another idiot protecting us from tyranny or something

TIDE-HSV said:

You may laugh, but, a couple of years ago, every vehicle in our immediate neighborhood was broken into except ours and the house next door, where they have yappy dogs in the front yard...

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Holy smokes. I guess burglars know that the cars on the mountain have some stuff worth trying to take.

TIDE-HSV said:

In fact they made a haul. One guy up the street lost a laptop. Since I was on the civic association board and was governmental liaison, I called a few people, including the laptop loser, in order to have something to put on our website and newsletter. I never got a return call. Later, I talked to my designated police contact in the south precinct and he told me that the majority of the vehicles were unlocked, including the guy who lost the laptop, which I guess was the reason he didn't return my call - embarrassment. You'd think that more people would read their policies and find out that many don't cover unlocked vehicle contents...

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Yeah, that's unfortunate. It is not just a question of losing one's own personal property. By leaving cars unlocked, your neighbors are making each other targets. That word travels around.

It can be a tricky thing to balance being able to keep your family and yourself safe from burglaries and home invasions while also keeping them and/or others - especially children - safe and/or restricted from loaded weapons under normal circumstances. In almost all burglary and home invasion scenarios, an unloaded weapon serves virtually no purpose whatsoever. Of course, you never know when such a scenario will occur, so you either sacrifice the protection of a weapon or try to secure your loaded weapons as best as possible while still having easy access to them.

For those worried about crossfire issues, a pump shotgun is probably going to be your best bet. First, the sound of chambering a shell can be quite the deterrent in and of itself. Second, there is a variety of self-defense ammunition you can purchase which is designed to be relatively safe (non-lethal, possibly injury free) to persons in adjacent rooms, non-lethal but likely incapacitating at medium range, and lethal at close range. Such ammunition sacrifices effectiveness - it would likely take multiple hits to put down someone who is drugged out and attempting to kill you - in order to ensure better safety for persons who might be unintended targets; you don't have to worry about firing three slugs in order to put one through an attacker only to later discover that one of your misses went through three walls and struck your child on the other end of the house.

Since my wife and I don't have children to worry about and we have brick exterior walls, we keep a tactical 12 gauge pump next to the bed loaded but unhambered with slug/shot combo self-defense shells. The reason for having it unchambered is two-fold, both involving my wife: one, she is less likely to accidentally pull the trigger and fire off a round while fumbling to bring the gun to bear in a half-wakened state and, two, the sound of the pump may prevent her having to fire the weapon at all.

While I am confident in my ability to perform under pressure, especially after having been woken in the middle of the night, and my wife has spent a considerable amount of time at the range getting comfortable with our weapons, I'm not so certain as to how she might actually perform under such circumstances - especially if I'm not at home. And, of course, I sincerely hope I never have to find out.

For those worried about leaving loaded guns around the house, the best option is probably going to be biometric safety measures. While there are guns which can be purchased that have such measures integrated, the selection there is very limited. Currently, your best bet for availability and gun compatibility is going to be biometric gun safes. Ideally, you would go with multiple, small, gun safes dispersed throughout your home so that you have access throughout your home and you're able to most quickly access and bring your weapon to bear - which can be more difficult with larger gun safes. This, of course, only protects the weapon while in the safe. However, there are a number of products either just coming onto or set to soon come onto the market which will offer biometric safety that attach to and move with the weapon, as opposed to locking up the weapon, which either prevent initial firing or any firing of the weapon by an unauthorized user. While only currently available for a 1911, Intelligun offers a biometric safety which prevents the gun from being fired at all by an unauthorized user. Another system, which I am anxious to see and which should support many more firearms from the get-go, is Sentinil - a biometric trigger lock which detaches from the gun upon activation. This product looks interesting because it should be able to easily fit more firearms while requiring no modification to the weapon.

As for my personal defense plan, I'm of the mindset that once you have chosen to invade my property your life is forfeit.

In addition to the aforementioned 12 gauge, I have my Shield 9mm attached to the side of my nightstand and my wife has her .380 BodyGuard attached to the side of hers - both of which are loaded, chambered, and safe with tritium phosphorescent night sights and accompanied by an extra mag and a tactical light. Near the bedroom door, I have a false-wall access panel which holds a small valuables safe and my "go vest".

My go vest is a modified TLBV which has elastic straps instead of cord and is attached to an under armor style shirt - so I can don the vest as quickly as putting on a t-shirt. A kevlar panel sits in the chest area between the vest and the shirt, attached to the vest with elastic straps. There are two "quick draw" pressure holsters - one for my 9mm Shield and one for my Glock 37 - along with slots for two extra mags for each, all for cross-body draws. The Glock and its two extra mags along with one extra mag for the Shield stay in the vest while the Shield itself and one of its extra mags are either at my nightstand or on my person. The vest also holds a cross-body sling to which my AR is attached. I've got a velcro patch on the rib area which holds the AR stock, so it hangs at my side instead of in front. The right kidney area of the vest holds two additional AR mags. The whole thing weighs over 20 pounds, fully loaded, but is hanging at head height in such a way that I can put my arms straight up into the shirt, taking it down and donning it in one motion.

In the event that I'm woken to a perilous, or even suspicious, situation I'll will immediately grab my 9mm and make a quick decision as to whether or not to also grab the shotgun and/or my go vest. If the danger seems imminent then it's either just the 9mm or the 9mm and the shotgun. If there's time, it's the go vest bearing either one of the pistols and a tactical light or the shotgun. I consider the AR to be my "if all else fails" weapon.

Bottom line, if you break into my house while I'm there then you're likely to be greeted by a blinding light and the barrel of a gun. And, if you can see me through the light, you're probably going to see a fairly large man wearing nothing but a funny looking vest with three or four firearms and a couple hundred rounds of ammo at his disposal.