Dude, ZOMBIES!! :eek:
A phone call to the police, unless you can materialize a cop in your bedroom in 2 seconds is pretty useless if your life is on the line.
I MIGHT be able to get a Sheriff to my house in 15 minutes. Maybe it would be 20 or 25. Doesn’t mater.
Cunctator - While a call to the police is of course a good idea, it is in no way a defensive action unless you happen to live in a castle and are under seige. If you can not defend yourself, you would probably be best served to run like hell instead of wasting time on the phone.
Agreed. Not only that, but –
The last time I had to dial 911, I was put on hold for exactly 12 minutes before I was able to talk to anyone. I was a three-minute drive from the nearest police station, but that was irrelevant.
Oh and BTW, a friendly suggestion for those of you who use a .357 for nighttime home defense - you may want to consider loading it with .38s. In a darkened room, the muzzle flash from a .357 will blind you for 20 or 30 seconds, during which time you’ll be nearly defenseless. Bad news.
You wouldn’t know it by the number swords and crossbows people here seem to have!
If anyone comes into my house looking for trouble, I got Jack Johnson* and Tom O’Leary right here ready to party with them.
*Not this Jack Johnson
I bet.
I remember a demonstration during my hunter’s safety class that was trying to disspell the myth that bows were less dangerous than guns.
The video shows a guy shooting a pretty good sized round into a metal bucket full of sand. He then dumps out the sand and shows the fragmentation of the bullet.
He then turns the bucket around, refills it, and takes aim with his bow.
The bucket no longer exists. It was in pieces.
I’m there every Thursday, don’t be a stranger.
I’m the one not wearing camo 
Same as my carry gun - Colt 1991A1 Commander w/ Novak tritium sights, loaded with Winchester Silvertip.
I’m a firm believer in knowing your defense weapon inside and out, so I stick with the one gun.
Holy Mother of God man!! Please tell me that you only drink decaff and practice some form of Zen yoga. That’s a whole lot of firepower you got hanging around the house!
My home defense weapons are two very large, very loud, completely harmless Golden Retrievers, and a hair trigger guinea pig.
I do own a shotgun, however it is locked in a hardsided case and it would take me a good 15 minutes to find the key to the padlock. Then it would take me another 10 minutes to find the key to the trigger lock, uncover the ammo box and get some shells. If my perfomance at the skeet range is any indication, the bad guy would only need to keep running back and forth and I wouldn’t stand a chance of hitting him anyway.
Tom O’Leary? I have heard about a redheaded Tom O’Leary, is that the same guy? He might be a legitimate weapon by all accounts.
I’ve got an alarm system that’ll wake the dead.
That said, I eventually will have the XD45 in a biometric wall safe in my office, and the Kimber will be in the same by my bed.
I didn’t own guns until recently, when I moved into a new townhome in what the realtors call a frontier neighborhood. That is one that was inner-city crack house culture until the townhome developers moved in. My hope is that the development will move along well, and this will be a nice place to live soon enough. But, the boogie-boys are still just around the corner, and this is an area where home invasions have occurred.
So, I acquired guns, and have spent the summer learning how to use them. Progress has been evident after the expenditure of ~1300 rounds (and, yes, I do clean them every 150-200 rounds). While I do use ear protection, I have fired at least a couple of rounds of each type of ammo without just so I’ll have some idea of what it’ll be like if I have to fire in a make do with what you can situation. And, this weekend, I turned a bend wherein enough practice had settled and I was consistently getting 3" groups at 24 feet. That may not sound so grand to those who have never tried their hand at it, a position I occupied just six months ago, but let me tell you, it’s easy to completely miss with a handgun at 24 feet.
To complete my response to Sgt Schwartz: the XD45 cost me $449 at a gun show, pretty near the time they were introduced, and it uses (stock) 13 round .45 ACP magazines. I have had some failure to eject problems with it. The Kimber 1911 is my first line of defense.
Ommmmmmmmmm. 
The serious firepower is in the gun safe. That sucker is built tough enough to survive a pony nuke, but it’s a pain to get into.
Cyberhwk
Ah yes, a myth closely related to the equally foolhardy It’s Only a .22 school of thought.
I wonder which myth has caused the most injuries and/or fatalities.
(Probably a tie don’t you think?)
Since this thread has already suffered the inevitable hijack, I gotta ask - why does it matter? The fella probably only has two hands, and I can PROMISE you that it’s a royal pain to try to shoot two guns at once (I’ve never tried three).
Some people are freaking out over the number of guns some of us own - I can’t understand why. These things are inanimate hunks of steel, it’s not like they become sentient in large numbers, nor do they become unstable in herds.
I know a guy that has several hammers, I don’t find that odd.
Remember, guns don’t kill people… bullets kill people 
silenus, Hornady makes a nice little 9x18 hollowpoint.
I imagine all of the professional burglers and assailants that were shot to death by armed home owners found it somewhat difficult to provide a written account after the fact.
I have an arthritic 11 year old labrador retreiver. Which as a dog breed for personal protection, is the equivalent to an Amish Body Guard.
Anyone who does not know her is scared of the way her hackles rise up when she woofs at you ( if you are a stranger.) We call her hackles her " dorsal fin". If you are afriend, she greets you then goes straight for your open car door to sniff out any mummified french fries on the floor.
She also has really bad breath.
Perchance, if you make it into the garage, there are bikes and scooters stragetically placed to trip you up and block any exit in the event of a fire.
If you are not attacked by the camping equipment that likes to fall off its assigned shelving unit only when a carbon based life form is walking by. The heavier and more deadly item - tent or barbeque - is placed on the highest shelf to cause maximumd damage.
If you make it into the house, my kids will become your New Bestest Friend and you will be assaulted with *My Pet Shop/Polly Pocket and Pokemon/YuGiOh wanna play with me * until your brain spasms and collapses.
If said Bad Guy can survive that, I have leftovers to fling at the Evil Villian. That is my trump card.
Next time I talk to my right-hand fist, I’ll ask.
What kind of bow could destroy a bucket like that, I mean other than that thing Chewbacca carries around?
Okay, I have thought a bit about that, and I came up with two basic scenarios why I would need to defend my home:
Inpersonal problem: A burglar enters my home trying to steal stuff. He hasn’t singled me out personally, he just goes through every house on that street that looks easy. (I don’t know why burglars would increase their risk breaking into occupied homes, but let’s assume they do). In the event I wake from my deep sleep (and I wouldn’t sleep in a 1-bedroom apt., where the whole point is moot, anyway), why would I try to go after the burglar with a weapon? It’s similar to being robbed at gunpoint on the street - every policeman advises to give over your money instead of trying to go for your gun and have a shootout.
Personal problem: Somebody - a disgruntled ex-spouse, crazy relative, or similar - singles me out personally. He doesn’t want to burgle my stuff, but break in and do damage to me. While that makes for very good horror novels, I wonder how often that’s the case in Real life. And if some batshit crazy person was after me, wouldn’t they utter threats before? wouldn’t I know about this, and therefore alert the police before?
I have a security system which I use religiously, I have a barking dog (who however lives in the laundry room at night) and I lock the doors, etc, etc. However, because I don’t have a garage (and may not ever, considering the anal retentive historic district rules), anybody invading my home is doing it with full knowledge of my presence. Because of that and the fact that I live alone I think it prudent to keep a pump action Mossberg under the bed.
I didn’t used to keep it loaded, because that scared the crap out of me, but one night I heard noises that scared a lot more crap out of me and realized, as I fumbled shells into it in the dark, that in a real emergency I wouldn’t have the time. (Never found out what was screaming outside - the police investigated and found nothing, and it was not a cat.)
I’ve got three at varied points around the house since you can’t definately know where you’ll be when a need arises. There’s one by my bed, one by a door and one I could probably inconspicuously get to if threatened (again) by a home invasion. S&W .45, S&W 357 Mag and a Beretta .40 that just might off 'em by it’s sexiness.
If the sonuvabitch will let me though, the worst he’ll get is a face full of bear spray.