very secure until they're needed to put venison and turkey in my freezer.


wimsey wrote:
<<To continue the fire insurance analogy, is paying for home insurance synonymous with "worrying about it"?>>


At risk of putting words in MidwestRoadie's mouth, I think where the fire insurance analogy breaks down is the fact that you don't have to worry about accidentally shooting yourself or a family member with your fire insurance policy in a high stress situation, you don't have to worry that you'll forget to secure your fire insurance policy and have a child start playing with it and shoot himself or sibling/playmate, you don't have to worry about bad people learning you have a fire insurance policy in the home and seeking to break and in and steal it (the very thing people are worried about in this thread), and so on. The potential downside of a fire insurance policy is paying for it when you never end up having to use it. The downsides to a loaded weapon in the home are considerably different.


<<I don't want to be caught off guard, and being unable to defend my family and myself fills me with a special kind of horror all out of proportion with the actual likelihood of something bad happening.>>

Fair enough, and good on you for recognizing how your background and 'quirks' (to use your word) have shaped your perspective on this. I think MWR's point (and that of others) is that the horror is out of proportion to its likelihood of something happening, and the horror may actually manifest in a different way if someone you love gets hurt with the weapon that you've got at the ready to protect them.


In the end, to each his own, and I certainly won't tell others how they should protect their family in their own home. But the insurance and seatbelt analogies always seem significantly flawed to me in this kind of discussion.



Quote Reply
Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Kay Serrar] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Kay Serrar wrote:
JSA wrote:
Kay Serrar wrote:
JSA wrote:
Kay Serrar wrote:
DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,


If it was confirmed someone was in my house, I would call the police. They would be at my house within 2 minutes.


First, how would it be "confirmed?" Second, 2 minutes??? Where do you live?

https://www.creditdonkey.com/...e-response-time.html


Confirmed, as in it's not just the dog knocking over its bowl or a door that slammed shut, but rather hearing footsteps or voices. If I had any doubts I would just call the police because they would have absolutely no problem coming over.

I live in a town in northern NJ with a population of about 30k with a full time police force of about 50 officers. So about 17 officers per 10k population, which ranks pretty high nationally. Residents can't park on the streets at night, which makes it somewhat easier for the police to spot any suspicious vehicles. The other day I had cause to call the police and they arrived in about 2 mins. That was mid-morning on a weekday for something pretty minor so I didn't call 911, just the station number. I would think in the middle of the night with no traffic with a 911 call they could match that time pretty easily. They always have a number of vehicles patrolling and it only takes a couple of minutes to drive across the town.


17 officers per 10k puts you right at the average. Certainly not "pretty high."

http://www.governing.com/...ity-departments.html

I would not bank on your n=1 experience with a 2 minute response time.

Average response time is 10 minutes and your department is quite average in terms of available officers per 10K residents.


Better gets me sum firepower then...

I'm not suggesting you do so.

Kay Serrar wrote:
I'll take my chances. It's a very low crime town.

That's fine, but it is never a good idea to do so based on false premises.

FWIW, I have never worried about a break-in. I live in a rural area in a home that does not look appealing to a would-be criminal. I have 3 dogs and an alarm system. I live in an area with an extremely low crime rate. Sounds like you do as well, which would support your comfort level.

However, despite my proximity to the PD (1.5 miles), the response time of the local PD never enters into the equation when determining my comfort level. I do not think it ever should for anyone.

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [MidwestRoadie] [ In reply to ]
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MidwestRoadie wrote:
And if the worst happens and someone is killed in a home invasion, they were bound to die anyway. In the scheme of things on this floating orb, our lives don't actually matter much if at all
Well that must make your spouse and children feel all warm and fuzzy.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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DavHamm wrote:
Your replies fascinate me. How many home invasions happen in your city/twp/ local a year? The outside lights and security system you describe, sound very expensive. I have 3 lights outside my house and they really only light up maybe 5% of the outside area.

Expensive house. Expensive security system and lights.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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wimsey wrote:
<<To continue the fire insurance analogy, is paying for home insurance synonymous with "worrying about it"?>>

At risk of putting words in MidwestRoadie's mouth, I think where the fire insurance analogy breaks down is the fact that you don't have to worry about accidentally shooting yourself or a family member with your fire insurance policy in a high stress situation, you don't have to worry that you'll forget to secure your fire insurance policy and have a child start playing with it and shoot himself or sibling/playmate, you don't have to worry about bad people learning you have a fire insurance policy in the home and seeking to break and in and steal it (the very thing people are worried about in this thread), and so on. The potential downside of a fire insurance policy is paying for it when you never end up having to use it. The downsides to a loaded weapon in the home are considerably different.

<<I don't want to be caught off guard, and being unable to defend my family and myself fills me with a special kind of horror all out of proportion with the actual likelihood of something bad happening.>>

Fair enough, and good on you for recognizing how your background and 'quirks' (to use your word) have shaped your perspective on this. I think MWR's point (and that of others) is that the horror is out of proportion to its likelihood of something happening, and the horror may actually manifest in a different way if someone you love gets hurt with the weapon that you've got at the ready to protect them.

In the end, to each his own, and I certainly won't tell others how they should protect their family in their own home. But the insurance and seatbelt analogies always seem significantly flawed to me in this kind of discussion.
I have positively zero concern re. shooting myself or a family member. I do understand that kinda thing happens, but the world is full of idiots. I have strong feelings re. not being part of that group.

My kids, or more accurately their friends, aren't going to get hurt by my weapons. I keep them locked up. I control that variable. When I grew up, almost every home had rifles over the fireplace mantal, and ammo readily available. Our fathers taught us to be safe with firearms and it all worked out. Heck. every other pickup had rifle in a back window rack. Many of those pickups were in the school parking lot. This anxiety re. firearms would have made my little town howl with laughter. Our teenage boys have all been to the various ranges in the area many times and fired both rifles and pistols. 14yr old #1 son and I were at a range a couple weeks ago. He wanted to learn how to double-tap, that being a big deal in the video game world (sigh).

People learning about my weapons and breaking into the house to steal them. If they are willing to brave the dogs in order to get to the attic, they deserve anything they find.

I grew up in a world where everyone had weapons in the home. It's hard for me to relate to people that are anxious about this idea. Might as well be anxious about having a stove in the home. Go look up the stats re. kids drowning in pools. Make weapons in the home look like nothing.

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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RangerGress wrote:
wimsey wrote:
<<To continue the fire insurance analogy, is paying for home insurance synonymous with "worrying about it"?>>

At risk of putting words in MidwestRoadie's mouth, I think where the fire insurance analogy breaks down is the fact that you don't have to worry about accidentally shooting yourself or a family member with your fire insurance policy in a high stress situation, you don't have to worry that you'll forget to secure your fire insurance policy and have a child start playing with it and shoot himself or sibling/playmate, you don't have to worry about bad people learning you have a fire insurance policy in the home and seeking to break and in and steal it (the very thing people are worried about in this thread), and so on. The potential downside of a fire insurance policy is paying for it when you never end up having to use it. The downsides to a loaded weapon in the home are considerably different.

<<I don't want to be caught off guard, and being unable to defend my family and myself fills me with a special kind of horror all out of proportion with the actual likelihood of something bad happening.>>

Fair enough, and good on you for recognizing how your background and 'quirks' (to use your word) have shaped your perspective on this. I think MWR's point (and that of others) is that the horror is out of proportion to its likelihood of something happening, and the horror may actually manifest in a different way if someone you love gets hurt with the weapon that you've got at the ready to protect them.

In the end, to each his own, and I certainly won't tell others how they should protect their family in their own home. But the insurance and seatbelt analogies always seem significantly flawed to me in this kind of discussion.

I have positively zero concern re. shooting myself or a family member. I do understand that kinda thing happens, but the world is full of idiots. I have strong feelings re. not being part of that group.

My kids, or more accurately their friends, aren't going to get hurt by my weapons. I keep them locked up. I control that variable. When I grew up, almost every home had rifles over the fireplace mantal, and ammo readily available. Our fathers taught us to be safe with firearms and it all worked out. Heck. every other pickup had rifle in a back window rack. Many of those pickups were in the school parking lot. This anxiety re. firearms would have made my little town howl with laughter. Our teenage boys have all been to the various ranges in the area many times and fired both rifles and pistols. 14yr old #1 son and I were at a range a couple weeks ago. He wanted to learn how to double-tap, that being a big deal in the video game world (sigh).

People learning about my weapons and breaking into the house to steal them. If they are willing to brave the dogs in order to get to the attic, they deserve anything they find.

I grew up in a world where everyone had weapons in the home. It's hard for me to relate to people that are anxious about this idea. Might as well be anxious about having a stove in the home. Go look up the stats re. kids drowning in pools. Make weapons in the home look like nothing.


Like I said, I'm not going to tell anyone how to protect their family in their own home. But I would venture that everyone "has strong feelings' about not accidentally letting people get hurt with their weapons, and many feel like they "control the variable" with locks and such, right up until the point where they don't.

I grew up with (unsecured) guns in the house too, and it worked out fine for my brothers and me. It doesn't always work out that way, even for families where gun safety is taught. The fact that you can't relate to people being anxious about the idea is a little strange to me.

Lastly, if you have such fierce dogs that they'll rip anyone apart who tries to get in the house, why do you need a gun...? :)

Anyway, I'm not trying to be a jerk about this and I respect that you're going to protect the house the way you see fit.
Last edited by: wimsey: Mar 13, 18 15:33
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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RangerGress wrote:
My kids, or more accurately their friends, aren't going to get hurt by my weapons. I keep them locked up. I control that variable. When I grew up, almost every home had rifles over the fireplace mantal, and ammo readily available. Our fathers taught us to be safe with firearms and it all worked out. Heck. every other pickup had rifle in a back window rack. Many of those pickups were in the school parking lot. This anxiety re. firearms would have made my little town howl with laughter. Our teenage boys have all been to the various ranges in the area many times and fired both rifles and pistols. 14yr old #1 son and I were at a range a couple weeks ago. He wanted to learn how to double-tap, that being a big deal in the video game world (sigh).

People learning about my weapons and breaking into the house to steal them. If they are willing to brave the dogs in order to get to the attic, they deserve anything they find.

I grew up in a world where everyone had weapons in the home. It's hard for me to relate to people that are anxious about this idea. Might as well be anxious about having a stove in the home. Go look up the stats re. kids drowning in pools. Make weapons in the home look like nothing.

Different times, indeed. I have never been hunting (nor do I have any interest in doing so), but damn near everyone around me went deer and duck hunting. Thus, there were shotguns all over the place. I never felt any interest in touching them and never had a friend who would ever consider pulling them out of the gun cabinet.

But, I also never had first-person shooter video games glorifying firearms. I never had Airsoft guns that looked damn close to the real thing.

That said, I also grew up the son of an FBI agent. At a very young age, he sat me down and talked to me about guns. He then pulled out pictures of a shooting victim so I could see what happened in real life. It made an impression. Dad carried a gun every day and had a small arsenal locked in his bureau-issued car. I never considered touching any of them because of (a) the respect for firearms he taught me and (b) the beatin' that would happen as a result.

But, kids today ain't like us.

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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I live in Canada. We don't have any guns.

It's not something I've ever really thought about. We've always had dogs (Labrador Retrievers), they are usually up and barking their heads off and rushing to the front or any door, at the slightest noise at the doors!

That's our "alarm". I've read somewhere, that having a dog, is probably the best line of "defense" for this sort of thing, because, most perps will have staked things out and will move-on from the houses/properties where they know, dogs are!

Of course they don't know that our Labs would likely just lick them, who ever comes in - that's about as "vicious" as they will get after all the noise, fury and bedlam of the barking!


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
Last edited by: Fleck: Mar 13, 18 19:24
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [JSA] [ In reply to ]
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I think this is a good point — a changed culture in many ways.

When I was in high school, it wasn’t a problem to bring a gun into the school for certain events. That was 20 years ago. It was a relatively rural area, now is suburbia, and hunting was common. Guns were, by and large, viewed as tools for that. People often grew up either around guns directly or in some familial or friend indirect way, nearly always with the gun as a tool mentality.

And the NRA’s message was patently different then, at least as I recall it.

It seems that today there are more and more people who never grew up around guns as tools who think they need a gun as a weapon or method of defense. That mindset, removed from the appreciation and experience of what a gun is and can do, can be ignorant and cavalier. An appreciation of what a gun is, can do, and taking the time to gain that experience & responsibility just isn’t ingrained in our society anymore. I’m truly more terrified of some law-abiding, protection-hungry idiot who’s never been around guns obtaining a pistol and CC permit than I am of some petty thief/home burglar, because the vigilante mindset is dangerous when removed from experience of how to truly handle their weapon. And, unfortunately, it feels like it’s more and more of those people crying about their “rights” when they don’t themselves understand the real power of the thing they’re fighting for, as they advocate for a theory removed from responsibility of the actual thing. It’s flippant and as ignorant as those who call for a ban on all guns or gun-related companies. (Case in point — the idiots now boycotting CamelBak, Giro, Blackburn, and Bell for being sister companies of a gun manufacturer.)


JSA wrote:
RangerGress wrote:
My kids, or more accurately their friends, aren't going to get hurt by my weapons. I keep them locked up. I control that variable. When I grew up, almost every home had rifles over the fireplace mantal, and ammo readily available. Our fathers taught us to be safe with firearms and it all worked out. Heck. every other pickup had rifle in a back window rack. Many of those pickups were in the school parking lot. This anxiety re. firearms would have made my little town howl with laughter. Our teenage boys have all been to the various ranges in the area many times and fired both rifles and pistols. 14yr old #1 son and I were at a range a couple weeks ago. He wanted to learn how to double-tap, that being a big deal in the video game world (sigh).

People learning about my weapons and breaking into the house to steal them. If they are willing to brave the dogs in order to get to the attic, they deserve anything they find.

I grew up in a world where everyone had weapons in the home. It's hard for me to relate to people that are anxious about this idea. Might as well be anxious about having a stove in the home. Go look up the stats re. kids drowning in pools. Make weapons in the home look like nothing.

Different times, indeed. I have never been hunting (nor do I have any interest in doing so), but damn near everyone around me went deer and duck hunting. Thus, there were shotguns all over the place. I never felt any interest in touching them and never had a friend who would ever consider pulling them out of the gun cabinet.

But, I also never had first-person shooter video games glorifying firearms. I never had Airsoft guns that looked damn close to the real thing.

That said, I also grew up the son of an FBI agent. At a very young age, he sat me down and talked to me about guns. He then pulled out pictures of a shooting victim so I could see what happened in real life. It made an impression. Dad carried a gun every day and had a small arsenal locked in his bureau-issued car. I never considered touching any of them because of (a) the respect for firearms he taught me and (b) the beatin' that would happen as a result.

But, kids today ain't like us.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Harbinger] [ In reply to ]
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Doesn’t mean I invite anyone’s death. But it does mean that life is short and precious while here, so I’d rather enjoy the hell out of it instead of withering moments away in worry of what cannot actually be controlled anyway or stuck in fear of something happening. Embracing the fact that death is going to happen and ultimately none of us are individually important to humankind’s and Earth’s existence diminishes much of that fear to its rightful place of nothing.


Harbinger wrote:
MidwestRoadie wrote:
And if the worst happens and someone is killed in a home invasion, they were bound to die anyway. In the scheme of things on this floating orb, our lives don't actually matter much if at all
Well that must make your spouse and children feel all warm and fuzzy.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [MidwestRoadie] [ In reply to ]
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Getting a little off topic from the OP of having a plan. But I agree with your comments here regarding untrained and stupid people being able to buy a handgun, obtain a cc permit and suddenly thinking they are sheriff Bullock and can intervene in somebody else’s problem. I am not going to draw my edc and prevent a holdup at the convenience store unless my life is in jeopardy.

And good point on the idiots boycotting Giro etc. because they have a parent company with a subsidiary in firearms or ammunition.

MidwestRoadie wrote:
I think this is a good point — a changed culture in many ways.

When I was in high school, it wasn’t a problem to bring a gun into the school for certain events. That was 20 years ago. It was a relatively rural area, now is suburbia, and hunting was common. Guns were, by and large, viewed as tools for that. People often grew up either around guns directly or in some familial or friend indirect way, nearly always with the gun as a tool mentality.

And the NRA’s message was patently different then, at least as I recall it.

It seems that today there are more and more people who never grew up around guns as tools who think they need a gun as a weapon or method of defense. That mindset, removed from the appreciation and experience of what a gun is and can do, can be ignorant and cavalier. An appreciation of what a gun is, can do, and taking the time to gain that experience & responsibility just isn’t ingrained in our society anymore. I’m truly more terrified of some law-abiding, protection-hungry idiot who’s never been around guns obtaining a pistol and CC permit than I am of some petty thief/home burglar, because the vigilante mindset is dangerous when removed from experience of how to truly handle their weapon. And, unfortunately, it feels like it’s more and more of those people crying about their “rights” when they don’t themselves understand the real power of the thing they’re fighting for, as they advocate for a theory removed from responsibility of the actual thing. It’s flippant and as ignorant as those who call for a ban on all guns or gun-related companies. (Case in point — the idiots now boycotting CamelBak, Giro, Blackburn, and Bell for being sister companies of a gun manufacturer.)


JSA wrote:
RangerGress wrote:
My kids, or more accurately their friends, aren't going to get hurt by my weapons. I keep them locked up. I control that variable. When I grew up, almost every home had rifles over the fireplace mantal, and ammo readily available. Our fathers taught us to be safe with firearms and it all worked out. Heck. every other pickup had rifle in a back window rack. Many of those pickups were in the school parking lot. This anxiety re. firearms would have made my little town howl with laughter. Our teenage boys have all been to the various ranges in the area many times and fired both rifles and pistols. 14yr old #1 son and I were at a range a couple weeks ago. He wanted to learn how to double-tap, that being a big deal in the video game world (sigh).

People learning about my weapons and breaking into the house to steal them. If they are willing to brave the dogs in order to get to the attic, they deserve anything they find.

I grew up in a world where everyone had weapons in the home. It's hard for me to relate to people that are anxious about this idea. Might as well be anxious about having a stove in the home. Go look up the stats re. kids drowning in pools. Make weapons in the home look like nothing.

Different times, indeed. I have never been hunting (nor do I have any interest in doing so), but damn near everyone around me went deer and duck hunting. Thus, there were shotguns all over the place. I never felt any interest in touching them and never had a friend who would ever consider pulling them out of the gun cabinet.

But, I also never had first-person shooter video games glorifying firearms. I never had Airsoft guns that looked damn close to the real thing.

That said, I also grew up the son of an FBI agent. At a very young age, he sat me down and talked to me about guns. He then pulled out pictures of a shooting victim so I could see what happened in real life. It made an impression. Dad carried a gun every day and had a small arsenal locked in his bureau-issued car. I never considered touching any of them because of (a) the respect for firearms he taught me and (b) the beatin' that would happen as a result.

But, kids today ain't like us.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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wimsey wrote:

Like I said, I'm not going to tell anyone how to protect their family in their own home. But I would venture that everyone "has strong feelings' about not accidentally letting people get hurt with their weapons, and many feel like they "control the variable" with locks and such, right up until the point where they don't.

I grew up with (unsecured) guns in the house too, and it worked out fine for my brothers and me. It doesn't always work out that way, even for families where gun safety is taught. The fact that you can't relate to people being anxious about the idea is a little strange to me.

Lastly, if you have such fierce dogs that they'll rip anyone apart who tries to get in the house, why do you need a gun...? :)

Anyway, I'm not trying to be a jerk about this and I respect that you're going to protect the house the way you see fit.

Re. control the variables right up until they don't. Agreed. Can't be helped.

Re. I can't relate to people who are anxious about guns in the home. In an absolute sense, sure, I can relate. But in a relative sense, it's harder to understand. Take a look at the deaths caused by backyard pools vs. guns. Then factor in the fact that almost everyone killed by a gun is a bad guy. The stats re. kids killed by guns are almost all teenage druggies and gangbangers. So weigh in your mind the relative danger re. backyard pools vs. guns in the home to innocent kids. Pools are helaciously more dangerous. Yet, they don't create nearly the anxiety that guns do.

One of my subordinates works 3000mi away at one of our California sites. He came out to visit. My shop traditionally takes visitors to the local range, so that was the plan. None of us shoot very often, a couple times/yr probably, but it's a "different thing" to do to make a visitor's trip to our shop memorable.

As the day approached the guy got more and more anxious. He was stressed out and not sleeping. We didn't know any of this tho. The day we were going to go to the range he was shaking and white with fear. So we didn't go. Would that sort of extreme anxiety be perceived as a normal reaction to a backyard pool, prob a 100x more deadly to innocent children? That's an example of anxiety re. weapons in the home to be way out of proportion with the trouble they actually cause.

Re. why have the guns if we have scary dogs. The purpose of the guns isn't home defense, they are just an occasional hobby. The last time I was serious about shooting was 15yrs ago. That said, I'm certainly obligated to teach the boys firearm safety, so I'd have guns no matter the scenario. Likewise, the purpose of the dogs isn't home defense, they're just pets. The Dog Pound told us that the pitbull was a "boxer mix" puppy. It was later that I came to realize that pretty much every dog at the Pound was a pitbull.

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [Fleck] [ In reply to ]
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Fleck wrote:
I

Of course they don't know that our Labs would likely just lick them, who ever comes in - that's about as "viscous" as they will get after all the noise and fury of the barking!

I know labs are thick in the head, but...

_________________________________________________
"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare" - Juma Ikangaa

http://www.litespeed.com
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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<<Re. I can't relate to people who are anxious about guns in the home. In an absolute sense, sure, I can relate. But in a relative sense, it's harder to understand. Take a look at the deaths caused by backyard pools vs. guns. Then factor in the fact that almost everyone killed by a gun is a bad guy. The stats re. kids killed by guns are almost all teenage druggies and gangbangers. So weigh in your mind the relative danger re. backyard pools vs. guns in the home to innocent kids. Pools are helaciously more dangerous. Yet, they don't create nearly the anxiety that guns do. >>


Your initial comparison was to fire insurance, and then you switched to backyard pools (perhaps because you didn't like my comparisons on how insurance policies are less likely to be misused in a deadly way). They're completely different things, and while neither is a perfect comparison to having a gun next to the bed in case of intruders, the insurance policy is way closer than a pool. But...yes, there is a level of comfort with pools that there isn't with guns, notwithstanding the fact that pools can be deadly. If that's the point you're trying to make, fine, point taken. It doesn't change the fact that guns in the house raise the statistical risk of people in the house getting hurt with the gun.


Re: everyone killed by a gun is a bad guy - that may be true when talking about all gun murders, but it is not true when talking about people harmed from firearms in a home. There the people killed tend to be spouses who have the mother of all arguments with a partner and one of them goes for a gun, or it's kids who get hold of guns that aren't properly stored.


<<None of us shoot very often, a couple times/yr probably, but it's a "different thing" to do to make a visitor's trip to our shop memorable.

As the day approached the guy got more and more anxious. He was stressed out and not sleeping. We didn't know any of this tho. The day we were going to go to the range he was shaking and white with fear. So we didn't go. Would that sort of extreme anxiety be perceived as a normal reaction to a backyard pool, prob a 100x more deadly to innocent children? That's an example of anxiety re. weapons in the home to be way out of proportion with the trouble they actually cause.>>


That is strange and very much out at the end of bell curve, and I don't think it's a fair example of the 'anxiety' that people have about guns. Unrelated point, if I only shot a couple times a year, personally I'd be even more 'anxious' (in a not shaking with fear way, but just generally worried) about having a gun next to the bed in case of home invasion. If that's really the plan when you hear a bump in the night, I think you'd better have practiced a whole lot with the gun that you're going to be pointing around your house. But that's just me.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [MidwestRoadie] [ In reply to ]
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MidwestRoadie wrote:
having a gun in the home for protective purposes is statistically far more likely to cause harm to someone who lives in the home than it is ever to be used for protection.

These statistics, on both sides and to the extent that they're accurate, don't really have much use for someone who's making a decision on how to best protect the home.

Statistics for people harmed by a gun owned in the house most likely lump irresponsible gun owners with those gun owners who take reasonable precautions such a locking up the gun, keeping bullets separate, getting the proper training, etc.

Likewise, the likelihood of a home invasion or even simple burglary vary significantly from neighborhood and from house to house, and there are lots of things that a homeowner can do to reduce those risks.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [AlanShearer] [ In reply to ]
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AlanShearer wrote:
MidwestRoadie wrote:
having a gun in the home for protective purposes is statistically far more likely to cause harm to someone who lives in the home than it is ever to be used for protection.


These statistics, on both sides and to the extent that they're accurate, don't really have much use for someone who's making a decision on how to best protect the home.

Statistics for people harmed by a gun owned in the house most likely lump irresponsible gun owners with those gun owners who take reasonable precautions such a locking up the gun, keeping bullets separate, getting the proper training, etc.

Likewise, the likelihood of a home invasion or even simple burglary vary significantly from neighborhood and from house to house, and there are lots of things that a homeowner can do to reduce those risks.

The decision re. how to protect your home is an easy one. A big dog. Guns don't wag their tail with excitement and lick your face unconditional love every time you come home.

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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" Then factor in the fact that almost everyone killed by a gun is a bad guy."

You won't like this but it is certainly something that has to be factored in when considering a gun in the house, there are nearly twice as many suicides by gun as there are homicides of all sorts. Sure a lot of people will kill themselves no matter what method they need to use, but a gun is much quicker and harder to back out of than things like pills.


And gun ownership correlates with suicide rates. And suicide attempts by gun are 90% successful versus 3% with drugs and cutting, https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/178/6/946/111054

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [TiDriver] [ In reply to ]
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I know labs are thick in the head, but...

LOL. Thank you - Typo

I've fixed it.


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
Last edited by: Fleck: Mar 13, 18 19:22
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,

So what brings this up?

Order a pizza recently and decide not to tip the delivery guy?

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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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I was coming back from a jog around 6 AM one morning. I left my garage door open when I went for a run.

As I'm getting close to the house, i saw a garage light open. I thought my neighbor was up early.

As I got closer, I realized it was MY garage. Who the f@#$ is in my garage????

I walked up behind this guy and yelled, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN MY GARAGE?!?"

He had a quick story about visiting family, out for a walk, saw kids messing around in my garage. He was so quick with the story, I bought it for a couple seconds. I suggested I go inside, get my phone, and lets go find these kids.
Obviously he didn't wait for me. I hopped in my car and found him getting into a car. I had the cops on the phone. I asked him to wait so he could tell the cops about the kids. He knew I was on to him and hauled ass.
Took the cops 45 minutes to show up.

Had I known the cops would take 45 minutes, I wish I would have crushed him like a bug when I first walked up on him.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [windschatten] [ In reply to ]
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Nope, our clients are all top-notch folks. As I said, the break-in happened at our home and was indeed a random private residence intrusion. There's a somewhat sketchy apartment/condo complex not too far from our neighborhood and it was suspected that these little assholes lived there and were simply working their way through our neighborhood looking for unlocked doors/windows. They happened to get lucky at our house. Talking to the officer who responded to our house, it was pretty clear that they knew where the problem was coming from and had eyes on it.

Wife's wallet was found the next day inbetween our our house and the apt. complex and mine was found near a convenience store not far away after the snow melted and uncovered it. Nothing missing but the little bit of cash we had in them.

_________________________________________________
"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare" - Juma Ikangaa

http://www.litespeed.com
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