Home invasion prep

[The Lazy L]

Here is our night time plan. We are sleeping when we hear our front door shatter. Wife grabs the cell phone, lays on the floor with the bed between her and our bedroom door. Wife calls 911 and stays on the line.

I have my home defensive weapon pointed at the bedroom door as I crouch behind our bed. My signal to start shooting is when the bedroom door (locked) is forced open.

Master bedroom is on the second floor. Come up the stairs, take a few steps right before doing a hard 180 degree turn to enter our bedroom. From my defensive position I have the option of blind firing though the drywall to stop others that maybe on the stairway, after dealing with the threat breaking through the door.

I think this will work very well and we could hold our position until help arrives.

But now with the "Red Flag" laws I have to do a rethink? "Authorities" with a no knock firearm confiscation order would likely find themselves in a gun battle. I thinking home invasion and they are thinking Red Flag nut. After I'm dead the "Authorities" use the gun battle as proof that their home invasion was justified.

Crooks figure this out and just dress as or announce "Police" and they can stop the home owner from protecting themselves until it's too late.

 

[Amish Heart]

We have the same worry. A couple of times a year the State police come in the early, early morning hours looking for our son, that we haven't seen in many years. It's frustrating because if they would care to look him up, they would see that he is usually in jail in another state. Last time they came banging down our front door, all I could peek out the blinds to see were a group of men. When I yelled and asked who they were, one of them yelled back, It's Me". I really thought it was a home invasion and our door was going to go down. Police don't necessarily identify themselves as police, and I thought they had to. I don't want to be shot by a police officer, and I don't want a home invasion by people to be pretending to be police officers. Last time, we were grabbing our pistols and grabbing the phone to call the police on (what turned out to be ) the police.

 

[hiwall]

Reminds me of a quote, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out."

 

[Sentry18]

And it has definitely become a thing for criminal to dress up like or announce themselves as LEO's when invading a home. Which I see as a response to so many citizens killing intruders. So the trick is to make your home both difficult to invade and easy to engage the criminals (if they are pretending to be LEO's or otherwise) before they get to you or your loved ones.

My home overall security plan is has many levels. Strong physical security which makes unwanted access difficult, powerful motion activated lighting on the exterior and interior of entry ways, motion activated video on the exterior and interior which announces potential intruders and provides instant portable intel, an alarm system which deters, announces, and disorients intruders, a sort of secure safe room on each floor for occupants to retreat to and call 911, an animal based (Rottweiler) initial intruder engagement, and then an armed occupant intruder engagement. I won't be waiting for them to come me, I will be going to them. And I will be using the same tactics any real LEO would use, which means I can predict what would cause an LEO to retreat and regroup. And real LEO's would not take fire and continue to advance into the home, but untrained criminals posing as police might. Regardless I only need to hold out until the real police arrive on scene and then not get killed as it all gets sorted out.

Based on Lazy's description I would almost consider putting an ultra bright LED spotlight at the top of the stairs connected to a motion activation device. Destroy any night vision the invaders have and put them at the disadvantage of not being able to see what is happening upstairs. I am also partial to flash bangs (real or improvised) bouncing down staircases as well as less lethal options like OC grenades.

 

[Sentry18]

Police don't necessarily identify themselves as police, and I thought they had to.

While these laws vary from state to state, police are able to use deception in furtherance of their duties. Which means not always announcing that they are police. However if they were in plain view of your home and in uniform (which I don't believe you indicated) they would have been better off doing so.

 

[Sourdough]

My home invaders have claws, teeth, and very strong jaws.

 

[hiwall]

For home security I try to remember to lock the doors at night or if we leave home.

 

[angie_nrs]

Anyone who wishes to enter our home at night will have to go through locked doors and barking dogs and by the time they make it down to my bedroom, they will likely regret their decision. There is zero reason for LE to enter my home, so if they make a mistake and raid the wrong home, they will be met with force. IF they are a family member they full well know that they'd better call first or announce who they are. However, the tone of the dog barks can typically tell me what I need to know.

When hubs went on a hunting trip last year the group decided to come home earlier than planned. Many of his friends said they were going to go home and surprise their wives. Hubs said there's no way he's going to "surprise" me b/c he knows I have the ability to put holes in anyone who might do that.

When there's a stranger at my front door, including delivery people, I open the window and talk to them through the screen instead of opening the door. I tell the delivery folks to just leave the package on the porch and I'll get it later. I conveniently use the barking dogs as my excuse to be "anti-social". I rarely get unannounced or unexpected visitors. Part of that may be due to the NO soliticing sign at the end of the driveway. Those signs are a pretty good deterrent around here.

 

[SheepDog]

While these laws vary from state to state, police are able to use deception in furtherance of their duties. Which means not always announcing that they are police. However if they were in plain view of your home and in uniform (which I don't believe you indicated) they would have been better off doing so.

I bolded this part of the quote because:
1. it is true - police lie in order to do their job.
2. it is also why they find it hard to trust anyone. They lie all the time when dealing with people they don't know so they expect people to lie to them.

Barriers, lighting, animals, are all good deterrents but don't forget chemistry. Alcohol - ethanol, or grain alcohol - is flammable and is otherwise pretty harmless. Spraying alcohol in a small space can make it imperative to:
1. not make any sparks
2. leave the area as quickly as possible.
In my area flash bang charges are not legal for the public to use but there are other ways to make a lot of distracting noise and the addition of some strobe lights will help.
Your exterior doors should be very strong with triple framing and good locks. Cross bars can double or triple the security. Windows should not allow access to the interior locks. Windows on either side of the front door may look cool but it allows access to your home. I don't have any notices on or around my home other than "no trespassing" signs. I do have cameras and lights that are motion activated around my house and the feed comes indoors and to an internet cache. My home is a single story house with a fairly open concept. I made it into a maze by placing furniture and other things so people who are unfamiliar with it will be at least slowed down while I can move freely.

 

[Supervisor42]

We are fortunate to live in a small city. Everybody knows everybody, Cops know everybody. If someone is dealing drugs or doing burglary, they wait patiently until they wander (drive) out onto the road and the cops do a traffic stop and the BG magically disappears.
They don't need to conduct raids in the middle of the night.
No friends or LEO's ever get shot.
I am still prepped for home-invasion; just like all my neighbors.
We don't miss, and the LEO's know that.
Burglars know that, eventually... and they don't last very long.

If they are lucky, they only get busted by the cops................
Very peaceful down here.
We don't need 'bars' on our windows.

 

[Sentry18]

t is also why they find it hard to trust anyone. They lie all the time when dealing with people they don't know so they expect people to lie to them.

As a 3rd generation LEO with over 25 years on the job I can assure you cops have no issues trusting people and very quickly learn to discern honesty from dishonesty with an incredible degree of accuracy. You are somehow confusing the types of deception used in law enforcement with just outright compulsive dishonesty. When people say "Are you a cop? You have to tell me!" and the undercover says "Nope". He is using deception. When we tell a suspect his partner rolled on him, and in turn he gets mad and rolls on his partner, we are using deception. When a detained a man says "Do I have to?" when asked for a consent search and the female officer says "It would be in your best interest". She is deceiving him. A modicum of education and/or common sense would instantly put an end to effectiveness of these deceptions. Using deception in no way effects the officer, personally or professionally. Unless of course they go under cover so long they lose themselves, but that is no longer really possible and hasn't been for some time.

 

[Sentry18]

We are fortunate to live in a small city. Everybody knows everybody, Cops know everybody. If someone is dealing drugs or doing burglary, they wait patiently until they wander (drive) out onto the road and the cops do a traffic stop and the BG magically disappears.
They don't need to conduct raids in the middle of the night.
No friends or LEO's ever get shot.
I am still prepped for home-invasion; just like all my neighbors.
We don't miss, and the LEO's know that.
Burglars know that, eventually... and they don't last very long.

If they are lucky, they only get busted by the cops................
Very peaceful down here.
We don't need 'bars' on our windows.

You just perfectly described community oriented policing. And believe it or not it doesn't just exist in small towns and cities. Even some neighborhoods in major cities have the same things going on. Everyone knows who the good guys are, who the bad guys are, and who might get caught in the middle.

 

[lonewolf]

we live in a rural area, there has been 1 burglary in the 10 years we have lived here and that was through an open door, the burglar was arrested on the premises(not ours before you ask).

 

[Curmudgeon]

My home invaders have claws, teeth, and very strong jaws.

Mine too, and they like biting, lol.

Chase

Zeus

 

[hiwall]

Here is our current pack of attack bunnies.

 

[Supervisor42]

Here is our current pack of attack bunnies.
View attachment 23209

They are NOT to be underestimated:

And he's got 4 of them!

 

[Weedygarden]

Here is our night time plan. We are sleeping when we hear our front door shatter. Wife grabs the cell phone, lays on the floor with the bed between her and our bedroom door. Wife calls 911 and stays on the line.

I have my home defensive weapon pointed at the bedroom door as I crouch behind our bed. My signal to start shooting is when the bedroom door (locked) is forced open.

Master bedroom is on the second floor. Come up the stairs, take a few steps right before doing a hard 180 degree turn to enter our bedroom. From my defensive position I have the option of blind firing though the drywall to stop others that maybe on the stairway, after dealing with the threat breaking through the door.

I think this will work very well and we could hold our position until help arrives.

But now with the "Red Flag" laws I have to do a rethink? "Authorities" with a no knock firearm confiscation order would likely find themselves in a gun battle. I thinking home invasion and they are thinking Red Flag nut. After I'm dead the "Authorities" use the gun battle as proof that their home invasion was justified.

Crooks figure this out and just dress as or announce "Police" and they can stop the home owner from protecting themselves until it's too late.

Has your wife agreed to this?

I had always told my daughter when she was young that if anything happens, the best thing for her to do was to hide. When I confronted a burglar in my second story in the middle of the night, she told me she rolled off the bed and hid between the bed and the wall. The man brought a ladder and climbed in through a second story window that was open, because I thought it would be safe to keep it open.

The first thing I purchased for my home were custom made security doors. The front door is larger than most: 36 x 80 and the company that made them had to special order the metal for it. I couldn't order from a place that had pre-made doors because of the size of the doors. It makes for easier moving larger items in and out when there are larger sized door openings.

If someone decides they want to break into a home, they will find a way. If the front door is secured, they will break a window. I have had that happen. If they can get through an open window, they will. Some people keep hidden keys around their property. For a little while, we did this for my daughter. I realized that this was not safe at all and removed the hidden key from outside my home.

Why would someone want to break into your home or mine? The belief that there is something inside that they want. What would that be? Weapons, cars, money, gold, drugs? Have there been mistakes in invading the wrong homes? Yes.

What else can we do to keep our homes more secure?

 

[The Lazy L]

Has your wife agreed to this?...

When I tried to discuss this, wife was silent and gave me her "deer in the headlights" look. I've learned that her silence isn't an agreement and her look means I'm trying to discuss a subject that she doesn't want to think is possible.

 

[Supervisor42]

...If someone decides they want to break into a home, they will find a way. If the front door is secured, they will break a window. I have had that happen...
What else can we do to keep our homes more secure?

Shoot the intruder.
When they drag the body-bag out your front door, wait a month before cleaning up the blood-trail.
This is known as a "deterrent".
They do get the message.
Letting the first one waltz out is the same as leaving a "Shop Here" sign posted out front.

 

[Sentry18]

What else can we do to keep our homes more secure?

The answer to this is not really an answer, but two questions: how far are you willing to go and how much are you willing to spend. You can make your home Fort Knox with the right dedication and cash layout. In reality most of us have to make compromises. I operate primarily on the theory that I want to hear the bad guys coming. Early warning allows me to put my attack plan into motion. This means making it hard to get into my home without requiring time and tools, making sure alarms sounds, dogs are alerted, people wake up, etc.

 

[Weedygarden]

Shoot the intruder.
When they drag the body-bag out your front door, wait a month before cleaning up the blood-trail.
This is known as a "deterrent".
They do get the message.
Letting the first one waltz out is the same as leaving a "Shop Here" sign posted out front.

Do you know what I bought for myself after I encountered that strange man, that intruder, in my hallway in the middle of the night? What I should have had prior to that encounter. I did get up and confront him.

I got lucky, really lucky, that all I got from him was a cussing out, and back he went out the window he came in. A few years later, a woman was killed in her home by this man a couple miles from my home. Her body was found and her car was missing. Her car was stopped by police while driving around in the area where she lived. DNA evidence connected the driver to her home. His photo was in the paper and on the news. I shuddered to think what could have happened.

Three weeks later, after he was in my home, two blocks away from my home, a 12 year old girl was raped when a man broke into their home in the middle of the night. When I saw the sketch in the newspaper, I knew it was the same man. My daughter was 12 at the time. Fortunately for us, she was not in her room that night. He was. And, fortunate for us, there is a squeaky spot in the floor in the hallway that alerted me to an intruder in our home.

Part of what went on for me was that there was a girl who had stayed with me for about a month prior to this encounter and she was told to leave my home. I thought it was her when I heard noise in my home in the middle of the night. That was part of why I was not mentally prepared for what I encountered.

 

[Weedygarden]

When I tried to discuss this, wife was silent and gave me her "deer in the headlights" look. I've learned that her silence isn't an agreement and her look means I'm trying to discuss a subject that she doesn't want to think is possible.

This is not the first time you have mentioned this kind of thing about her. Clearly she, like many other people, cannot and do not think this will happen, and cannot fathom it. She gives you the deer in the headlights look. People have said to me, "Don't say that." After hearing that, I began thinking that it is a denial of the possibility. The brain cannot process the idea. They don't think of this ever happening.

I have thought about this. How can a person be brought around to the possibility of this? How can it be discussed in a way that they will be able to react in a rational way in the event of such a situation?

Many people will just shriek hysterically. That is often how I react at dog parks when there is a serious dog fight. I do not always react this way, but I am aware of my reaction when I do. I even talk about it afterwards. I believe I feel really scared and powerless in such situations. There are other situations where I do not, but others do.

When I was a young teenager, I went up stairs and found the house on fire. I believe my dad was smoking in bed and went to sleep in the process. I went downstairs and said, "Someone call the fire department, the house is on fire." Several people went to the phone, picked it up and put it down and said, "I can't call." I had already gone straight to the kitchen, gotten a big pot and started filling it with water. Then I went to the phone and called and informed the volunteer fire chief that our house was on fire. Everyone else in the home was walking around hysterically, without a clue of what to do. I took the pot of water upstairs and made sure Dad was up and out and poured the water on the bed. It was too little, too late. House received damage, but was repairable and stood there for a couple more decades before being torn down.

I have had enough encounters with hysterical people to know that many people have to be walked and talked through such situations in drills. Heck, there are even teachers and students cannot think when there is a fire drill at school, not a real fire. Brains seem to just shut off, even in drills. This is why there are drills. Many people have died from being trampled in real fires due to hysteria. When I knew we were going to have our first fire drill of the year, we practiced lining up, walking out, etc., before the alarm went off. The alarm is unnerving.

I have experienced tornadoes in the area while at work, twice. Teachers lose their minds, as do many people at the possibility of a tornado.

I have practiced with students for the possibility of an active shooter. Fortunately, I never had to deal with this.

A home invasion really needs to be talked about and walked through, as do fires, tornadoes and other emergency possibilities. The more that it is talked about, the easier it is to process in the moment, for everyone.

If you believe that someone in the family will not be able to process a situation well, they really need extra preparation, extra practice. They can end up being as dangerous as an invader, a tornado, a fire.

Off my soap box now! Sorry!

Guns and bright lights to shine in their eyes are good things, but emotional preparation is important too!

 

[Weedygarden]

How many home invasions have happened when any one here knew the people or it was close to where you live? What was the purpose of the invasion? Could it happen? Yes! But why? Why would we experience this? What would people want from you?

 

[Sentry18]

How many home invasions have happened when any one here knew the people or it was close to where you live? What was the purpose of the invasion? Could it happen? Yes! But why? Why would we experience this? What would people want from you?

Home invasions happen often, but it depends heavily on where you live and the overall culture of your region. Most are drug addicts who want anything of value to buy more drugs. Others are just mentally deficit and get a kick out of the event, the same way a rapist rapes for the power and control of it. And some just randomly choose a house and decide to enter or have taken offense at the home owner and are seeking retribution. Either way a news report of a home invader dying from a shotgun blast to the center of mass is the best deterrent.

 

[Supervisor42]

1.How many home invasions have happened when any one here knew the people or it was close to where you live? 2.What was the purpose of the invasion? 3.Could it happen? Yes! 4.But why? 5.Why would we experience this? 6.What would people want from you?

I'll take a shot (pun) at answering your questions.

1. More than 3. (This assumes it's still a home-invasion if nobody is home)
2. Doesn't matter.
3. Yes,
4. Doesn't matter.
5. Doesn't matter.
6. Doesn't matter.

Getting sidetracked into analyzing the psychological motivation of a criminal committing a crime is the left's way of shifting the blame somehow onto us.
We are not the problem.
Stay focused.
Shoot criminal home invaders. (criminal meaning uninvited people that force their way into your home and refuse to leave when ordered to).

 

[Weedygarden]

I'll take a shot (pun) at answering your questions.

1. More than 3. (This assumes it's still a home-invasion if nobody is home)
2. Doesn't matter.
3. Yes,
4. Doesn't matter.
5. Doesn't matter.
6. Doesn't matter.

Getting sidetracked into analyzing the psychological motivation of a criminal committing a crime is the left's way of shifting the blame somehow onto us.
We are not the problem.
Stay focused.
Shoot criminal home invaders. (criminal meaning uninvited people that force their way into your home and refuse to leave when ordered to).

Thank you. I have always been a person who thinks about some things for days, weeks, forever and analyzes and questions them. It has to be to my detriment.

 

[Supervisor42]

Thank you. I have always been a person who thinks about some things for days, weeks, forever and analyzes and questions them. It has to be to my detriment.

You're welcome.
You don't need a carbine, do ya'?

 

[Weedygarden]

You're welcome.
You don't need a carbine, do ya'?

I could use one. I know very little about guns and what they are each used for. I could use a good hunting rifle.

 

[Sentry18]

I just want a claymore with a motion detector, video camera, and remote switch. Perhaps two models, less and less lethal.

 

[The Lazy L]

I just want a claymore with a motion detector, video camera, and remote switch. Perhaps two models, less and less lethal.

View attachment 23246

Since my wife usually goes to bed after I do and isn't willing to accept that bad things happen, she'd "forgot"s to set the security devices. Which mean I'd have a perfectly good deactivated claymore to steal.