Defined as a burglary or illegal, unauthorized entry into your house while a family member is at home, a home invasion, can be particularly dangerous. Presumably the trespassers either don’t know or don’t care if you are home. There intent may be far more insidious than mere burglary in motive—possibly including kidnapping, rape, or murder for whatever reason, or no reason at all. Home invasions happen daily. You’ve only to read the daily metro section of a metropolitan newspaper to realize the prevalence of this crime.
You should feel safe at home. It should be a refuge against intruders and the outside world. A place of peace and comfort. Unfortunately, this is a mere illusion unless you take particular safeguards against home invasion.
Home Invasions can happen at anytime of day or night. Entry can be blatantly bold, right through the front door in the guise of some llegiitimate purpose, so you must first have a means of identifying who it is at your door. If you are not expecting these people, don’t be fooled by a workman's uniform or cap. Demand ample identification until you are satisfied that the approach to your home is legitimate. Good Americans have been conditioned to respond to a badge or uniform and to follow authority. If it is the privacy of your own home, you do not have to open it until you are satisfied that the people at your door are who they say they are and have a good purpose for being there.
Your doors should have good dead bolt locks which can provide extra security while you are secured inside. This is probably the most cost effective method of securing your home. In high crime areas, bars on windows may be a necessity. Make sure that your doors cannot be opened from the outside while you are inside. Additional measures may help whether you or there or not, such as electronic security systems from reputable companies who monitor for automated calls and alert police when your doors and window are tampered with. These measures are relatively inexpensive, but still may be cost prohibitive. Still they require that you remember to set and disarm the alarms as you come and go, or they are of no use. These companies provide sinage announcing that you are a subscriber to the service, which may have a deterrent effect upon criminals casing your neighborhood. But even these systems are not foolproof to a savvy carer criminal.
Each family should have an emergency plan to deal with fire and home invasion and other emergencies. Each family member should know all the details by heart. Mobile phones have done much to aid in protection against home invasion. However, you cannot depend upon the police or anyone else, to come to the rescue. They can’t be everywhere at once. Response times may be far too slow to depend on.
As electronics becomes more advanced, your local computer may be inexpensively outfitted by video cams that able to be set up to provide visibility in blind areas. These may also provide continuous video tape records to refer back to. With a little bit of computer ingenuity, you can even use your TV to show what is going on around you by flipping switches.
Each home should have a safe room. It should be as obscure as possible, even with a hidden door entered via a closet or other manner if possible. The room should preferably be upstairs if there is more than one story, with the exception of areas prone to tornadoes or earthquake. In these cases a downstairs room might better be considered. The safe room should be without windows and should preferably be fortified against forcible entry. If there is no handyman to affect these features for a safe room, an outside contractor may be able to help.
Your safe room should be large enough to comfortably accommodate all members of your family with at least enough leg room and seating. Sound proofing would be ideal, but not essential. The room should be equipped with a battery powered radio and weather radio. These can be bought as a single unit. Multiple flashlights with extra batteries are a good addition too.
Munchies and some bottled water is also ideal. Some people actually design special racks in their safe room used to store and rotate canned goods, with enough essentials to survive for one or two years. Although you may consider these amenities as extreme, at the very least they may enable you to buy food in bulk at a savings and provide a hedge against inflation. The purpose of such storage is more for a case of extended emergencies such as trucker strikes, and natural or catastrophic disaster.
If you have small children, puzzles and games might help ease tensions while they are cooped up inside the room. Drills in the form of games can be entertaining and useful in preparation for actual use of the safe room.
One very secured entrance is good. If means allow, a secret escape entrance can be a good addition, especially if you are considering a safe room when building a house. In areas where basements are practical, a portion or all of it may be ideal to use as a safe room. If toilet facilities are not available in this room, a chemical toilet such as is used in RV’s and posh camping would be considered.
Every family member should have a self-contained 36–hour emergency preparedness backpack. In the backpack should be bottled water, or a canteen, bandaids, munchies such as trail-mix, MRE (Military Ready to Eat) meals, flashlight and extra batteries, disinfectant, Off, Swiss Army Knife or Leatherman-type utility knives. A portable water filter may be shared among family members but at the very least, water purification tablets should be included in each pack with instructions about how to use them. A mess kit can be useful , as can be a tent to house all family members.
Bic lighters or fire-starters, are good inclusions as well as s a Boy Scout Field Manual or other such emergency book, which includes first-aid, knots and other helpful survival lore. Twine and/or rope has multiple uses. If you jog your memory by pretending that you are going on a three day camp-out, you will think of other things to include. Toilet paper, paper cups, wire, camp saw or hatchet, Space Blankets, pocket raincoats, and small foam mattresses may be included. All of this must be geared to the capacity of your family members to carry them if required.
Don’t forget necessary medicines for special needs such as nitroglycerin for heart patients, Insulin and diabetic supplies, and any other such needs. Practice is important in the form of play drills with the family. The idea is to be able to leave (or stay nearby) your house if necessary in the event of a natural disaster such as earthquakes, floods, etc.
Home Defense Weapons
When it comes to weapons, the same handgun can be used for your home. It should be loaded with fragmented bullets or hollow points so that it will not go through walls and kill members of your family or your neighbors or first-responders. However, as a strictly home defense weapon, my own preference is a 12 gauge shotgun. The pump-action variety is best. I even have a model and brand which is the usual preference in such cases. The Remington 870 pump-action 12 gauges come in a variety of styles. any will work, but a customized home invasion weapon with a shortened or eliminated stock and a pistol grip and a tactical fore grip is desirable.
Such a customization can also include an extended shell tube with a bright halogen Surelight-style mounted directly underneath the muzzle with a remote switch which can activate the light easily at your fingertips. There are special lights made foe this available from most guns stores or from the Internet. Cheaper-than-Dirt is one such supplier. Brownell’s is another. You can also get a mount that will provide two or three accessories.
The use of the one or two extra mounts can be used for an Infra-red or IR unit to be used in conjunction with a night vision scope (to be discussed). A rd-dot laser sight can also be affixed to such a mount. This not only provides an aiming system, but it is a deterrent in itself for an intruder to see such a dot trained upon their body.
An alternate place to mount the above-mentioned accessories is on a multiple Weaver or Picatinny rail which can be bought to attach to the front sight area of the shotgun. If using the top of the shotgun, mount the white light onto the outside rail. This will reduce the chances of an intruder aiming at the light and hitting you. White light and Night Vison cannot be used simultaneously as it will burn out the intensifier tube of the. But a night vision mounted directly to the inside Weaver rail is another option. IR can only be seen through night vision equipment, so in such a configuration it would still be best to keep the IR unit under the muzzle of the shotgun.
A tactical shotgun usually has a barrel length of 18.5 inches. Shorter lengths are illegal. If a barrel is to be sawed off, it should be done by a gun-smith or other knowledgeable in order to re-establish a proper choke and a barrel crown. One other accessory which may replace one of the other sighting systems is a so-called halo-graphic sight available from such places as ATN Corp online. Cheaper-than-Dirt and Brownells should also have these.
The practicality of such a halo-graphic-style sight is that it can be adjusted so that it is quickly picked up by both eyes. It projects a laser-like reticle onto which optically appears to hover in the air about fifty feet in from of you. It is actually merely projected onto a piece of glass near the front sight area. This type of sight tuned to its dimmest setting is appears as a mellow green dot when viewed through a night vision goggle.
This brings us to the absolute ideal system if money allows. This is a night vision multi-purpose system including a goggle mount for the small NV intensifier scope. The scope comes with both a mount for a Weaver-style weapon platform as well as different lenses, supplemental IR, camera adapter and the scope can be used as a NV monocular. Night Vision comes in generations of intensity. Gen One will suffice, in conjunction with Supplemental IR of about 450 mw. Although very desirable, each increase generation of light-gathering ability greatly increase the price of the unit. Very expensive units can even be switched from day to night vision, without harming the tube.
12 gauge ammo should be in plentiful supply. A mixture of interlaced slugs, buckshot, and light bird shot provides the maximum coverage in a tight home invasion scenario. Stock “jackets” are made to carry reloads on board the shotgun. Bandalero-style ammo belts like those used in the old spaghetti Westerns are also available as is various tactical clothing and even bullet-proof vests. All of this equipment, though very desirable, can be very expensive. You must start with the basics and use prudence to guide your equipment decisions.
in case of Anarchy Such as After Katrina
If a second defensive weapon can be afforded and considered (to be used by a second adult) as in the case of anarchy such as that which accrued after Katrina—either an AK-47 style Weapon in 7.62x39 round or a slightly more expensive AR-15 in 223 caliber. Other weapons to consider are the AK-74 in 5.45x39, and the Daewoo 200 in 223. There are tactical reason to prefer either, but any of these will work. Make sue you can buy ammo, and keep 1000 rounds and plenty of 30 round mags on hand. These are semi-auto weapons commonly called assault weapons to make them sound more menacing by the anti-gun crowd.
In lieu of the above for the second weapon in an anarchy or survival situation is an much less expensive semi-automatic 22 such as a Nylon 66 or even better a Ruger 10/22. Store plenty of hollow point ammunition. although much less powerful than the guns mentioned above, a semi-automatic 22 filled with hollow point ammo will stop virtually any man or beast which walks the earth with multiple well-placed shots. thus, target practice is essential.
All of the above amounts to a comprehensive set-up for virtually any contingent. Don’t be discouraged by its scope and breadth. Start with the essentials and use prudence to build and prepare for the most likely scenario for your area. Merely a good dead-bolt lock on your doors, and a general plan is a huge step toward making your home a much harder target for would-be home Invaders. Doug Wright
Links: The Wright Place
Really like the information. Defending ones home and family are becoming more important than ever. Information like this need to be in the mainstream of media. The new Safe Family Life home security and safety kits are an excellent way to protect your family.
Posted by: Taserdude | May 01, 2010 at 06:32 PM