ARe we just a little too TRIGGER HAPPY?

[voodooman]

so far, i've read countless posts about home invasions and bg's entering your home and such....

but seriously, how often does this happen? i have been burglarized once in my lifetime and i'm pretty sure the burglars came at a time when he or she knew i would not be home.

does this justify sleeping with a loaded gun under one's pillows? are we not going a little overboard?

are there any LE officers who can tell us approximately how many home invasion robberies, etc, there are a month? is it THAT common, because i just don't hear too many stories.

has anyone here experienced an home invasion?

[Josh Smith]

This issue has more bearing on our older population, women, and/or invalids, but it's still an issue all the same.

I, for example, am 6'2", am large framed, weigh in at 210lbs, and am only 24 years old.

My grandfather is well past 80, stands probably 5'5", and probably only weighs about 150 if that.

Who is going to be the more likely to be invaded? Read the news; it happens all the time to our retired population. I don't remember if Full Moon is on these boards, but if he is I'm sure he can provide you with a number of links.

It happens less often to people like me, but it does still happen.

Why risk it? The gun is the last resort anyway, or should be, in my opinion. Lights and pets are very useful. Better to have and not need.....

Do you have a valid reason NOT to be prepared?

EC

[KPS]

I certainly don't think keeping a loaded firearm under your pillow,bed,nightstand is reason to call someone trigger happy.Hopefully noone will ever have their home invaded by thieves/BG's but this isn't a perfect world and it does happen.Keeping a firearm at close hand is better than not being prepared at all.How often does your house catch on fire?I'll bet you have a smoke detector outside your bedroom or a fire extinguisher in your house.Do you wear your seatbelt everyday?I do and I don't expect to get in an accident everyday.

[KSFreeman]

The gunshop commandos who bray about shooting anyone in their house are trigger happy. These silly people scare me.

Being ready is not being trigger happy. Just because you have a gun doesn't mean you have to shoot; it just provides you more options.

[C.R.Sam]

"Be Prepared"

[foghornl]

I'm not a huge guy, but decent sized 6-2, 215. I have been a "home invasion" victim, got "rolled" in an I-30 rest stop, forced to the floor in a c-store armed robbery. All of those times, I was un-armed and un-prepared.
No longer. My primary home defense weapon is not under my pillow, but less than 2 seconds away. I deal with unvited guests the same way for each species, aplying appropriate poison, from diazanon/dursban to fast hot lead, as required.

[Mike11b]

being prepared is not the same as being trigger happy. Anyone who would spray and pray at the first sound at night in their home is as much a liability as the BG. On the other hand, if presented with a clearly recognizable threat (i.e. BG in the Dining Room with weapon in hand)....I certainly will be shooting center mass until the target is down. I tend to not put a lot of stock in individuals who talk the talk, but can't keep up their end of the bargain. You know the type....buying a lasermax or Crimson tRace grips, and still complaining that they can't hit the X....

[Vern Brink]

I can't tell you the exact numbers of home invasions that occur in one month. They are more common in some areas of town than others. Most of them don't make the news. A lot of them are drug related. Some are not. Burglaries are more common.

How many does it take to make it "common"? Based on per 100k of population? They don't happen a whole lot where I live, but they do where I work.

No matter what the numbers/statistics - it's your life. My guess is that it'll only take one time to make you very unhappy.

[Country Boy]

I wear a seatbelt, but not because I intend on getting in an accident. I have a fire extinguisher in my car, but not because I believe my vehicle will start on fire. I know CPR, but I hope I never have to use it. I have a winter survival kit in my car during the cold Dakota winters, but I don't intend on getting stranded. I wear a life jacket when I go boating, but I certainly don't plan on falling out of the boat. I even lock my doors at night, but I certainly don't plan on being invaded at night. I replace the batteries in my smoke detector, don't run with scissors, don't leave an open flame in an empty room, don't drink and drive, eat sensibly, exercise... Hopefully you see a pattern that I try to take care of myself and my surroundings. Owning/carrying a gun doesn't mean that I am paranoid. I'm simply trying to ensure my continued, happy existance.

In the 13+ years since I've been driving, I've only had 1 day where I've been in an accident. So only during approximately 0.02% (not 2%, 0.02%) of the days when I've been able to drive have I been in an accident. Was I glad to have my seatbelt on? You're darn tootin'! Am I going to wait another 13 years before I start wearing my seatbelt again? Not on my life.

[Courier]

Better safe than sorry. I haven't ever had a home invasion, but I did have 3 teenagers put a gun to my head on a Friday night and take my wallet years ago. Just because it hasn't happened to you or any immediate friends, don't think that it doesn't happen. It's a dangerous world and there are some real low life pieces of trash out there that wouldn't think twice about harming you or your loved ones.

Once again, BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.

[Ancel48]

Life: Plan for the best but be prepared for the worst.

[bastiat]

I have smoke detectors and fire alarms in my house. I am not fire happy.

My wife's brother was at his girlfriend's house when an ex boyfriend pulled a 'home invasion'. He, his girfriend, and the rest of the girlfriend's family were killed. Statistically rare, but it sure would suck to be one out of one million in that circumstance.

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performace. I prefer to be prepared, with the ideal result being that I die a long time from now having never needed to put into action what I've prepared to do.

[BamBam-31]

Don't have any home invasion stats for you offhand. Just family experience: My cousin's house was invaded a couple of years ago by three to four BG's.

They went in with handguns, had every family member lay down on the bedroom floor, and then went about robbing the place. One of the BG's even sexually assaulted my cousin in front of her family, and no one had the power to do anything about it. The whole family was at the complete mercy of bloodlusted criminals.

Their family is not very well off. My uncle is a butcher, a hard working, blue-collared butcher. There wasn't much money to be had in the home invasion. But we're Asian, and many criminals assume that Asians are easy and profitable prey.

Would a gun in the house have made a difference? I don't know. I'm not sure if members of that family would wield guns in self-defense, and even if they would, there were just so many BG's. But, man, the whole family was completely defenseless. Were the BG's so inclined, we'd have fewer mouths to feed at our Christmas parties.

A few months later, the same uncle was stabbed a few times when he was a little slow in handing over his paycheck to a mugger outside his shop. One of his lungs collapsed as a result of the stabbing. He survived, though, thank God.

Would it have made a difference if he had a gun? Again, I don't know. He's not the type to use a gun in self-defense.

I am. Should a BG decide to prey on me or mine, he'll find out just how trigger happy I can be. I may be caught off-guard, I may be overwhelmed, but I will not be caught completely defenseless. I am anything but easy prey. One against four is still bad odds, but it's infinitely better than zero against four.

99.99% of the time, the gun in my night stand will not be needed. For that .01%, however, would you rather be on your knees begging for your life or thanking God that you had the power to defend it? You can go defenseless if you like. I choose otherwise.

[Mannlicher]

Voodooman

My house has not burned down either, but I keep the fire insurance in force. Think about it.

[mike killian]

I get up at 5am, go to work, pay taxes, buy my family the things they need. If someone tries to come into my home and rob me I will shoot them if given a chance.
I don't call that trigger happy..do you?

[Double Naught Spy]

A home invasion is any type of event where a person you do not wish to be in your home has entered your home without permission.

It isn't about fending off burglars, but about fending off people who might hurt you. At the point in time when the burglar finds you at home (or you find him) and he points a weapon at you or tries to harm you, the issue of the burglary is of no consequence. At that point, the situation becomes a life or grave injury or death issue. The burglary is just the circumstance that broght the person into your home.

How many of us have had a home invasion? These will include many such events as burglaries, forced entry robberies, many domestic encounters result in a home invasion, rapes, kidnappings, and murders.

Growing up in Dallas, we had at least two such events, one burglary and one where a man completely unknown to my family walked in the front door one day. Fortunately, he was afraid of dogs and was stopped by our Lasa of all things.

Anybody's home that has been burgled is the victim of a home invasion. Home invasion often accompanies a rape as the rapist wants some place to work in private.

For the record, having a firearm and knowing how to use it in an emergency is not the same thing as being trigger happy. Many people use firearms quite successfully without ever pulling the trigger. That was certainly the case in multiple instances in our family business.

If I find a stranger in my home and feel my life or the lives of my family are in peril, I won't be trigger happy, but trigger serious.

[zot]

beleive it or not, my parinoia got the best of me, bought 4 pin hole cameras and quad link up, also all doors are wired to start
VCR, I started this as a way to identify customers and if I have to shoot someone during a sale, I have it on tape,and .357 is hidden during sale, don't know the people who come,if anyone started to pull a gun I'd shoot dead in the head. also got a nice
0 lux camera outside with wide field of vision. HAS stopped alot of crap from kids in area,a picture is worth more than a 1000 words!

[voodooman]

thanks for the great replies! i see the very valid point that being prepared is not being Trigger happy!

i asked a detective acquantaince about the frequency of home invasion robberies (while people are at home!) and he said that it's close to ONE A DAY!!! in our "safe city.... and i'm in california, with one of the strictest gun laws. How ironic! i wonder if these bg's would think twice if they knew most home owners had guns ready to shoot back.... like in TExas!! are home invasions less common in texas, i wonder.

it also turns out that an old classmate of mine was a victim of a home invasion robbery. his whole family was blindfolded and tied by "kids" armed with guns. luckily, no one was hurt.

hmmm i think i'll go post a sign on my front door:

Burglars and Trespassers will be SHOT.
Solicitors will be BEATEN then SHOT.

[Josh Smith]

Voodooman,

I seriously hope you're joking about advertising the presence of firearms in your home.

Instead I would use a sign my old neighbor had up in his yard. It read something like "Warning- Vicious Attack Housewife".

EC

[LASur5r+P]

If you look at a lot of the threads here in TFL, you find that a lot of folks talk about what they'd like to do in a self-defense situation, but when you ask what they have done in real situations, notice that a high percentage of the solutions presented are that restraint is used and overall, the TFL'ers have not and probably will not fire on a BG unless their life is directly threatened.

If you've worked in any public service job for any length of time, you find a lot of the old timers kid about what they'd like to say to a person in the public that is obnoxious, but what you find is that a high percentage will respond with respect and politeness to a person who is threatening them, etc..

Another example, there are literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who practice martial arts, but even though all are practicing a form of unarmed self-defense, most who have been practicing the discipline for some time will walk away from a fight rather than fight.

[CZ Gunner]

My wife and her co-workers have had several death threats against them .. all documented by local police and FBI.
None of them "carry", even to this day.

They frequently work very late hours and the building (historical building) often has "walk ins" -- people who enter to "look around" even though it is a private building -- often times walking in on them in their offices without prior knowledge / detection. Homeless people often come there looking for food, etc.

My wife's boss is a retired Navy Captain (O-6) who spends his entire career with the Marines. One of her peers grew up on a farm in the mid-west and shot very frequently with his uncles as a youth.

I have managed to take a couple of her co-workers to the range with me. Still, no one thinks they need to be armed. I sure would feel better if a couple of them be a little more prepared!

Best I can do is cover the "home front".

Wish they would reconsider!

Gunner