Home Defense from The American Rifleman

lklawson · Jun 10, 2015

Several articles from The American Rifleman on Home Defense

http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2013/11/26/preparing-a-home-defense-plan/

Preparing a Home Defense Plan
by Jim Wilson - Tuesday, November 26, 2013

If life was fair, your home would be a safe place, your sanctuary, your castle. It would be the one place where you were completely separate from all the cares of the world. Sadly, such is not the case. One merely needs to read the newspapers to see the number of home invasions that violate American homes and families virtually every day. Every home is a potential target for criminal activity; none are exempt.

For this reason, it is critical to have a home-defense plan that will make your home a less likely target and protect your family until the police can arrive and take charge. Since families are so different, no one plan will fit every home. Each family must create a plan that fits their home and situation. What follows are three broad areas that every family should consider in developing their own home-defense plan.

Harden the Target

If you built a house that was impossible to get into, you would have a house that you couldn't get out of either. What a homeowner should do is make his or her house difficult to break into and one that causes a lot of noise should a break-in occur. Noise is your friend. It let's you know that something is wrong and gives you a bit of time to prepare to deal with the problem.

All external doors should be solid, hard-core doors. While this is usually the case in new homes, one should not take it for granted. The next step is to check the locks on all of the doors and windows. Make sure they work. If they seem worn out, or flimsy, they should be replaced. By the way, it's not only an excellent idea to lock the house when you leave, it is equally as important to lock the door behind you when you return home.

On the outside of the house, it is a good idea to have adequate lighting on all sides of the house. This way, you can see who is out there and your neighbors can see if someone is prowling around. It is also a good idea to avoid having large shrubs next to the house as this can provide some concealment for criminals as they stage their attack.

Finally, regarding making the home a safer place to live, many police departments are happy to have one of their officers come by your house and make a security evaluation. And there is nothing like getting ideas for security upgrades from the folks who actually have to investigate burglaries and home invasions.

The Safe Room

One room in the house should be designated as the Safe Room. This is the room where the family will gather should a criminal attack occur. Since many such attacks occur at night, most people select the master bedroom as the safe room.

Ideally, the safe room will have a solid-core door installed with strong locks. The room should also include places of cover that will stop bullets. The bed, itself, may serve this purpose, as will other types of furniture. It would also be comforting if the room had an attached bathroom since one never knows how long it will take the police to restore peace and order in the rest of the house.

Since criminals may have cut off your electricity and phone lines, the room should be stocked with several flashlights, and other sources of light, along with several cell phones. It should also have a supply of whatever medications a family member might need. In addition, a good first-aid kit is necessary since family members may have been injured while getting to the room. If one is trained in the defensive use of firearms, this is also the place for storing guns and extra ammunition.

Once the family has ensconced themselves in the safe room they only come out at the direction of responding police officers. Anyone who forces themselves into the room becomes silhouetted in the doorway and makes an excellent target. One just simply does not wander around the house looking for bad guys unless absolutely necessary.

The Home-Defense Plan & Your Family

Developing a procedure for defending against a home invasion should involve the whole family. Everyone in the family should understand when and how to get to the safe room. And once in the safe room, just about everyone in the family can play a part in protecting the family. Family members trained in defensive shooting may be prepared to deal with a forced entry, while other family members may be on the phone to the police, providing details. The more information you can supply to the police, the more effective their response can be. Tell them where they can find a house key (not under the doormat, please) to make their entry. Tell them where in the house the safe room is located. In fact, if there is an external door to the safe room, the police might be able to enter that way and get you and your family out before they engage the criminals. Once the police are on the phone, never hang up. The entire conversation will be recorded and you can also keep them informed as to what is going on before and during their arrival.

A family home-defense plan should involve numerous family planning sessions that involve the whole family. You must make the decision as to how mature your children are and what defensive duties they can perform. Just don't exclude them from the planning process because you would be surprised at some of the good ideas that kids can come up with.

Finally, you should also have a plan for making an organized retreat from the safe room and the house. This may become necessary if the house catches fire. Or police, once they have arrived, might instruct you to leave the house and go to their staging area.

I have not said anything about what kind of guns should be in the house because that is not as important as knowing how to use the guns that you have. If you keep guns for personal defense you are honor bound to get proper defensive training with them. Having hunted all your life doesn't make you a gunfighter. It is just that simple; if you keep defensive firearms you need to get professional defensive training for everyone in the family that might use them. Besides several great defensive schools around the country, the National Rifle Association offers good, relatively inexpensive classes aimed directly at personal and home-defense.

A home defense plan isn't just about dealing with the bad guys. Your family meetings can also discuss procedures in case of fire, tornado, hurricane or other natural threat. Besides these are also times for the entire family to be together and to work together toward a common goal.

Your home defense is what you make it. And your family can be your winning team. Now is the time to prepare your defense. If you wait until you hear glass break, it might be entirely too late.
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Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

lklawson · Jun 10, 2015

Home Defense for the Family

http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2014/3/10/home-defense-for-the-family/

Home Defense for the Family
by Jim Wilson - Monday, March 10, 2014

Very few would argue that having a home-defense plan is not an important thing. Unfortunately, most folks limit the scope of their thinking unnecessarily when considering home-defense. Home-defense is not just about using a firearm to defend against a violent criminal attack. It is also about defending the home and family against fire, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and any other situation, man-made or not, that places the family in danger.

Another major mistake is for the head of the household to think that he alone should devise a plan that will protect everyone. In a criminal attack, the man of the house may be the first one to fall. If that happens, what exactly is the rest of the family supposed to do? Who knows what tools to use and how to use them? Who knows who to call for help? Home-defense has to be the task of the entire family. And the entire family should be involved in the planning.

As painful as it may sound, it really wouldn't hurt to turn the TV off for an hour, or so, and have an old-fashioned family meeting. This family discussion should begin by listing the various dangers that are possible in your area. If you live in Oklahoma, it is probably a waste of time to talk about hurricanes, but tornadoes are a different situation altogether.

Once the list begins to take shape, subsequent family meetings should work on developing a plan to deal with each situation. Lists of equipment and supplies that will be needed should be made, as well as deciding who is going to be responsible for taking care of those supplies and operating the equipment.

I think it is extremely important that the children in a family should also be a part of these planning sessions. During our frontier days, the entire family was involved in defending against the threat of attacks. Those who weren't shooting were busy reloading the guns for those who were. Children who were too young to do any shooting were involved in molding bullets and carrying food and water to the defenders. In short, the frontier family faced the threat as a unified family unit with each having an important task to contribute. That is the same sort of attitude that will protect today's families who have to deal with serious problems that threaten their existence.

Parents must be the judge of their children's maturity and ability to handle assignments. They just shouldn't short-change their kids when it comes to evaluating their skills and abilities. Kids are often far more observant and capable than we sometimes think. As a police officer, I quickly found that neighborhood kids were a great source of information and accurate descriptions. If we needed to know what kind of car the bad guy was driving, I often looked around for any boys between the ages of 12 and 16 to get a complete description.

In assigning tasks to the children of the family, it is often fairly easy to come up with assignments that are important but do not place the child in danger. For example, when you wake up to the smell of smoke in the house, your 5-year-old's job may be simply to escape through the bedroom window and run to the neighbor's house for help. This is assuming, of course, that one knows the neighbors and has made prior arrangements with them.

When firearms are a part of your home-defense plan, the entire family should be part of a firearms program that begins with gun safety. Nothing works for little kids like the NRA's Eddie Eagle program. If your schools don't have the program, help them get it started. If your schools don't want the program, find other ways to sponsor it in your community or neighborhood. In many parts of the country, 4-H has classes on gun safety and basic marksmanship. It would also be a great idea for all of the family gunhandlers to attend NRA shooting classes. And it is an excellent idea for the entire family to attend the same class so that you are all on the same page and speak the same language.

Some years ago, I had a group of my hunting buddies over to the house. They were all out in the den and I was in the kitchen arranging refreshments when I heard my 5-year-old son say, “Don't touch that gun without my dad's permission!”

It turned out that one of the guys had opened my gun case to show a new rifle to the rest of the group. When I stepped out to admonish my son, the friend spoke up, “Don't say a word to that boy. He is exactly right and I should have asked permission.” Kids can and do learn.

While it might be wrong to call these family defense sessions fun, it is amazing to find how they will become interesting and pull the family together. Each member begins to take pride in having a part, however small, in the welfare of the family unit. Having a plan helps keep their natural fear under control. Family members learn not only what their duties will be, but what the rest are tasked with, too.

In time, these family meetings may become a weekly affair, discussing the issues that you are faced with and how to best deal with them. Home-defense is really family defense and the whole family should be involved. Besides, it will give the TV a much needed rest.
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Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

lklawson · Jun 10, 2015

Preparing For Home Defense

http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2012/12/3/preparing-for-home-defense/

Preparing For Home Defense
by B. Gil Horman - Monday, December 03, 2012

The saying goes like this: A man’s home is his castle. If you're a regular reader of firearm publications, then you already know there's no shortage of information available regarding firearms for home protection. And while we have plenty of good reasons to carefully select and regularly practice with reliable defensive firearms, they represent only a portion of what should be a better-rounded and more inclusive home-preparedness plan.

It's important to remember that guns don't make us "safe." They represent a last line of protection when all other home-based defenses and deterrents have failed, or have been bypassed by individuals with intent on doing harm. The purpose of this discussion is not to underplay the importance of defensive firearms, but to point out a few precautions and tools available to increase home security.

Getting Home
It was shortly after Hurricane Katrina that I found myself in a lunch group made up of co-workers discussing emergency preparedness. One subject that came up was transportation. How exactly would folks get home from the work site if there was a natural disaster, terrorist attack or some other needful reason to get home quickly? A member of the group said he planned to run for it, literally.

He had taken up the hobby of participating in local triathlons and kept his running shoes and clothing in the trunk of his car. He went on to explain that in a situation where traffic routes to his home were blocked, or the traffic jammed, he had mapped out a couple of foot routes that would allow him to run to his house in about 20 minutes. The group politely chuckled at this idea, since we knew he was in shape to do it but we were not. But we had to agree that his plan was far better than the one most of us had, which was no plan at all. It was a strong reminder that no amount of home preparation will be sufficient if we're not there to use it.

Consider filling up a vehicle’s fuel tank when it’s half-way empty instead of nearing completely dry. Keep vehicles in good repair with season-appropriate tires mounted. Map out and test alternate routes to your home. Work with your family to organize an emergency contact plan to get in touch with each of them if there is a need to get home, or to let you know if they are going to need help getting there. Take a look and see if an alternative transportation strategy (subway, by foot, bicycle) could be used if driving home is not a practical option.

"Hardening" A Home
The term "target hardening" is used by military and security professionals to describe the process in which a building is enhanced or altered to make it a less desirable, and a more difficult, object of attack. This does not mean converting a structure into an impenetrable bunker per se, but increasing the level of security to the highest level a building can reasonably support. Hardening a home has two important benefits. First, it makes the home less appealing to thieves and burglars who are looking for easy marks to exploit. Second, added security measures provide a home owner with the single most precious commodity in a self-defense situation—time. The more time it takes a crook to break through the external defenses, the more time the home defender has to access internal defenses and to alert the authorities to the situation.

Hardening a home consists of installing a variety of affordable and common-sense options that most home owners can easily implement. Look into installing a security alarm system, if you don't already have one in place. If you are not in the habit of using it, then get it programmed properly and keep it activated. If an integrated security system isn’t an option, then take a look at attaching noise emitters to windows and doors. Take the time to get to know your neighbors and keep an eye on each other’s properties when out of town. One of the best alert systems has been protecting people for thousands of years, and enjoys going for walks and catching frisbees. If you like dogs, then consider adding a four-legged family member.

Install strong doors and door locks. Upgrade the window locks, plant thorny bushes under windows and remove objects that could potentially be used as impromptu step stools for easier access. Don’t forget to upgrade second or third story access points as well. Plenty of criminals are willing to do some climbing to get what they want. Walk around the perimeter of the house and identify problem areas, such as easy points of access or spots that are concealed from view of other houses or the street. Consider changing the landscaping or the fence line to solve these issues.

Possibly the best, and most affordable, exterior home security option is motion-activated lighting. Place lights with sensors in strategic locations to activate when anyone approaches the doors or driveway. A sudden flood of startling illumination will not only work to frighten criminals who want to sneak around, but it will also allow the occupants to clearly see if any threats are lurking about as they exit or enter the home at night.

Defending the Doors
A disturbing trend in modern crime is what has become commonly known as a home invasion. This style of attack can be carried off by one person, but the criminals usually team up for the event. They knock politely, sometimes using a vulnerable looking or disguised decoy, present a reason for the person inside the home to open the door, and then rush the occupant to force entry into the house or apartment.

While the idea of being assaulted at your own front door is frightening, there are strategies for mitigating this kind of danger. Look through a peep hole or a window before opening a door to verify who is knocking. If anything about the situation looks strange or feels weird, communicate through the door instead of opening it. This is especially true late at night. It may not seem very charitable to shout through a closed door at 3 a.m. that there’s a gas station two blocks away to a stranger who says his or her car broke down. But then again, it may be the safest option in that situation.

There are times when we must the open door to deal with people. Consider installing a steel security door, many of which look like fancy screen doors, that can remain locked when the front door is open. Even if all you have is a light screen door, keeping it locked may provide the moments needed to shut and lock the main door. If your living accommodations won't allow for a security door, then install an interior security chain. Having some sort of device in place to slow an uninvited guest is better than nothing at all.

One simple security practice is to tell friends and family that if they need to come to your home at night to call ahead and let you know they are on the way. The least expensive security system around the doorway is situational awareness. Some folks turn on the danger radar when they arrive at other locations, like shopping areas or their work place parking lots. Situational awareness should be up and running before leaving the house and fully active while approaching and entering the home.

Plan, Organize, and Practice
During a recent conversation with a defensive shooting instructor, he shared the story of a student who had a close call with a burglar. This person had a relatively advanced level of defensive training and knew how to use the guns, lights and other gear he had lined up for a home-defense situation. One night he and his wife heard that dreaded bump in the night.

This is when, according to the student, he began to make important mistakes. In the panic induced by the fear of being attacked, he found himself scrambling to gather items that were spread out around the house. He forgot strategies and training points as he struggled to communicate with his spouse and respond to the situation. Luckily, when it became clear that someone was home and paying attention, the burglar stopped trying to gain entry and ran away. This was a best-case scenario and a wake-up call rolled into one. No one in his family was hurt, which is always the best outcome we can hope for. But in spite of this student’s gun training, he and his family had not actually developed and practiced a defensive plan.

The house-hardening choices we make, the security strategies adopted and the defensive firearms purchased cannot be used to their best advantage without having a clear plan to bring them all together in a meaningful way when a threat shows itself. Be prepared to communicate instructions, to access defensive tools and to engage the threat in the safest manner the situation will allow. Be sure to take the time to work with your spouse and the other members of your household who are old enough to understand the plan and support it.

Although it's not possible for one article to contain an all-inclusive list of tips, tricks and tactics for a home-defense plan, the Internet is a valuable resource to learn and share ideas. If you have additional products, ideas or strategies to volunteer, then by all means post a comment and share it with the rest of us.
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Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Atomic_Ed · Jun 10, 2015

Interesting timing on you throwing this subject up. The SO and I walked through this last weekend.

The master bedroom is where we head to. At night, we both grab our pistols, place the flashlight on the bed facing the door and go to the master bath. The master bath is to the left and I'm left handed, which keeps my trained arm able to cut the corner and my body behind a bunch of clothes.

The flashlight on the bed idea is to focus the intruder on the bed first and make it easy for us to see him without exposing ourselves.

moona11 · Jun 10, 2015

And another good read

Rerun · Jun 10, 2015

I've always envisioned my home's defenses resembling what is seen in the original movie, "The Omega Man"...

eldar

MaryB · Jun 10, 2015

Well I have an alarm cat... Tigger would attack and the racket will wake the dead. Otherwise walking up my steps would be a deadly mistake because anyone coming up will expose their head to a blast from the 12 gauge... but in this town one break in every 5 years is about max and it is usually a druggie meth head looking for stuff to pawn.

lklawson · Jun 11, 2015

MaryB said: ↑

Otherwise walking up my steps would be a deadly mistake because anyone coming up will expose their head to a blast from the 12 gauge...
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I've heard that the newest trend among shotgun experts is that you really only need to "just walk out on the balcony here, walk out and put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house."

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

moona11 · Jun 11, 2015

lklawson said: ↑

I've heard that the newest trend among shotgun experts is that you really only need to "just walk out on the balcony here, walk out and put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house."

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
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Ya I saw a video of him. Think his name was Delbert Dumb Ass or something like that :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

undeRGRound · Jun 11, 2015

...and then...

:rofl:

MaryB · Jun 11, 2015

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