Had to pull my gun in my house, ended up being a funny story

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Tauruspt92AF

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Some background information so hopefully I can paint a decently vivid picture. This happened to me about a week ago when i had just gotten my concealed carry license literally days earlier. I went back to my hometown to spend sometime with my parents and some friends. Since I planned on going to the range with a buddy of mine later that weekend I had brought both my carry(shield 40) and my range gun (Taurus pt92) home and i had them both loaded (all with hollow points), one on me, one in my room at my parents. My parents live in a rather large house and it tends to creek and make noises every once in a while.
To the story:
I had just came home from my buddy's house at about 2 AM and I walk in the front door and walk down the hallway to the kitchen to get a Pop (as we say in the midwest… or soda if you'd prefer). I open the refrigerator door and grab my pop and as I am about to walk out the kitchen I hear some faint music and then a voice talking. I stop what I'm doing and stand there for a second with one hand on my pop and the other on my S&W. I stand there for a minute but I hear nothing else out of the ordinary so i chalk it up to one of the neighbors next door having a small party. I walk upstairs to my room and sit in my bed and start watching some TV when I hear some creaking from the hallway. While this is usually normal, I am now more alert and thinking that there could possibly be someone inside my parents house. So now I decide the noises I heard in the kitchen deserve a more thorough investigation. Before I walk downstairs I grab my taurus as I think a little more firepower couldn't hurt if it actually is a BG roaming around downstairs and put it in my pocket. I start creeping my way downstairs and make my way to the kitchen in the dark as I know my way through my childhood home very well. Make it to the kitchen and i hear music playing again, very softly. I slowly pull my shield out of my IWB holster and using my free hand hit the kitchen with my flashlight, Nothing, but the music is still playing. I walk over to the counter and i see that it is my dad's iPod playing some random song. Still a little confused since he has been asleep for multiple hours at this point and would have noticed it playing i turn it off. I check the rest of the house and nothing out of the ordinary. Go to bed, wake up the next morning and go down to the kitchen to make some breakfast and his iPod is going off again.
Realized that my dads iPod will just randomly turn itself on because he has gotten so much sweat inside the iPod from using it when he runs (he has gone through at least 3 this year(thank god for extended warranties)) All that worrying for nothing, but I guess its better to be safe than sorry.
Anyways sorry for the long post and I hope you got a general feel of what i went through that night. Sorry I'm not much of a story teller but I hope you got a good laugh out of this.

-Andrew
 
No reason to laugh, creeky noises and drawn pistols have happened to all of us at one time or another. Glad to see all was well, better to be safe than sorry.

Stay safe and shoot straight.
Jim
 
One dark and lonely night, a very large noise woke me.
It sounded like the door to the garage had been broken open.
So, I stealthily crept toward that part of the house, with trusty revolver in hand.
Sneaking a look around the corner where that door is, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
No windows open, nothing out of place, no area alarms going off.
Hmm.
With my back kind of turned to the kitchen, a second loud noise made me jump real good.
So, I just took a chance and turned on the kitchen lights, while staying behind cover of the hall wall.
They illuminated most of the rest of the house, and, again, nothing suspicious looking.
Then it, whatever it was, did it again, right next to me.
The new refrigerator.
The ice maker.
Loudest one on the planet.
Now, it gets shut off at bedtime.
Lucky for it, it didn't get terminated.
 
Posted by Tauruspt92AF:...I hear some creaking from the hallway. While this is usually normal, I am now more alert and thinking that there could possibly be someone inside my parents house. So now I decide the noises I heard in the kitchen deserve a more thorough investigation. Before I walk downstairs I grab my taurus as I think a little more firepower couldn't hurt if it actually is a BG roaming around downstairs and put it in my pocket. I start creeping my way downstairs and make my way to the kitchen...
Click to expand...
If you do some searching here, you will find that the consensus of educated opinion is that going forth to investigate a bump in the night can lead to serious trouble.

I recently finished a book called Defend Yourself by Rob Pincus. I strongly recommend it.
 
I've had a handful of my own.

One was creepy. I woke up and could feel someone was watching me, I sensed a presence. Looked ujp but nothing or noone was in my room (except for my sleeping wife) so I jumped off the bed and grabbed flashlight and pistol and did the fastest clearing of my basement apartment, all the way to the stairs that lead up to our upstairs neighbor. Noone. But the presence was definitely felt. I know there was already several small occurrences of strange stuff going on, phenomena with no plausible explanation that both my wife and I have experienced.

Another incident was just last winter. Was watching TV, wife was in the bedroom reading, she comes running out telling me to turn off the TV and listen! Somethings outside the bedroom. Heavy footstomps, along with what sounded like something large being dragged on the ground across the yard, slowly, and was headed towards the wooded lot next to us. I grabbed the rifle and chambered it, went to our front door, made sure to turn off the motion-detector activated porch light, and opened it slowly. (its a basement apartment, door is all but hidden from view from the street and the wooded lot next to us). Lots of snow and ice, its middle of winter, so I creep up the stairs and don't see anything at first. Then I hear the breathing. Two moose have bedded down ten or fifteen feet from the stairway inside the wooded lot. I still don't know how it was they sounded like they were dragging something thru the yard.

Final one, woke up to hear the rustling of leaves outside the bedroom window. Fall time, lots of dry leaves on the ground. And whatever is outside the window is making a lot of noise. Being a basement apartment, the window opens up into a space big enough for a person to climb out of and get up to ground level. I can't see anything around the ground level though so I get a flashlight and pistol and shine out looking up. Nothing. But theres still this loud rustling that has got to be to the left or right of the window out on ground level. maybe someones trying to get into the window of the ground level apartment? Then I shine my light down below the window, and theres a freaking vole that fell four feet from the ground level down into our window area. Came pretty close to seeing what kind of stopping power 230 grs of fmj would have on the stupid rodent!
 
Just last night I heard a loud thumping in the hall outside my bedroom. Jumped out of bed and grabbed my Walther P-38 from it's clip on holster on the bedrail, and stepped out in the hall, to find my rather large (and heavy) male cat chasing the other cat up and down the hall.
 
When I lived in Chistochina Alaska I knew a man who lived in a very small log cabin without electricity or running water.
One night he was awakened by loud scratching on the cabin's exterior.
He wasn't surprised assuming it was a porcupine munching on his cabin as they tend to do. He shouted and the noise stopped.
A few minutes later the noise began again, he shouted and the noise stopped.
The scratching started once more except this time he climbed down from his loft, grabbed his hunting rifle, threw open the only window, layed the forestock on the sill and fired a round.
Noise ceased and he slept the rest of the night.
The next morning he was chopping fire wood when he saw the dead grizzly he'd shot laying under the window.
Noises that go bump in the night
 
Here is the senario you should be considering. You hear those noises and do nothing, only there is an intruder. Now what do you do and how would you feel. Sure after a non-event you feel like a fool but only a real fool would not pay attention to those signs that might indicate danger. You are no fool, keep paying attention to those signs. There is a difference between being paranoid and being prepared.
 
is that going forth to investigate a bump in the night can lead to serious trouble.
Click to expand...

Would I leave the house. Not likely. If there was a crash inside in house, then we have a different situation. There is only a limited amount of time I will wait to hear any further noise. It wouldn't be to smart to go back to bed if there was an intruder inside.

There are times I wish the fat, lazy cat would learn to bark.

the consensus of educated opinion
Click to expand...

I trust that diagreeing doesn't get me labeled as uneducated.

I'll read the book just in case...
 
OldMarksman said:
If you do some searching here, you will find that the consensus of educated opinion is that going forth to investigate a bump in the night can lead to serious trouble.
Click to expand...
That's correct. Notice that all these "going forth to investigate" stories with a happy ending have one thing in common: There were no bad guys there. If there had been a bad guy, the ending would probably have been a good deal less happy for the good guy.

We've discussed the inadvisability of solo house clearing here, here, here, here, here, and here.

serf 'rett said:
...It wouldn't be to smart to go back to bed if there was an intruder inside...
Click to expand...
No, it wouldn't. So heed this advice from pax:
pax said:
Unless you have family that needs to be secured, lights on or off, I don't think going searching for the BGs is a great idea.
Click to expand...

The mistake is more likely to be going to investigate, not whether the lights are on.
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This. It bears repeating.

When a criminal breaks into your home, the smart thing to do is to get yourself and your loved ones into a locked room with your weapon out and ready to fire the moment the criminal comes through the door. Once your family is safe behind that locked door, don't go looking for trouble! Call the cops and let them find the intruder for you.

Waiting in a secure place while keeping your family behind your protective firearm is not cowardly. It is not an act of surrender, and it isn't even "hiding from the crooks!" It is simply setting up a well-planned tactical ambush.

This tactical ambush tilts the odds in your favor and puts you in the best position to directly protect the most valuable things in your house: your life, and the lives of the people you love.

Of course, you may surprise the intruder while you are moving to secure your family. That is why we train how to move through the house, how to "pie" corners, how to retain the firearm if attacked, etc. -- not because we will "clear the house" by ourselves, but because we may need to move through danger to protect family members....
Click to expand...

serf 'rett said:
...
the consensus of educated opinion
Click to expand...

I trust that diagreeing doesn't get me labeled as uneducated.
Click to expand...
Well let's see what pax had to say about that:
pax said:
One thing that always fascinates me about this stuff is that those who have a higher level of training have much more robust understanding of how to do it safely... and also of how & when not to do it....
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so if I don't investigate, once a month or so when I hear something I should just clutch my pistol and stay up all night? I just wanna find out what the noise was, since it's most likely nothing, and go back to sleep.

now if I knew for a fact, that someone ws breaking in, like glass breaking and footsteps, then i'm high tailing to my sons room heavily armed and locking him in the eve and I will stay put in his room
 
I got home late one night from work. It was raining hard outside. I parked on the street and thought about leaving my seabag on the back seat until morning but then I remembered that my ditty bag was inside and I didn't want to venture out in the cold rain in the morning to retrieve my toothbrush and razor. I grabbed my seabag and hit the key fob to lock the car doors.

Having been out at sea for several days I enjoyed a couple of rum & cokes before I went to bed after midnight. Just as my wife and I settled down for the night, in bed with lights off, we both heard an unusual noise - a "TINK" sound. Could one of the cats have jumped on the kitchen counter and, with dirty dishes in the sink, caused a spoon to shift and strike a glass? Hmmm...

After some deliberation with my wife I decided to grab my Surefire flashlight and investigate. I checked the kids' rooms and found both cats sleeping with my youngest daughter.

I headed out into the living room and then into the kitchen. There were no dishes in the sink - so what could've caused that noise? I opened the garage door and the dog was sleeping in her kennel. She's a barker and would've alerted me if there was something going on immediately outside.

I used my flashlight and looked out the windows. Nothing. It was still raining pretty hard.

I went back to bed - troubled that I didn't identify the source of the unusual noise.

The next morning a sheriff's car is across the street at the neighbor's house. I was still in bed when my wife told me it looked like somebody had broken into their car, which was parked in their driveway.

I got up, took a shower and went out to get in the car to go to work.

The first thing I noticed was the front passenger seat was fully reclined. Did I do that when I got my seabag out last night? I was in a hurry because it was raining. Hmmm... Then I notice the glove box is open and the contents are scattered about below it, and the windshield visors had both been pulled down. Then it dawns on me - my car had been burglarized. I had a few CDs stolen and my company cell phone. (One of the rear car doors had a bad lock solenoid and it didn't lock when I hit the key fob button.)

We live on a cul de sac and it appears that my flashlight and I had scared off the car prowlers. My house and the neighbor's house across the street was as far down the cul de sac that the car prowlers had gotten.

It appears the thief (or thieves) were using the rainy night to cover their activities.

I'm glad I decided to bring my seabag in that night.

That dog barked at everything but the bad guy(s) that night. :(
 
skizzums said:
so if I don't investigate, once a month or so when I hear something I should just clutch my pistol and stay up all night? I just wanna find out what the noise was, since it's most likely nothing, and go back to sleep....
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Here's the reality:

  1. You say you want to find out what the noise was, so

  2. If it is nothing, you'll be fine, but

  3. If it is a bad guy, he will have a huge tactical advantage. He can just hide in a corner and wait for you -- ready to ambush you. And if he has a buddy with him, you'll really be up a tree.

  4. So if there is a bad guy there, the odds are that he will be able to take you out and leave your child at his mercy.

  5. It's up to you. Make your choice.

skizzums said:
...now if I knew for a fact, that someone ws breaking in, like glass breaking and footsteps, then i'm high tailing to my sons room heavily armed and locking him in the eve and I will stay put in his room
Click to expand...
What if you don't know for a fact that there's a bad guy there, but it turns out that there is? And he's waiting for you.

Have you done any house clearing training in a shoot-house? Have you been through any force-on-force training?
 
If you do some searching here, you will find that the consensus of educated opinion is that going forth to investigate a bump in the night can lead to serious trouble.
Click to expand...

Chances are the first indicator that something's amiss is an unusual noise.

This is where a verbal challenge is useful as part of the threat identification process.

"Who's there!?" "What's going on!?" A verbal challenge establishes your presence. If there is an intruder it provides information as to whether or not he/she is there to commit a property crime or a violent crime.
 
If it is a bad guy, he will have a huge tactical advantage. He can just hide in a corner and wait for you -- ready to ambush you. And if he has a buddy with him, you'll really be up a tree.

So if there is a bad guy there, the odds are that he will be able to take you out and leave your child at his mercy.
Click to expand...

There's risk with everything we do.

You could be ambushed while going to check on your child(ren).

Your child could be assaulted while you hunker down in your bedroom.

There is no absolute "correct" response to an unusual noise in the night. Every situation is different.
 
Something kinda similar happened to me the other night. I was up late, my wife was in bed, and all of the sudden I hear this faint scream. I listened for it some more and nothing, figure I'm just hearing things. Then I heard it again and got up to see if it was the neighbors. Again nothing. I hear it again and walk into our bedroom to get my pistol, just in case.

Ends up my wife couldn't sleep and was watching the Twilight Zone on her phone, and that's what I was hearing the whole time. She thought it was hilarious.

And I hear you on the creaky floors. Our house was built in 1930, and if you're listening close enough in certain rooms even our 10 lb cat will make them creak a bit. Used to weird me out until I figured out it was him.
 
Derbel McDillet said:
If it is a bad guy, he will have a huge tactical advantage. He can just hide in a corner and wait for you -- ready to ambush you. And if he has a buddy with him, you'll really be up a tree.

So if there is a bad guy there, the odds are that he will be able to take you out and leave your child at his mercy.
Click to expand...

There's risk with everything we do.

You could be ambushed while going to check on your child(ren).

Your child could be assaulted while you hunker down in your bedroom.

There is no absolute "correct" response to an unusual noise in the night. Every situation is different.
Click to expand...
True enough. But let's have another look at pax' advice (from post 12, above) with some emphasis added by me:
pax said:
...When a criminal breaks into your home, the smart thing to do is to get yourself and your loved ones into a locked room with your weapon out and ready to fire the moment the criminal comes through the door. Once your family is safe behind that locked door, don't go looking for trouble! Call the cops and let them find the intruder for you.

Waiting in a secure place while keeping your family behind your protective firearm is not cowardly. It is not an act of surrender, and it isn't even "hiding from the crooks!" It is simply setting up a well-planned tactical ambush.

This tactical ambush tilts the odds in your favor and puts you in the best position to directly protect the most valuable things in your house: your life, and the lives of the people you love.

Of course, you may surprise the intruder while you are moving to secure your family. That is why we train how to move through the house, how to "pie" corners, how to retain the firearm if attacked, etc. -- not because we will "clear the house" by ourselves, but because we may need to move through danger to protect family members.......
Click to expand...

So you may have to "go forth" to gather your family together into a place of safety. Have you trained to do it? And if you have your family together in a place of safety, there's no reason to compromise your mission to protect them by going out looking for trouble.
 
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