How prepared are you for a home invasion?

The #1 community for Gun Owners of the Northeast

Member Benefits:

  • No ad networks!
  • Discuss all aspects of firearm ownership
  • Discuss anti-gun legislation
  • Buy, sell, and trade in the classified section
  • Chat with Local gun shops, ranges, trainers & other businesses
  • Discover free outdoor shooting areas
  • View up to date on firearm-related events
  • Share photos & video with other members
  • ...and so much more!
  • oberyn

    Member
    Apr 19, 2021
    52
    Plenty of us invest in the equipment and tools, but not enough on the preparation. Guilty here.
     

    River02

    One Ping Only...
    MDS Supporter
    Sep 19, 2015
    3,924
    Mid-Maryland
    I'd like to think we're pretty ready... well placed and available firearms of differing varieties--with spare mags or rounds available and close at hand to each. Wife sleeps with her firearm close at hand as well. We talk about scenarios and responses but we've never actually rehearsed anything. We're lit up at night in prime locations-- we have more to do.
     

    135sohc

    Ultimate Member
    Oct 27, 2013
    1,157
    If in my bedroom, god help anyone trying to come in. You will not be leaving alive.

    Still trying to warm every else over to the idea of having a shotgun or rifle in the kitchen/dining room/living room area but what type of firearm and where/how to store it IDK yet. Little kids,minors or someone who should not have access to a gun are not an issue in our circumstances.
     
    If in my bedroom, god help anyone trying to come in. You will not be leaving alive.

    Still trying to warm every else over to the idea of having a shotgun or rifle in the kitchen/dining room/living room area but what type of firearm and where/how to store it IDK yet. Little kids,minors or someone who should not have access to a gun are not an issue in our circumstances.

    Consider looking into tactical walls or one of the concealment furniture makers. I have a nice piece of furniture that holds a 1911 and 3 additional mags..it opens in about half a second..And no one even blinks an eye in it's direction because it just looks like what it is...on the outside..
     

    Johnconlee

    Ultimate Member
    Mar 8, 2019
    1,149
    Mechanicsville
    With kids in the house and no carry permit it's hard to be locked and loaded everywhere but I try. Combination cable locks can be kept 1 digit off for cheap, fast, kid safe gun stashing.
     

    gremlin42

    Active Member
    Apr 16, 2020
    696
    variable
    No kids here so I just have a handgun in a holster in my nightstand. I make sure it always sits in the exact same position and is slightly propped up, and I’ve practiced sliding the drawer open and reaching in. Keeping it holstered ensures i don’t put a finger inside the trigger guard in the dark by accident.

    I had the best dog ever but I’m separated and she got the “kid” so now I need some type of actual security system. My only security system has been the canine kind for the last 15 years. Hope your dog’s ok, seizures in pets are rough to see.
     

    davsco

    Ultimate Member
    Oct 21, 2010
    8,607
    Loudoun, VA
    i do uspsa and 2&3 gun almost every weekend (next weekend i have matches fri, sat & sun!!), so i feel i'm pretty squared away myself as are my guns & gear. couple guns stashed around the house (no kids). that said i certainly hope violence never comes to my home.
     

    smokey

    2A TEACHER
    Jan 31, 2008
    31,412
    We'd be good as long as the wife sticks to her rehearsed role and doesn't go off-script. A while back, we had a couple thunk sounds from downstairs. My wife wanted me to go down and check it out. I got a nearby gun, logged my phone onto the cameras, and went to the hidden position at the top of the stairs. I stayed and used the cameras to scan around downstairs. The plan was it's the wife's responsibility to get the kids and bring them to a safe room w/ lots of supplies while I hold the stairs if things go bad. For that, I said hold on a minute while I check things out(no need to get the kids out of bed if it's nothing)... wellllll she wasn't happy with that at the time and got impatient after about 10 seconds and kept pushing me about going down to check it out. I barely had time to use the camera to check my main floor when she started walking past me with a pissed off "fine I guess I'll check it out then"... and walked downstairs making all kinds of racket as I now had to change plans to move down after her to be able to cover her if someone actually was down there.

    Needless to say, there was some conversations afterwards about why I chose to check things out digitally from the top of the stairs at first and what would have gone down if someone actually was down there. No, I wasn't just playing with my toys, there are well thought-out reasons why I had all those preparations made. Soooo... anyway, make sure everyone in your house not only knows what roles they have in an emergency, but that they understand why those roles exist and perhaps drill them a time or two. Had a home invader or home invaders been downstairs, I would've had quite the interesting firefight I'd have to manage.

    It's also worth thinking about your medical plans. Assuming your door was kicked in right now as you read this and you are able to successfully defend your home...but you take a gunshot somewhere on your body... are you currently able to treat that gunshot wound in under 2 minutes? Do you have a tourniquet, hemostatic gauze, and/or chest seals somewhere dependable? Have you drilled getting to the supplies enough to be able to find them in the supply kit under stress without looking for them? Once you have them, do you have the training to effectively use them?

    How about legal? You've defended your house and treated your wounds, what next? Police will be there soon. What will you tell them(such as where they may find evidence that you'll need to help clear you...like shell casings out in the street for example)? Does your entire family know to zip their mouths and say nothing but, "I want to have my lawyer speak for me"?

    Fun mental games to play to ensure your castle is well defended.
     

    smokey

    2A TEACHER
    Jan 31, 2008
    31,412
    With kids in the house and no carry permit it's hard to be locked and loaded everywhere but I try. Combination cable locks can be kept 1 digit off for cheap, fast, kid safe gun stashing.

    When kids were younger, I opted for keyed lockboxes. Basically the key stays with me everywhere I go and at night I toss the key into my quick-access box for my pistol. The box was kept high enough to where they physically couldn't reach it at the time. Now that the youngins are 4 and 6, I opted for slightly more restricted access...but in a way that doesn't sacrifice much speed. So my handgun box is now a electronic keypad box. 5 button presses and the door flaps down with a lighted interior to access my handgun. I religiously change the battery and have the key stashed in an accessible location if the electronic system takes a dump.
     

    Sirex

    Powered by natural gas
    Oct 30, 2010
    10,380
    Westminster, MD
    We had a few experiences here in our little neighborhood. Shortly after we moved in, around 2003, I came home from work to find our neighbor out front on his step, and the Westminster city police out front. Evidently while at work, someone attempted to get into 3, 4 houses on our block. Our screens were cut, screen frames bent from trying to be pried. We replaced our windows (needed it anyways), with higher strength windows with better locks, and I painted some white dowels and stuck them in between the lower window and upper frame, to prevent the window from being forced up. We even had a sheriff deputy's car across the street, marked cruiser, and it didn't deter someone.

    Then maybe, 12-14 years ago, around 11:30 at night, kids in bed, I am in the basement doing something, my wife up in the living room. All the sudden she comes to the top of the stairs, yelling down, asking me what I am doing. I told her, and she asked me if I was messing with the front door. I asked her how I could do that from the basement. She said then someone was trying to get in. The door knob was jiggling, and the door frame was flexing, and she heard the pushing on the door. Fortunately the door held. It's a steel door but the frame is cheap wood. I grabbed a pistol, and went out front to investigate ( probably, well, most likely the wrong thing to do), and my neighbor 2 houses down was out front. He said 4-5 young adults were going down the houses trying to get in. He chased them off while holding his .357 revolver.

    Since then we have added motion detecting lights, reinforced the door frame, open the powder room door in the foyer at night to jam the front door from opening. We have a lock on our rear gate, and a bar in the track of our rear sliding door. I have a pistol and light close by the bed, and motion detecting LED light in the hallways. That certainly helps considering it was shocking to wake up one night to discover my daughter sleep walking. We still have some stuff to do. With the section 8 crackheads next door now, we installed some hidden motion activated cameras last summer when we went on vacation. Caught my dad checking for leaking water after a rain storm.

    Last year, summer or early fall, don't recall, we were awaken suddenly at 5AM to banging and vibrations. Turned out to be the Swat team kicking down our neighbors door. While a stunning incident, I was relieved I was able to wake up and assess the situation quickly enough, before they were able to make entry into their house, so hopefully I'd be able to respond to a bad guy trying to enter our home. I think lighting is extremely vital, especially having kids. I snuck out several times as a kid, and fortunately I was either stealthy enough, or my dad slept like a brick. But identification, in my opinion is extremely important in being able to identify a threat. I have a separate flashlight with laser and strobe, plus a light and laser on my pistol and shotgun. Also need to be able to improvise just about anything into a weapon, depending on what is close by. But, we are looking at getting a Ring doorbell as well. They seem to be helpful, and our neighbors love theirs.
     

    slsc98

    Ultimate Member
    May 24, 2012
    6,746
    Escaped MD-stan to WNC Smokies
    More important question, how is your dog doing?

    OP’s scenario brought back painful memories :sad20:

    When we were dating, my now wife’s dog was having horrible, horrible seizures and it was fvcking agony watching the dog suffer.

    It wasn’t until too late we learned the kids had unknowingly been feeding the dog ALL SORTS of human foods that are poison to canines. Especially chocolate. M&M’s to be exact

    The kids never let on they were doing it ... again, we didn’t find out until after we lost the poor pet ... :mad54:
     

    smokey

    2A TEACHER
    Jan 31, 2008
    31,412
    We had a few experiences here in our little neighborhood. Shortly after we moved in, around 2003, I came home from work to find our neighbor out front on his step, and the Westminster city police out front. Evidently while at work, someone attempted to get into 3, 4 houses on our block. Our screens were cut, screen frames bent from trying to be pried. We replaced our windows (needed it anyways), with higher strength windows with better locks, and I painted some white dowels and stuck them in between the lower window and upper frame, to prevent the window from being forced up. We even had a sheriff deputy's car across the street, marked cruiser, and it didn't deter someone.

    Then maybe, 12-14 years ago, around 11:30 at night, kids in bed, I am in the basement doing something, my wife up in the living room. All the sudden she comes to the top of the stairs, yelling down, asking me what I am doing. I told her, and she asked me if I was messing with the front door. I asked her how I could do that from the basement. She said then someone was trying to get in. The door knob was jiggling, and the door frame was flexing, and she heard the pushing on the door. Fortunately the door held. It's a steel door but the frame is cheap wood. I grabbed a pistol, and went out front to investigate ( probably, well, most likely the wrong thing to do), and my neighbor 2 houses down was out front. He said 4-5 young adults were going down the houses trying to get in. He chased them off while holding his .357 revolver.

    Since then we have added motion detecting lights, reinforced the door frame, open the powder room door in the foyer at night to jam the front door from opening. We have a lock on our rear gate, and a bar in the track of our rear sliding door. I have a pistol and light close by the bed, and motion detecting LED light in the hallways. That certainly helps considering it was shocking to wake up one night to discover my daughter sleep walking. We still have some stuff to do. With the section 8 crackheads next door now, we installed some hidden motion activated cameras last summer when we went on vacation. Caught my dad checking for leaking water after a rain storm.

    Last year, summer or early fall, don't recall, we were awaken suddenly at 5AM to banging and vibrations. Turned out to be the Swat team kicking down our neighbors door. While a stunning incident, I was relieved I was able to wake up and assess the situation quickly enough, before they were able to make entry into their house, so hopefully I'd be able to respond to a bad guy trying to enter our home. I think lighting is extremely vital, especially having kids. I snuck out several times as a kid, and fortunately I was either stealthy enough, or my dad slept like a brick. But identification, in my opinion is extremely important in being able to identify a threat. I have a separate flashlight with laser and strobe, plus a light and laser on my pistol and shotgun. Also need to be able to improvise just about anything into a weapon, depending on what is close by. But, we are looking at getting a Ring doorbell as well. They seem to be helpful, and our neighbors love theirs.

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084MFPRCP
    Get this. I picked one up and have been pretty happy with it. For ring, you're stuck paying a fee to access storage. Otherwise, you pretty much just get live stream and that's it. For this eufy camera, it uses a homebase inside that stores everything locally for you on a card. The homebase also acts as the doorbell chime.

    The homebase links to your wifi and the camera links to your homebase. I can log in on my phone through the app and access all the settings, the live feed, and the archived video/photo storage. Rings on the doorbell alert my phone and I can pull up the live feed to talk back and forth with whomever is at the door.

    I got the battery version that you can mount anywhere, although you can also hook it up to doorbell wiring. It mounts with two screws and has an angle adapter to change the direction it's pointed in. To charge it, just poke the tool it comes with(or paperclip) into the hole at the bottom and it pops out of the mounting plate for you to charge with a micro usb.

    Motion detection settings can be changed around and you can set what areas trigger it. It actually works pretty well. I changed the motion detection area to just my front yard, and it does actually keep it from being triggered by people walking by on the sidewalk. It also has facial recognition and shows a thumbnail of the person that triggered the recording.

    Overall it's a pretty solid deal for a doorbell camera and I like that I don't have any subscription to pay for.
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Forum statistics

    Threads
    274,930
    Messages
    7,259,473
    Members
    33,350
    Latest member
    Rotorboater

    Latest threads

    Top Bottom