Home defense concepts and equipment

[Failure2Stop]

I am posting this due to another thread regarding equipment selection for training that brought up the concept of home defense. I am in no way an expert on civilian home defense (I don't even know what would make one qualified in this skill set anyway), so I have based this on my experience with defense of buildings in a military context.

I am not talking about defending your compound from marauding hordes of Chinese ATF Agent Zombies, but rather response to a "bump in the night", breaking glass, barking dog situation. There are of course circumstantial differences that will drive the individual in their response to a potential home invasion which will determine if the individual will be better off barricading themself, securing family members, or actively looking for invaders. I am interested in how different people envision themselves responding, the traning that supports this response, and the reasoning for their response method/equipment.

Here is my view-
When in my home I do not carry a firearm. This could be viewed as poor mindset I guess, but I don't. I usually have a loaded firearm within arm's reach or at least in the same room, but it is rarely attached to me unless I have just returned from the the outside world where I was carrying, before changing for exercise/shower/attention to the GF, etc. In the event of a suprise breach it will probably take me a few seconds to get a gun in hand. I will just have to hope the invader(s) will trip over my coffee table while I scramble for a weapon.

When I am sleeping I have the ubiquitous "pistol on the bed-stand" with a light attached as well as a hand-held light and my cell phone. The primary purpose of that pistol is to deal with something that has entered the room. It is the only firearm I will reasonably be able to bring to bear should the attacker be in extremely close proximity and allow me to fight with both hands and still deliver effective fire.

I keep a M4 clone in a "cruiser ready"/"condition 3"/"loaded but not made ready" state with the safety engaged. It's application is for anytime I have time/opportunity/need to grab it and charge it. It is kept in cond 3 for a few reasons, not the the least of which is impeding the immediate use of the weapon by someone that entered my bedroom.

I see an invasion worthy of immediate investigation. This is not to say that anyone else should do so, simply that in my general situation I reason that it would be better to do so than to barricade. The faster I respond to the invasion the more initiative and suprise are on my side. I want to make contact before the invader(s) have had time to orient themselves or gain deep placement inside the enclosure. Hopefully I will be able to catch them before thay have completed entry. This requires speed.

Due to my need for rapid action I will be limited to tools and equipment that I can hold or use while closing with the suspected breach point. Target identification and discrimination are critical to the success of home defense without endangering non-threatening individuals, so I will need to have a light, which are mounted on my go-to guns. I want to close with the breach point as quickly as tactically possible, so I will most likely not have the time to dress in anything more substantial than my bunny-slippers.

While I have armor available I think that speed of action is more important than protection level. Same with spare ammunition- I don't have anywhere in my boxers to retain a mag, so I will go with what is in my gun (another reason I like a Redi-Mag).

I have had a couple of times that I have responded to what seemed to be attempted break-ins as I have described and at no point did I think that I was doing the "wrong" thing (one was nothing, the other was a drunk guy that mistook my front door for his and kept trying to get his key to turn). I was able to quickly identify the location of the "breach" even when awaking from deep sleep and quickly move to that location.

When working alone you are exponentially more vulnerable than even working as a pair. Since you are more vulnerable from the rear I reckon that keeping your back to a know safe area while controlling deeper movement by the invader and minimizing frontal exposure to be the safest concept, while closing down the breach point as quickly as possible will resolve the incident the fastest. Situation and layout will play a large part in what concept will work better.

From the other thread I see that some are taking the time to put on armor and belts. While I decided against it, there may be merit in it, and I am curious as to how those items have worked in actual use, or how their absence would have made a difference.

[Iraqgunz]

F2S,

I see alot of common sense and thought in your plan. When I am home my scenario is as follows;

1. G19 or G22 on night stand with Surefire X300 attached. Next to night stand is an AR with a light, sling and one fully loaded PMAG. Chamber is empty, on fire.

2. Lots of factors involved assuming that one wakes up and is coherent. Basically if I hear a bump in the night I'll grab the pistol, do a look, listen and observe and go from there.

3. If the front door is kicked in and SHTF then I will go straight for the AR, take a position at the bedroom door which has a view to the pantry/garage and my sons room and a view down the hall towards the main part of the house. In this time my wife will be calling 911 and manning the Glock and heading towards the walk-in closet/ safe room.

4. As for armor and belts and all that jazz probably not. I would rather stop the threat immediately then be dicking around and get caught with my pants down.

[Jay Cunningham]

This is an excellent topic for discussion.

Concerning civilian home defense, I can only speak for myself. I have heard every argument for or against this approach or that approach and this piece of gear or gun versus the other one... and they can all be valid with an understanding of the context.

For me:

My primary defensive weapon is a modified Glock 19 equipped with an SF x300 light loaded with Speer Golt Dot 124 gr. +P JHP's. This is my "nightstand gun" and is always ready to go. Quite frequently, I am armed with my other Glock 19 while in my dwelling, but I am not always carrying inside.

I have a modified Colt LE6920 in Condition 3 quickly accessible, but this is not what I'm going to grab if someone is inside - this is for a condition that I have at least a minute of advance warning. This weapon is equipped with a CCO, a quick-adjusting two point sling, and a weapon-mounted light.

I do have my "war belt" (which is my training class rig) hanging alongside my LE6920... is this something that I would realistically ever don? I could - it only takes throwing it around my waist and a click to secure it. It is loaded with everything I might ever need for an extended fight. The odds that I would ever need this (or could ever effectively use this) are extraordinarily low, but it doesn't cost me anything to maintain, so it's there as an option. Realistically, you are going to run with what you brung on your gun - which is why I also agree that something like a Redi-Mag is a great idea for a defensive carbine. I have pondered whether a sling is necessary in this scenario, and I can understand why someone might omit it.

I live in an apartment on the ground floor, so I don't really have much margin for error. If I ever experienced a "hot break-in" then I need to be instantly in the fight - I have no choice. Retreating to a bedroom is not really an option for me. I need to confront any intruder with extreme aggression. I know for a fact that I have the ability to be up and armed out of a deep sleep in mere seconds. My wife shook me awake once to whisper "there's someone jiggling the knob on our front door"... I was up and armed instantly, taking cover between an interior wall and the front door, developing the situation. Turns out it was a couple of drunk morons who thought they were somewhere else... all's well that ends well.

I think my wife knows to stay behind me and call 911 - but I have no idea what she'd actually do.

[Thomas M-4]

Having dealt with a similar situation in the past that included said dirtbag trying to take a loved on as a hostage. You may not hear anything bump in the night you may only hear the voice of your loved one. As a pistol is put to there head I believe that immediate action is the best choice most of the time along with stealth if at all possible if stealth is not possible then speed and violence of action to throw said attacker to a confused and off balance position.
As far as firearms recommendations what ever you feel most confident using
M-4 good choice if set up for cqb [reddot or irons]
Pistol not my first choice but its because Iam not the greatest pistol shot and I like having as much stopping power with control as I can.
Shotgun most are big and a little unwieldy but that can be helped some it does have plenty of stopping power for room to room.

And if possible having firearms spread out the house in concealed locations is nice because not all home invasions take place in the night while you are asleep in you bed.

[Zhurdan]

I had a situation a ways back where a guy crashed into the empty lot next to my house and got out and ran from the police. He was drunk and tried running up the hill next to my house. He ran into a wire fence (as it was dark and he couldn't see it) and tumbled down the hill. It was funny to watch him roll down the hill, but I realized that if he'd made a B-line for my sliding glass door (which was open), he'd have been there by the time I got up and looked outside (lazy response because wife and I were pondering what the ruckus might have been). That being said, I carry all the time, even at home. It usually ends up on the coffee table if we're parked in the couch watching a movie or something, but after that, I realized there's little time to actually arm yourself.

At night, my carry pistol goes on the nightstand with my mag pouch that I carry normally. Rifles are in the safe as the houses are pretty close together. If there was an obvious breach into my home, I'd hunker down in the bedroom with the wife on the phone because of the way the house is set up. From the bedroom, it allows me the ability to light up whatever comes thru the door with no worries of over penetration (there's a big hill behind whatever would come thru the bedroom door. If I left the confines of the bedroom, there's just too many other homes across the street and on the left side of the home for me to feel safe about firing. NOT to say I can't shoot, but all it would take is one miss in the dark to irrevokably change things for the innocent people nearby. Besides, the situation puts an agressor at a severe disadvantage being I'll know exactly when they reach the bedroom door (it's locked at night) and I have an off center view of the door. If it gets kicked open without notification, it ain't anyone I want or asked to be there.

If there's just a "scary noise" as my wife calls it, I have a system wired in my house to a central remote. I press a few buttons, and all the lights in the house and outside come on. If someone's coming in quiet, they probably don't want the attention and would bolt. If not, they'll face the same .45 a loud assaulting BG would.

I seriously doubted for a long time that this situation would ever arise in my little old town, but a year or so ago, there were people violently busting into homes for prescription drugs. (they figured out the BG's had a person directing them to homes with recent perscriptions and caught them) It is highly unlikely that this will happen, but it's better to have a plan than not.

As an aside, we charge our cell phones in the bedroom rather than somewhere else. It'd pay to have access to a phone that isn't wired into a wall.

[dbrowne1]

I don't really have any interest in going looking for scumbags one or two floors down if my alarm goes off while I'm in bed. I definitely take the "Alamo" approach and would just wait for them to come to me. If you have kids/family elsewhere in floorplan then obviously your situation changes and you take the risks that you need to take. Every instructor I have ever asked has agreed that clearing any house, even your own, is a very bad idea if you're all alone.

One of my biggest fears - one that many people don't seen too worried about - is that a burglar will break in and get ahold of one of my guns and then either I or my girlfriend will walk in while he's there. I don't think people give enough thought to that kind of scenario when they "cleverly" hide guns around the house or in closets. There is not a single gun in my house that isn't secured, unless I am at home with it. Usually that means that my "nightstand" gun is just whatever I carried that day. In the morning it goes back on my belt, and everything else is in the safe.

[rob_s]

I had different plans when I was single than I do now that I have a woman and her child that I'm responsible for as well. I've talked with them about what our plan is/would be and they know what to do. Whether they follow through or not is another story. As the kid get's older and turns into a teenager I'm sure I'll revisit the plan again to avoid having a tragedy when he sneaks out at night or returns well past curfew.

Same as most others, there's a pistol and a rifle that I can choose from, both with lights. I find that the Redimag has a lot of merit on the rifle for this purpose, negating the need for belts and other load carriage.

I recently purchased some soft armor and am looking to add plates to it, but I frankly never really gave it much thought at so something I might put on before retrieving the kid. Might make sense, depending on the circumstances.

Anyone taken the time to harden portions of their dwelling to make hunkering down or moving around safer? I've thought about hardening a couple of the drywall corners in the house to give myself vantage points to move between if need be. I'd pull the drywall and build up the wall underneath before replacing the drywall so that it wouldn't be obvious that the area was built up.

[rob_s]

One of my biggest fears - one that many people don't seen too worried about - is that a burglar will break in and get ahold of one of my guns and then either I or my girlfriend will walk in while he's there.

I keep everything secured, even the bedroom rifle and pistol.

I had a scare a few years ago when my apartment was broken into. The one thing of value they took was my shotgun which was the one gun I left out of the safe thinking it was "hidden". It didn't dawn on me until later that if I had come home while they were there, they could have used my own gun against me.

[dbrowne1]

I keep everything secured, even the bedroom rifle and pistol.

I had a scare a few years ago when my apartment was broken into. The one thing of value they took was my shotgun which was the one gun I left out of the safe thinking it was "hidden". It didn't dawn on me until later that if I had come home while they were there, they could have used my own gun against me.

I remember you posting about that before. I have always been paranoid about that, ever since I bought my first gun many moons ago. Maybe it's just my ego, but I'd really hate to go out being shot by my own damn gun.

As an aside, how do you secure your rifle? I've been looking at options to discreetly secure a rifle or shotgun in the bedroom without having to mangle walls or furniture. I've looked at Life Jacket type setups and a few other things.

[Thomas M-4]

I don't really have any interest in going looking for scumbags one or two floors down if my alarm goes off while I'm in bed. I definitely take the "Alamo" approach and would just wait for them to come to me. If you have kids/family elsewhere in floorplan then obviously your situation changes and you take the risks that you need to take. Every instructor I have ever asked has agreed that clearing any house, even your own, is a very bad idea if you're all alone.

One of my biggest fears - one that many people don't seen too worried about - is that a burglar will break in and get ahold of one of my guns and then either I or my girlfriend will walk in while he's there. I don't think people give enough thought to that kind of scenario when they "cleverly" hide guns around the house or in closets. There is not a single gun in my house that isn't secured, unless I am at home with it. Usually that means that my "nightstand" gun is just whatever I carried that day. In the morning it goes back on my belt, and everything else is in the safe.

dbrowne you make a good point about how your floorplan can change your situation if you have a multi floor dwelling and the bedrooms are up stairs the alamo approach would make good sense if you knew that every one was upstairs [in that situation i would try to find some concealment/cover over watching the stairs]
Home invaders are typically armed before they enter the home some try to violently enter some try to sneak in and catch you off gaurd the ''cleverly'' hide guns scenario is so if you did get caught with out your ccw you still mite have a chance to turn the table on the intruder.[That being said it is not for everyone and if you carry your ccw on you in the house then there is no point]
If I am leaving the home for more than an hour I would and do lock up all firearms. [no reason to let a burglar get their hands on a weapon] But if they did thats what home owners insurance is for.