Burglaries. Home invasions. Judging by all the gun threads, it’s a topic forefront on the minds of lots of Americans - and many others. An Englishman’s home is his castle, after all.
But, what would you do if confronted with the situation? If, whilst snoozing in your mansion/penthouse/lean-to you’re awoken by suspicious noises, what would you do? Grab an impromptu weapon? Pick up your shotgun to shoot first and ask questions later? Threaten with a handgun? Head to a panic room or hide under the bed? Call the cops and hope for the best? Set your pet beastie on 'em?
Or have you ever been confronted with a ne’er-do-well breaking in to your abode in the past? What did you do?
I would grab my gun and hide. I live alone, they can have anything they want from the rest of the house. If they find me I want to be at point blank range when I shoot them.
Hopefully I’d be able to get out the back door or through a window, then call the police once I’m safely away. The burglar can have my stuff, but I REALLY don’t want to be a hostage. Realistically, I suspect I’d do something stupid like freeze, try to hide under the sheets, or yell “I’ve got a gun!” (I don’t.) I plan to get a dog or two once I buy a house and am particularly fond of pitbulls and German Shepherds, hopefully that’ll be enough of a deterrent that home invasions won’t be an issue.
This would all change if I had kids to protect, of course.
I am a handgun enthusiast. That being said, I do not worry about anything going bump in the night. I have motion sensor lights that activate whenever anyone gets within about thirty feet from the house. I have security film on all of my windows, and my exterior doors are steel framed solid core with good deadbolts.
No amount of fire power can make up for poor perimeter security. If a group was determined to get in, by the time they could get through the doors, we would have time to call 911, get the guns out of the safe, load them and get a pot of coffee ready for the police when they get there.
When things go bump in the night, I assume its my idiot cats.
I do own guns, I take classes on a regular basis. I have a small gunsafe mounted to my bed. I have a shotgun in my closet. My bedroom has a metal door and I have a waterbed to hide behind.
If I heard glass breaking, I’d just assume that it was one of my cats getting in places that they shouldn’t and would run naked out of the bedroom yelling at the cats.
Things that go bump in the night are my drunk flatmates. Burglars tend to go for houses where they know nobody is home, they don’t want trouble. I always think people are way too hysterical about crime. It stems from our misunderstanding of the meaning of the word “news” (I think it was Bruce Schneier who talks about that?)
If I were to encounter a burglar who threatened my safety (ie he’s not running away from me) I’d go for my extensive zombie apocalypse plan: deodorant and a lighter.
I’ve thought a lot about it, vis a vis my guns and my ethics. I’ve decided that if I’m alone in the house and feel there is an intruder, I’ll hit the floor with the mattress between me and the bedroom door, call 911, grab my shotgun, and yell that I’m armed and they should leave. If they don’t leave and come through that door, I am prepared to shoot them.
I’m fine with shooting somebody who broke into the house knowing I was home. I’m not really okay with shooting a run of the mill burglar. That might be the difference between me living through the experience or not, but I don’t feel comfortable with the alternative of shooting without warning. I have a friend who had a big drunk guy confusedly break into his house thinking it was his own - if that was the case and I’d shot him I would have a hard time living with it.
I’ve thought about that a lot. We live in a pretty safe area, but have woods on two sides of the property so it would be easy for someone to hid out by the house, unseen by the neighbors. We have motion sensor lights but no alarm and no firearms. If someone broke in to steal shit, they can have it, as long as they don’t come upstairs where the 4 of us are sleeping. I’d just reach over, pick up the phone and quietly call the police. Not that we have much they’d want to steal.
But if they started upstairs, I don’t know what I’d do. The top of the staircase puts them in the middle of the upstairs hallway; my kids’ bedrooms at one end, and our master at the other. I couldn’t get to my kids’ rooms without going past the bad guys. I don’t know how threatening I could be, running out of my bedroom naked and screaming like a fucking lunatic, but that’s currently my go-to defensive measure. Maybe I should keep a baseball bat behind the door.
Neither my wife nor I want a handgun in the house for a number of reasons, but nevertheless I’ve considered getting one. Or at least, taking the discussion of getting one to the next level. Unless someone was actually walking into one of my daughters’ rooms with intent to do harm, I don’t know if I could shoot them.
Not everyone can. I’ve seen dashboard-cam video of a shootout between a suspect and a cop. Cop was hiding behind squadcar door, gun drawn and aimed; suspect was 30 feet away, shooting repeatedly at the cop. Cop would not return fire, despite the fact that his life was being very credibly threatened by the suspect. Cop finally was hit, and although he appeared to still have the use of his arms, he still would not fire on the suspect, even as the suspect calmly walked over and shot the cop dead. I’d like to think I could pull the trigger under far less adverse circumstances than that, but I’ve never had my life threatened, so I don’t know for sure.
No guns at our house either. My only objection is that I don’t see myself being enough of an enthusiast to maintain the proficiency needed to use a gun competently and safely under duress. That, and my wife seems to be fairly afraid of them, to the point that she has never been interested in even firing one just to see what it’s like. We’re both reconsidering; Ann Arbor has experienced a big jump in break-ins over the past month or so. Annoyingly, the police aren’t distinguishing between burglaries (break-ins when the resident is not home) and home invasions (break-ins when the resident is home). We live at a comfortable remove from the downtown area where most of these are happening, but the stats are still disturbing, as is the fact that we don’t have much of a plan in place if something does happen while we’re home, other than dialing 911 and hoping for the best. Wife sometimes works from home, so the possibility of somebody doing a mid-day break-in expecting no one to be home is a real concern.
I’d call 911 and my dog would bark at them/bite them as needed. I live in the city and to be honest, I don’t think about it that much. I’ve accidentally left my garage door open all night with my tools in it and left doors unlocked and never really had a problem. The one time I thought I had someone breaking in to my house when I first moved in, I grabbed a crowbar and my dog and went down to the basement to confront what turned out to be the scariest damn possum I ever saw.
Stay where I was, tell them to take whatever the hell they want, and wait for them to leave. If I was behind a closed door or other ‘safe’ place, I’d call 911 as well.
Burglars want money, not violence. I’ll let them take every damn thing I have because it lessens the chance of them getting violent. I’m not going to put up a fight over shit I can replace, that’s why I have insurance.
Long before they got close to the house the dogs would have them bayed up, hopefully up a tree . . . if not, then I’d hope my dogs didn’t hurt them really bad.
I had a .22 rifle when I was a kid that had belonged to my Dad but haven’t owned a gun since then and really have no desire to have one. If someone broke into our house I’m hoping the two dogs will be enough to scare anyone off.
The one time I thought someone was at my bedroom window, trying to break in, was in 1995 or so. I happened to have a 3-foot long 2x4 propped next to the closet door. (don’t ask me why, it was there when I moved in, and, well, I guess ya never know when you’ll need one!) I jumped out of bed, naked as all get-out, grabbed the 2x4 and creeped over to the window, where the blinds were drawn. Yes, I was nervous as hell, and yes, I investigated anyway. (I have come to the conclusion after a few incidents that I am a woman of action, a “first responder” type I think some would say.)
I gripped the blind cord in my right hand, as high up as possible so I could rip them open as far as possible and as quickly as possible, while gripping the 2x4 in my left hand, raised, and ready to grab with my right to whip at the window as soon as I let go of the cord.
I ripped the blinds up, grabbed the 2x4, and the little juvenile raccoon clinging to the outside screamed in terror! Then I yelled, and we both yelled at each other, and I fell onto the bed laughing my ass off. Poor thing.
These days, I’m on the 4th floor of a 4-story walk-up, secured with gates front and back. I’m not really worried about a break-in at this time, but now that Chicago’s handgun laws are official (with innumerable hoops to jump through) I wouldn’t rule it out as I get older and frailer. In this city, I look for apartments that are at least three floors up. I would not want to live in a place with street-level access, that would freak me right out. Here, I feel relaxed and secure enough.
If I know someone has broken in, I get the option of using a 12 gauge, 20 gauge, .380, or .45. All are near the bed and I lock my bedroom door. I’d have to load the shotguns at the moment, so those might be out. The .45 is in a hard case with the slide back and 2 full magazines sitting there with it. I can insert a magazine and hit the slide release and it’s ready to go, but that still takes up seconds. The .380 is always hot, as it’s my CC gun, so it probably gets the nod at the moment. I need to ready one of the shotguns, as I’d prefer to use one of those in a self defense at home situation.
I’ve always lived in the rough part of whatever town I happen to be living in at the time, so I’ve thought about this a lot.
I’d just sneak myself and the family out the nearest exit, and call the cops. There’s nothing in my home worth killing/getting killed over, except my family. Everything else can be replaced.
Now that being said, in my 30 years, none of my houses have ever been broken into, despite the fact that I have left doors unlocked, windows and doors wide open, left the house without a door knob or lock even being on the front door.
Good point, I don’t think I could shoot without warning either. I’ve heard far more ‘confused drunk guy’ stories than home invasion ones. I don’t plan to get a gun unless there’s a specific threat to me or my family. As long as I’m Jane Doe with no particular wealth and not living somewhere with lots of drug addicts, the odds of a home invasion by someone who will do me or my family harm are pretty darn low. I’ll stick to the non-lethal deterrents (woof!) for now.
