Someone breaks into your house with intent to do you harm. What are they met with?

In My Humble Opinion
61

A Louisville Slugger; but I doubt he get close enough for me to knock him upside the melon with it. There’s very little chance an intruder could get in without making a 'helluva racket; my kid leaves his toys all over the place, so the would-be burgler would be jumping, dancing, stumbling, falling and screaming “Son of a bitch!” as he made his way through the house. I’m sure he’d just leave in frustration.

In years past, I would have answered that any intruder would’ve been met with either my 9mm pistol or my Mossberg shotgun and a shitload of steely-eyed, “…kill 'em all!” Dirty Harry attitude, but I got rid of both of those ages ago…and I’m glad the fuckers are gone. The steely-eyed, “…kill 'em all!” Dirty Harry attitude with out along with the guns.

62

I’ve been the victim of an attempted armed entry before. That shit don’t fly.

It’ll depend on which part of the house he tries to gain entry. There’s an unchambered but loaded .22, .357, .40 and .45 stashed safely and securely but reachable in various locations throughout the house. They’d be almost impossible for anyone else to find and there’s no way a child could access them but if they’re needed I can get to them pretty quickly.

If they’re still coming after all those rounds are expended then I’ll either start feeding them knuckles or reach for the King Cobra driver.

You go through something like this and your tolerance for a repeat adventure dissipates pretty quickly.

63

To me, this is the rationale for having a hazmat suit and a hovercraft. There are lots of things you’ll wish you had if the stars align and you need them. Sometimes you play the odds.

64

I keep 18" of sharpened steel next to the bed. My roomie has a couple of guns, to boot.

65

Well, I think the chances of needing a gun, however small, are a hell of a lot higher than needing a hovercraft or a hazmat suit. A gun is also a lot cheaper to obtain and a lot easier to store than a hovercraft or a hazmat suit.

I think if you’re “playing the odds” in life, assuming that you’ll never need to defend yourself, then you might as well not have ANYTHING to that end - no knives, no baseball bats, no martial arts training, nothing.

What I wrote is primarily in reference to people who have baseball bats, knives, etc, for home defense, but not guns. OK, a baseball bat or a knife is better than nothing. But a gun is a hell of a lot better than a baseball bat or a knife, for the reasons that I already explained earlier.

When I first started driving, I NEVER wore my seatbelt. I just thought it was lame, uncool, and restrictive. I cruised around all over the place, with no seatbelt, without a care in the world. I figured, “I’m not going to get into an accident, and even if I do, this giant tank of an SUV will protect me.” (The concept of going through a windshield hadn’t occurred to me at this point.)

Eventually, it became second nature to wear a seatbelt. The time came when I just realized that it was better to be safe than sorry. I probably wouldn’t get into an accident, but if I did, I sure as hell ought to be wearing that seatbelt. So now I wear it all the time.

Why take chances with your life? A firearm for home defense is a pretty cheap form of insurance. It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. Analogies to hovercrafts and hazmat suits are pretty far fetched, IMO.

66

Humm. Other than the kitchen knives, inconveniently located in the kitchen, we have nothing.

For all of its other flaws, Japan doesn’t allow guns, so whoever is breaking in would more likely have a knive than anything else. However, since I don’t have anything which could possibly be used for self-defense in our bedroom, then I guess they could probably kill us if they really wanted to.

It’s probably not the right tread to talk about my watch collection, is it?

67

I guess that’s a good tactic if you’re Hans Gruber and your home invaded by John McClaine.

68

How about mace? I put cans of mace/bear spray in my wife’s bedside stand and in the cabinet by the back door. I had to use one once on a raccoon that consistently tried to tear a hole in my roof to get into the attic and that experience showed me that they’re effective up to about 15 feet, have a wide spray pattern so you don’t have to be a great shot and their effect lasts for around 30 minutes, giving you plenty of time to escape. I believe some of them also have a marking agent that makes identification of a suspect possible.

69

I own two swords of Oakeshott typology XIIa and XVIIIb. http://www.oakeshott.org/Typo.html

Assuming I catch them unaware or they do not have a drawn hand gun they will either live their rest of their lives as amputees or they wont live at all.

70

The problem with Mace is that it doesn’t STOP the intruder, it just hurts him. He might be in intense pain, but that might just make him angrier, and he might blindly rush you and throw you to the ground.

A buddy of mine is a Marine and he had to get sprayed in the face with Mace as some part of his training. I saw the photos that someone had taken of the training. The guy was wincing, after being Maced, but still standing.

With a gun, you have a much greater assurance that you will STOP the attacker. That is the important thing, to STOP him.

71

The intruder would be met with the sight of my rump as I leave through a window (my apartment is on the ground floor). Cruel & unusual or what?

72

That’s exactly what many people do have, and are comfortable having.

We take chances with our lives every time we walk out the door. We’re not going to agree on home firearms, and I’m not trying to convert you to the other side, but many people – including myself – believe a gun kept in the home is more likely to be used on the occupants than by them. I have small nieces and nephews who visit me, and I am not personally particularly comfotable with guns, nor do I like them. I would never have a gun in my home, period, but that’s just me and I’m not trying to say this position is the only one or the only right one.

And of course the analogy to hovercrafts was far-fetched; that was the whole point: “You might need this someday” is by itself IMO not really much of a reason to keep anything around. You have to gauge that it is likely you will need it – likely enough to justify buying, keeping and maintaining the item. I think the chances I’d ever need a gun are vanishingly slim and that itself is reason enough for me to not have one.

73

So you’re worried about being attacked by a rowing crew? Do you live in a houseboat?

:wink:

74

I don’t have a cite for this but I’ve read that far more children die by drinking household chemicals, by falling down the stairs, by drowning in a kiddie pool, or by choking to death, than they do by firearm accidents. It seems logical to me, anyway.

A gun, properly secured, wouldn’t be a threat to young children in your house. They make small pistol safes now that can be opened simply by touching your hand to the sensor - they read your fingerprints, and can only be activated by you.

As for the belief that a gun in the home is more likely to be used on the occupants than by them, that doesn’t make much sense to me, and sounds like false information. Maybe they believe that, but it doesn’t make it true. My grandma believes that you can get radiation poisoning by standing in front of the microwave while it’s cooking your food.

But hey, if you don’t feel comfortable with a gun, nobody can force you to have one. For a lot of people, like lieu, it takes a traumatic incident like a robbery, assault or rape before they realize that a gun is a wise idea for their personal protection. I personally say, be prepared now, and save yourself the trauma later.

75

The “gun for home defense question” gets debated a lot here and I don’t normally jump in but … can’t … stop… myself.

Just keeping a gun in your house does not mean your house is protected, it just means you have one more thing worth stealing. If you want to protect your house in this form you need to be trained (I am), you need to have the weapon at hand and ready at the critical moment and, most importantly, you have to be able to make the decision to pull the trigger. The latter is where I made the choice to not keep a gun. The circumstances where I would actually make that choice are so very rare - some bad person would have to be pointing a gun at me or mine with a clear intent to harm, and yet hasn’t shot me, and I would have to have my weapon in hand. Then I would have split second to make that choice. Sure, if someone gunned down a family member right in front of me I would want to be armed enough to make them pay but that seems so very unlikely, and it would not bring that family member back.

The other thing is that I believe my house is more likely to be invaded by law enforcement than by criminals (and I am not doing anything illegal). The last thing I want is a gun fight about my house with a large group of heavily armed professionals. Even more likely is that my house is being invaded by some idiot or drunk friend or relative, who may or may not deserve to be shot. I just don’t believe I could come out blazing.

I should add that I am speaking as a not small guy who could probably put up a fight. If I were a small woman I might feel more need for an equalizer.

For the record I have owned guns when I lived in a rural area. Then, if a stranger pulled up my mile long driveway I got plenty of warning from the dogs. The stranger could rightly expect me to have a shotgun out of sight as I watched them from the screened door. The few times that happened the strangers were smart enough to identify themselves rather than display a weapon.

76

I can’t really take issue with anything else you’ve written - it’s your decision, after all - but I have to wonder what you are getting at here. Do you expect SWAT teams to come crashing through your windows or rappelling down your skylight? Do you envision them planting a breaching charge, Rainbow Six-style, on your front door and busting in with flashbang grenades? I mean, why would the police “invade” your house?

Don’t you think they would just knock on your door?

77

It happened to my neighbor, right next door. Guns drawn, battering ram at the front door and all, just like on TV. Without debating the right or wrong of that “invasion” I can say that I am glad my neighbor did not fire at the people entering his bedroom (he has a handgun). Was this a bizarre anomaly? I don’t know. But I do know that I have seen it more often than armed criminal invasions and that the consequences of opening fire would not be good.

78

And the fact that you don’t believe it doesn’t make it false. I’m honestly not courting a firearms debate, which I’m not interested in having, but there is actually quite a lot of literature asserting (and refuting) the premise that having a gun in the home puts the occupants at higher risk for gun-related violence. Feel free to emply your Google-fu if you’re interested; the citations are legion, and they go both ways.

79

If this is a home invasion and they are clear and intent on doing harm, well, lets just say they picked the wrong house to invade…

do I use;
My Mosin-Nagant M-44 7.62X54R carbine? well, no, it’s far too powerful for indoor use, the bullet could easily penetrate 12+ wall boards and still have energy left over, the muzzle blast would deafen both of us, and if the perp wasn’t felled by the bullet, the muzzleblast would set him on fire and the shockwave would stun him, a home invader is bad enough, but a burning home invader running around, setting my possesions ablaze, now that’s unacceptable… I worked hard for those possesions, and no burning home invader is going to set them afire if I have anything to do with it…
No, the Mosin is too powerful

the .22’s aren’t even worth considering, I want to stop the home invader, not annoy him…
.22’s are out

so it comes down to the Final Four;

CZ-75B 9mm semiautomatic pistol; 15 rounds of 9mm on tap gives it great reserve capacity, but I’d rather not “spray and pray”, I don’t want to have to re-spackle my walls, especially as the 9mm is a fast, light round and could potentially overpenetrate if FMJ rounds are used (I use JHP for home defense), I am exceptionally accurate with the CZ-75 though, and can shoot ragged one-holers all day at 21 feet or under, however, the 9mm is a physically smallish round and may not pack enough “stopping power” for a one-shot stop

Kimber Custom II .45 ACP pistol; If I had to use a pistol, this would be the one, the .45 is a proven stopper, whether FMJ or JHP, the projectile is large and relatively slow**, and carries a lot of energy into the subject, especially when used with JHP rounds, due to the combination of slower speed (less risk of overpenetration) and larger projectile (more tissue displacement/disruption), and the expansion of the hollow point round*** dumps more energy into the target, the .45 is also subsonic and would not have the ear-splitting “crack” of the lighter, faster, supersonic 9mm round, just a nice, meaty BOOM
the .45 would be my choice if I had to use a handgun

12-gauge; THIS is the premier home-defense firearm, it can be loaded as lightly or heavily as you want, shot pellet loads penetrate wallboard far less than rifle/handgun/slug bullets, using a load of 12-gauge 000 Buckshot is like shooting the target with 8 9mm rounds simultaneously, #4 Buck is probably the best compromise between number of pellets/power/overpenetration, however, the fallacy of “you don’t need to aim a shotgun” is false, at typical indoor distances, the shot cloud will not have time to spread, and you will be essentially shooting a large frangible bullet at the perp, so you will still have to aim, the main advantage of a shotgun in this situation is sheer stopping power and lower overpenetration, assuming a center-mass shot
My first choice would be one of my 12-gauge shotguns, either my Mossberg 500 pump, or my Parker VH side-by-side

of course, it goes without saying that after the perp has been stopped, I’d call the police, and report a stopped home invasion, Maine has Castle Doctrine law, I have no duty to retreat, I can stand my ground

**a 9mm would be like getting hit by a Ferrari, a .45 would be like being hit by a full-size truck like a Dodge Ram

*** a 9mm is a .38 caliber bullet (.38 of an inch), reliable self-defense hollowpoints can expand up to a final width of .65ish, a .45 is .45 of an inch, the projectile itself is almost a half inch wide even before firing, a reliable JHP .45 can expand to almost .80, almost a full inch, a 12-gauge slug (think a BIG bullet) is .70 of an inch even before firing, and yes, they do make hollow-point slugs, hollow points generally almost double in size when they hit soft targets…

80

All I can say is your neighbor was probably into some heavy shit for that to come down on him. If you keep your nose clean, I doubt you’ll ever be in the same predicament. But hey, I don’t trust the cops either - that’s why I don’t think they should be the only ones with the guns!

It amazes me how many anti-gun hippies are also completely anti-cop - and yet they’re cool with the cops having a monopoly on firepower, and think that average citizens should be disarmed! (These kind of “hippies” are usually just trustafarian wannabes - a fair share of genuine hippies live in rural areas and know how to handle a shotgun.)