Planning to protect your home.

[matt]

The thread about tac lights started me thinking about this.

How much thought have you given to protecting your home and family, beyond buying a gun? Have you planned out a strategy? Have you thought about where the bullets go that don't land in the intruder? Do you have a safe alternate exit?

I hate the way my house is set up. The main staircase comes up to small landing. All the bedrooms are off of this landing. No way out but down the main stairs.

If I'm in my bedroom and someone comes up the stairs, the kids bedrooms are my back drop. I hate that. At that range I don't care what you are shooting. 2 layers of drywall are not stopping any bullet/shot worth firing.

My plan on hearing some bogeyman in the house is to gather my wife, firearm(s), light, chemical spray (I keep a LARGE can handy), and cell phone (I keep a charged deactivated cell in my safe with the pistol. The cell towers will process 911 calls from it. Then I don't have to worry if the power is out and the cordless phone base isn't working.) and move everyone into one room where I can cover the door effectively with some cover. Then call 911, inform the intruder I have a gun, and hunker down to wait for the troops.

How about you?

Matt

(PS. I'm not paranoid by nature, but my greatest fear is that in fending off an intruder, I'd shoot my kids in the background. It requires a little thought to figure out how not to and still effectively protect them. It's our duty to think these things through ahead of time if we are going to employ lethal force in our plan of defense)

(PPS. writing down that list of crap I want to haul with me makes me realize with nervous hands, it ain't gonna happen... I'll need to group them in a bag I can grab and go with...)

 

[SgtUSMC8541]

Ok,
I keep the GTH bag in my master bedroom. Easy access for all bedrooms.

1 GTH bag; includes 4 extra mags, 2 boxes of ammo, flashlight, extra batts, cell phone with charger, cell phone emergancy charger(runns off AA batts), small first aid kit with extra to handel GSW, wind up radio, water. This all fits easly in a small backback.

My GTH bag is a bit bigger than needed for just home, but I want something that is set up for grab and go including a possable car drive.

My "safe room" had a dead bolt lock and the door frame is metal, not standard wood. Door is also solid, not that cheep stuff. I also make sure all my exterior doors have metal frames (including basement and garage).
That doe not include the proper landscaping, lighting and alarm system with a panic button in the safe room as well as basement and master closet.

Not paranoid but a bit to long in the security industry.

 

[Chris]

Exterior doors are locked most of the time. Only if there is a lot of people coming in or out are they open. Master bedroom has a sold core door with a lock. Certain 'features' are incorporated in the Master bedroom to define true 'cover'.

Different situations will have different responses, but here is the basic idea.

Door is opened for NO ONE until ID can be established. If entry is forced, RUN for Safe Room.

Enter safe room, close and lock door. Call police. Order may differ on situation, but that is the drill (you do keep a cell phone in the bedroom right?) Night brings on an added issue of getting to the kid's room, but there is a plan in place for that.

Police arrive, toss out key with lightstick on it for them to enter (they are paid to do house clearings) Do not open door until 911 operator says that police are on the other side. VERIFY.

The idea is that you retreat and make a stand. Let the issue come to you.

If it is a kid coming home, that should work itself out quickly enough if they know the plan. Perhaps some explaining with the cops and the neighbors, but the kid will think twice about sneaking again.

If it is the "Bump in the Night" kind of thing, hold off the police call, but secure in the safe room and set up a watch for some period of time. Time will be dictated by the situation. If you do go to investigate, have a codeword to reenter the safe room. Something you would never say otherwise. Another code word signifies "CALL POLICE".

Anything comes through the safe room door is stopped. Period. (if they are going to knock down a solid door, they mean business - So do I)

Fire escape is similar with the exception of a fire ladder I can roll out the window if caught on that floor. My security system has different fire (heat), smoke, CO2, and security tones so we know what is triggering.

RUN DRILLS. Actually do it. Rehearsed as well as not. You will be amazed at just how much kids might ignore things like smoke alarms. In fact, a company markets an alarm for kids rooms where parents can record their own voice which has been shown to cause faster reaction.

Regardless of how much training you think you have, it is impossible to clear a house safely. Think of all the little places you could hide in the dark. Don't do it if you don't have to.

Have you done all the non-active measures to deter crime? Perimeter lighting, dog, alarm systems (and I'm not talking about things like expensive monitoring systems, but just cheap indicators like a motion sensor by the sliding glass doors that chime a warning in the bedroom) Dead bolts, Gates, and tons of other stuff.

Don't set up expensive things that are easily seen from outside the home. Draw your curtains at night. Install really BRIGHT outdoor lights that you can control from a safe location, or have them automatic. Secure doors between the garage and the home.

Power Fail LED Nightlights can be a good idea if you place them properly. Enough light to get around without having to make your own, and enough to make passage up stairs or down halls impossible without being seen. But, not situated so that intruder can see you in strategic locations you might want to stand watch from (bump in the night vigil).

etc etc etc.

 

[codenamepaul]

Don't forget the 2nd piece in the BR if yuo have to leave. Don't wanna leave anyone undefended.

 

[adweisbe]

I got nothing. Not even my skivvies.

 

[Mattitude]

Our house is alarmed + the 2 dogs will go nuts if anyone attempts to get in. My plan (which is in place) is the pump shotgun besides the bed. I have a tactical light forend installed, side saddle w/6 shells 00 buck and 2 shells 00 buck in the tube magazine ready to rack into battery. That's about it. Calling the cops first and basically just waiting for them to show up to handle the situation isn't an option...they get the call to pretty much clean up. FYI the Supreme Court ruled that the police DO NOT have an obligation to protect you. In other words, you make the call and they don't show up for 30 minutes-2 hours you can't sue them because some low life hard criminal killed everyone in your family but you.

 

[NIGHT_OWL]

I'm lucky all of the bedrooms are down the same hallway. So if its late at night, all of the rounds will be headed away from my family. There is also plenty of plaster, wood, and aluminum between the bedrooms and the neighbors. "after hours" the doors/windows are locked and there are phones or cell phones in every room where any amount of time is spent.

Dogs and alarm systems are great, but at the present time, I don't have either. Although a dog is on the way!

 

[drgrant]

I am lucky in the sense that I am usually the only one here, and even if
someone else was in the empty bedroom, both of them are at the end of a
short hallway. The typical point of entry would be one of three locations...
which all basically converge along the same path. The whole thing is a
death funnel for bad guys, basically. I can also bug out one of my bedroom
windows if I needed to (with gun and cellphone in hand) as the drop to the
ground is not all that significant. I usually just keep a handgun around but
I have a Rem 870 marine magnum with like 5 win ranger low recoil slugs on tap
if things get REALLY hairy. I'm not worried about overpenetration because
the most probable attack vectors would more than likely result in the slug not
leaving the house, or at worst, end up in the side of a hill in the neighbor's backyard.

-Mike

 

[Lynne]

matt - one thing you didn't list is whether or not you've got an alarm system. I highly recommend getting one. At the very least that would give you a wake up call to get the kids, as well as hopefully scaring off the bad guy. We have one, as well as a dog who'll bark if he hears anything. As well as the "safe room" being the bedroom. Since it's only Ed and I in the house, that's all we have to worry about ('cept for the cat and dog that is).

 

[tuna]

I really like the idea of the key on the lightstick to toss out the window, I've got to remember that one.
As for alarms - I just signed up for one. USAA (for all you military bubbas) offers a discount with ADT.

 

[Chris]

There is also plenty of plaster, wood, and aluminum between the bedrooms and the neighbors.

No there isn't.

Unless you manage to strike a door jam with a fairly low power round, it's going to go through. I wondered about that too. My home has 2x6 construction (thick walls) so I built up a small piece of wall with studs, door jam, siding, etc.

NONE of it stopped a .45ACP. .40 S&W got caught in the door jam, but passed through everything else (almost impossible to hit one stud and cut it clean, almost always kicks out to a side following the grain.) didn't bother with 9mm and the Magnum revolvers all passed clean. Granted I wasn't using hollow points, but in wallboard that wouldn't matter at all and hitting a stud or door jam is a very low probability based on how much area that is compared to the size of the wall.

A more typical 2x4 construction has more studs (18" on center vs. 24" on center) but that is even less likely to stop a round.

It is always best to assume that any shot in a house will pass right on through.

In my safety plan, all shots would be directed toward open forest or a large hill (assuming no ricochet) I actually redesigned my master suite plans to ensure that I would not be aiming at the neighbor.

Of course, new construction is always easier to make such changes.

 

[RKG]

One other useful device is some means of turning on a bunch of downstairs lights and the outside lights remotely from the bedroom. You can use the tried-and-true X10 technology or something more modern. This has two effects: (a) it may well induce the intruders to depart and (b) it lights your target (and has your target looking into the dark).

 

[matt]

No there isn't.

Unless you manage to strike a door jam with a fairly low power round, it's going to go through. I wondered about that too. My home has 2x6 construction (thick walls) so I built up a small piece of wall with studs, door jam, siding, etc.

NONE of it stopped a .45ACP. .40 S&W got caught in the door jam, but passed through everything else (almost impossible to hit one stud and cut it clean, almost always kicks out to a side following the grain.) didn't bother with 9mm and the Magnum revolvers all passed clean. Granted I wasn't using hollow points, but in wallboard that wouldn't matter at all and hitting a stud or door jam is a very low probability based on how much area that is compared to the size of the wall.

A more typical 2x4 construction has more studs (18" on center vs. 24" on center) but that is even less likely to stop a round.

It is always best to assume that any shot in a house will pass right on through.

In my safety plan, all shots would be directed toward open forest or a large hill (assuming no ricochet) I actually redesigned my master suite plans to ensure that I would not be aiming at the neighbor.

Of course, new construction is always easier to make such changes.

Chris, I agree 100%. I've even thought if i build another house, maybe I should consider some steel plate under some of the drywal in strategic locations to prevent tray rounds from doing any meaningful damage (i.e. to people). Even wondered about retrofitting it in the kids bedrooms given our floor plan, but I wouldn't want to rely on it.

Matt

 

[Jaxon]

I live in a ajoined condo config, so I have neighbors directly on either side. On the left, I'm not concerned, the the one on the right we share the wall with the stairs. Anyone coming up those stairs is going to be backstopped by that wall. Only stairs, so only way up.

Doors are alarmed, so that should deter further entry. If not, then our bedroom can be easily baricaded. The necessary equipment is all present and handy for repeling boarders.

Expect the worst and hope for the best.

 

[Chris]

Chris, I agree 100%. I've even thought if i build another house, maybe I should consider some steel plate under some of the drywal in strategic locations to prevent tray rounds from doing any meaningful damage (i.e. to people). Even wondered about retrofitting it in the kids bedrooms given our floor plan, but I wouldn't want to rely on it.

There is a very nice kevlar mat product sold to be placed under sheetrock that will stop most handgun calibers (similar to a Type II vest) Basically, sheetrock the room with 1/2 inch and then where you want the mat, use 1/4 inch sheetrock over it and when you mud and tape, it will be invisible. NOT cheap, and not 100% bullet proof, but what is? There are special wall anchor screws required too.

 

[Jose]

Yes, I do have a plan.

 

[JRyan]

I have a plan as well. I hashed it out with a person who has a lot of training and knows my area and house.