Home Defense with Children

This is a tough one and I can't give you any recommendation other than to say that I have 6 kids, two down stairs (basement bedrooms) and 4 more at the opposite end of the hallway. If something goes bump in the night I have no choice but to leave my wife where she is and go first to the younger children or perhaps downstairs if that's where I hear the bump.

I can only hope it it ever happens for real that it's one dumb bad guy because I'm very disadvantaged but I have to go check on the kids, period.

My wife thinks even talking about scenarios like that are silly. I've told my kids to stay put or get behind, under their bed if they hear something and to scream bloody murder if someone appears in their doorway other than me.

Beyond that I'm trusting in the Lord.

Gideon
 
My wife thinks even talking about scenarios like that are silly.
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So does mine, although I am making headway stating that we need to have emergency plans for dealing with fire, tornado and home invasions - she finds that at least more reasonable when I include the zombie infestation removal with other possible emergencies. At the moment, the best I'll be able to do is tell her to fall in behind me with the cell phone and make our way to our son's room, which becomes the safe room.

Yeah, you guys without kids that say "baricade yourself, don't leave your safe room" have it easy. ;) But as others said, the best you and I can do is a compromise. Don't clear the whole house, just do the minimum to get to your children as quickly as possible, while mitigating as much of the danger to yourself and your wife as possible (yes, no easy task).

My house is small (1 story, 1650 ft2, about to become 1850), but it is VERY open, and it is a fairly straight shot to my son's room, which does make taking the shotgun viable. Trade a bit of portability for a huge bump in actual capability -that was actually one reason why I picked this particular house. Problem is there is about a 95% chance of coming face-to-face with the BG on the way to my son's room (we can bypass about 35% of the house, but were only talking 1650 ft2 here).

The other crazy idea I had was to exit my bedroom through the window, go around to his room and bust the glass with the butt of the shotgun, and climb in. Crazy enough that I'm not sure if it is brilliant or totally idiotic.

As for having to go upstairs, yeesh, I don't envy you in that task. Going up a stairway is probably the most dangerous point in the whole scenario. I had a similar problem in my previous house. Our son was upstairs, and in order to get there from our downstairs room you had to go down a narrow hallway that opened up into a combination living/kitchen/dining room with a 2 story cathedral ceiling and a small balcony on the 2nd floor (going down the hall, the living room ran from 12:00 to 3:00, the dining room was from about 10:00 to 12:00, the kitchen was at 6:00 to 10:00 and the balcony was directly above) - what a friggin nightmare :eek:. I actually considered moving our room upstairs (crappy little 8x10, yes), but it would have been a defender's dream up there! Glad I don't live there anymore.
 
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I was thinking of this the other night - what I would tell my kids if there were an intruder - I was thinking I wouldn't want them to get under their beds because the way my house is setup the BG will probably either be downstairs of them in which case they are in danger of rounds coming up through their floor, or the BG will be on the same floor as they are in which case I would want them in the closet behind a wooden dresser.

But anyway I am divorced and my ex is still dragging me through court. I refused a request to increase unallocated support and two weeks later I had a DCFS agent at my house. My ex had called them and complained about living conditions at my home. So I went through the house with the DCFS worker, and he specifically asked about my guns. According to him - my ex wife expressed concern that my weapons weren't locked up appropriately. So while showing my house, the kitchen, the bathrooms, etc... I showed him that my weapons were locked up and inaccesable. Basically she was on a witch hunt hoping that a case worker might find something... a dirty sink or a dirty toilet or guns that were not locked up.

My house is fine, the report came back stating that the allegations were unfounded.

But it's an example of how having kids in the equation can totally change things.
 
I don't think this has been mentioned yet, so...

If you go by your local store, you can usually find little night lights that plug into your standard electrical outlets. Some of these night lights have motion sensors on them.

You can place these motion-sensing lights throughout the house. If you see one light up, you know there's something moving around over there. Just a thought that may help you decide a course of action when the stuff hits the fan.

Of course, those lights may also give your position away. But since you're on the defensive in this scenario, I think the lights will help more than hurt.
 
Have my house set up so that one must traverse a long corridor before reaching any of the sleeping areas. The corridor is easily defended, and there are always toys strewn about (and a falling barricade) for the unwary coming up the stairs.

For clearing the house, (I do this alone [before kids my wife had my six], wife now stays with children) I use Makarov, 38 spl, 44 spl or 45 ACP chambered short barreled handguns to minimize penetration risks. Do not own a shotgun. I use a bounce light....in a darkened room you toss it at a sound, it turns on only when it contacts something.

If your house cannot be redesigned/renovated into a more protective layout I would consider relocating to a more appropriate home.

Family is number one and they must be protected.
 
A question ... I don't have kids and live in a one-story house, so my solution is to stay in my bedroom behind a locked door with my 1911, flashlight and cell to call the cops.

But in your scenario, I've often wondered why people don't use locks on bedroom doors for their children. If they're infants, they don't get up at night. Lock 'em in. For older children, use something like a deadbolt that they can operate with a keyless handle, while you have a key to enter from the outside in case of emergency. Many homes offer a "jack and jill" setup, where two children's rooms share a bathroom, so they wouldn't need to leave their rooms after bedtime, tho they could with the deadbolt control in their room.

we had this very scenario in a class I took; we went to one of the student's two-story homes, found all the bad things outside that would allow easier access to crooks (bushes by the garage door to hide behind, a shed near the house allowing access to the second-floor windows, no security lights). We all agreed that if children were present upstairs, our first move would be for both parents to arm themselves and head for the stairs with flashlights after calling 9-1-1. I also agree that a dog is a good idea; my yowling beagle is better than any security system, since he makes a lot of noise and has teeth.
 
Seaman, What is a bounce-light? I tried Googling and only came up with toy balls, photography references, and corded work lights. The bounce-light as you described it sounds like a great idea if it isn't corded. Are you talking about the work-lights?
 
In addition to the above, it sounds like another shotgun may be a good idea; that way you wouldn't be leaving your wife with a pistol...
 
Ahoy Onward Allusion ---

My kid got a bounce-light as a gift...kind of a rubbery interleaved tubular ball about the size of a softball (baseball). Last time I cleared the house, 1911 in hand, and telling the perp, in a loud guttural voice that I was gonna "blow off his @??#&^%% balls to hell," the perp retreated real quick to the kitchen. I followed and tossed the bounce-light into the corner of the kitchen where the perp was, my 1911 pointed, safety off. This bounce light gives off a soft blue light, and there I could see the perp cowering...the biggest fattest raccoon that I'd seen in a while. I prefer the bounce-light to a gun-light or flashlight becuase that just makes me the target.

Ahoy gk1 ---

Am not big on shotguns, they are large and real loud, and if you miss, it could be wrestled away. Prefer a short barreled handgun, very difficult to disarm if the shooter is holding it correctly. A 101st Airborne sandbox vet (now a cop) showed me the proper way to hold/shoot a handgun in CQC, I'm sure those tactical schools cover such things.
 
I'm in the same boat as you with 4 kids upstairs in two bedrooms and then my wife and I downstairs. We've really struggled with the best way to secure our home, but came up with a variety of different solutions to best meet our needs until we can relocate. First, we bit the bullet and got a yellow lab. She's a great temperament around our kids, is good with the steady steam of visitors and friends we have coming through here, a great watchdog when the kids are outside during the day, and a good first warning for home defense. Just a few months back she started barking in the middle of the night, and when I got up to check found that she had heard someone breaking into my truck outside. Sweet Jesus I love that dog!

More to the question of home defense, since a dog doesn't seem like an option you want to pursue, we've decorated our home in such a way so as to better facilitate clearing. It's not an option for us to move our room upstairs since we have a split level home and that would put kids at ground level windows, so our plan is that in the event if a home invasion we will move locations to secure our children. We've added decorative mirrors at strategic points that enable us to quickly move up the stairs to the kids while also maintaining visibility of possible intruders, and my wife and I have practiced our emergency plan to make sure we are ready to move together quickly.

One other thing we've done is pack an emergency bag that is stored in one of the kids' rooms. Bag contains spare handgun magazines, first aid supplies, flashlights, and most importantly a cheap corded phone. The drill in a home invasion is that we move quickly up the stairs to secure the kids and my wife retrieves the bag, plugs the phone into the wall, and dials 911. I'd rather have a rifle stored up there personally, but the wife didn't feel comfortable with that so we settled on an emergency bag stocked with spare handgun magazines. We also added some cheap Tiva-style sandals to the bag this last summer so that her and I would have some sort of footwear available if we elect to leave the home during the emergency.

I think the key, regardless if what you plan, is to talk about it often and practice at least once a month. And for those of you who have wives or girlfriends who don't love the idea of practicing home invasion plans, I warmed my wife to the idea by first suggesting we talk about fire plans. Once we started working through and practicing those, it wasn't too difficult to get her on board also considering an invasion. Longer term though, we do plan to relocate and now have a much different list of things we want to find in our next home. :cool:
 
Having kids is totally different.

2yr and 8yr old are in bedroom next to me on 2nd floor.

I would follow the protect the upstairs from bg route. They would have to go up the main stairs and down a hall that could easily be defended.

My concern with all of this is the safety of your kids. I would throw wife in with them and say to not go out. Make sure your kids are not wandering around prior to an incident. Make sure they are in bed and not getting a glass of water downstairs!

My other question is if my gun is in locked case - do i have to have another case with the ammo? It is hard enough to get one case open let alone two.

I would prefer to have my beretta in a case with a 17rd mag. ready next to it. That is actually the legal way to transport in a car in IL. ammo does not have to be separate if the gun is unloaded and in a case.

i'm going to get a dog in the near future as soon as my 2yr old son can take care of him a bit.
 
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