[OldMarksman]

From revance:

There are times you hear a noise that you are 99.99% sure is absolutely nothing... In those cases I go down and take a quick look around just to prove it was nothing. I still take a pistol just in case its the 0.001% chance it was something.

I've put a good deal of thought into your comments, and I must confess to having done the same thing myself. However, based on what I have learned I don't see that happening very often.

If the sound clearly is indicative of an icemaker or dishwasher problem, a broken water line, logs shifting in the fireplace, or an unfastended screen door blowing in the wind, I'll go to it, and I will not arm myself.

If the sound comes from a smoke alarm or a CO detector, we have different drill--leave immediately.

If the sound is indeterminate, but could be a flexible lamp shifting, a book sliding off the arm of a chair, or a bag falling over, and it does not recur, I most probably would not go down. And if I did, I most probably would not arm myself. I would, however, listen for a while to assure myself that things are OK.

I wouldn't go downstairs if there was good reason to believe there was actually someone down there.

Good.

The argument that if the sound requires you to take a pistol you should call the police instead is just as closed minded as people who say there is no reason to carry because you should be avoiding dangerous places anyway.

I don't agree with you on that, and that argument is espoused by some of the most respected experts on the subject. In most cases, if something "requires" you to take a pistol, it would seem that there's risk of your walking into an ambush. And even if you think the likelihood is low, the consequences would be entirely unacceptable.

That would be my general belief. Now, I can imagine a situation in which you hear a sound that you cannot identify, that may not seem sufficiently threatening to cause you to call for help, and that cannot be identified as something harmless, and because of its nature, you are uncomfortable about ignoring it. You might want to check on it, and discretion may call for you to take a pistol with you. Pretty rare, I should think, but I grant you that the situation may present itself.

Sounds can be deceiving. Years ago, my grandmother was convinced that she could hear someone moving around downstairs. We later heard the sound of desk drawers opening and closing. I loaded a rifle and went downstairs to find our cat trying to find a catnip toy in one of the drawers. The benign outcome may seem to indicate otherwise, but I think based on what I know now, and based on the characteristics of the noise at the time, that that was in fact the time to call the police. Had it been an intruder, I might not be here today.

If you do find yourself having to investigate noises very often, you may want to invest in some remote cameras. I should think they might give you better peace of mind, allow you to stay in bed with fewer interruptions, keep you from potentially going into harm's way, and importantly, greatly reduce the chances of your shooting the wrong person accidentally. It should also give you a better indication of when you do have to call for help. Actually, that was recently suggested by someone else on one of these threads, so I won't take the credit.

I'm going to be looking into that myself.