Should you carry your pistol at home?

If we have learned any one thing here it is that no two situations will be the same.

Change layout, structure, room that you stay in, all sorts of variables. A smashed door is going to be a distraction. I admit that it isn't going to be simple to get the guys if my door is kicked in when i'm on the ground floor, and this thing is as solidly built as it can be. It won't be easy to break in. If we are staying upstairs, we could have a zombie horde come in and all I'd have to do is call and wait for either bad guys to come up or cops to arrive. Just in my home, I can see so many different events.


what will probably happen is that I will be in the can when it happens, and gee, that is only fifteen feet from the front door in a direct line. I always suspected that I would die in the bathroom. In this house, that really is possible.

be in the half bath, hear the door bashed in, and I'm there unprepared and totally exposed when I open that door. I might be able to duck around the corner and get to the basement, and if i'm alone, okay. There are still dozens of scenarios just involving our ground floor, and some of them are hopeless unless I carry.

One of the things that I really believe in is using motion sensors and an enclosed corridor or fence that forces the bad guys to follow a certain path, and a motion sensor set on that "trail" that alarms the home is a great idea. At my old house, I actually installed a full magnet controlled alarm on my gates that would buzz if they opened.
 
I honestly think that having a home security consulutant looking over the place is the best thing. Not an alarm company, someone like a cop.
 
glenn e meyer said:
Also, for the nice area folks - just say Petit family murders.
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Do you think having a gun on him would have made any difference in the outcome? He was apparently taking a nap on his porch when they arrived. From the tone of many in this thread, the concept of taking a nap while unprotected by locked doors must be incomprehensible. I would think that the lesson learned here would be "Never take a nap where anyone can get to you", rather than always carry a gun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire,_Connecticut,_home_invasion_murders

Upon their arrival in the early hours of July 23, they found William Petit sleeping on a couch on the porch.[10] Komisarjevsky struck William on the head with a baseball bat found in the yard and then tied him up at gunpoint in the basement.
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I think my case is made pretty well in some of the examples (the father who was shot after disregarding the individuals in his yard well bending down to start a mower, the friend who looked out the window and called the police because of the armed intruder, the Petit murders). Simply having a gun would not have changed anything
 
Lohman I think you can make the case that it might not have made a difference in any one of those cases. That is not a certainty though. If the man starting the mower had a little training and a gun he might have stopped, or at least survived the attack. Maybe Petit was awake when attacked. My point is, we don't know. The question is, having the choice of having a gun or not in these situations, why would I choose not to?
 
I wish I had K_Mac's arrangement, but I don't. Actually, I'm envious.

It makes perfect sense to me to carry a loaded handgun at all times, but for me, that is just not feasible. I live in a state and a household that shuns that idea. But as long as K_Mac understands that shooting isn't always the first or only option, K_Mac is OK with me. I hope everyone who reads this thread understands that.

Cheers, and great thread guys.
 
You misinterpret my analysis of the Petit family. Kind of sad.

1. It was a comment on folks who say they live in a nice area and thus they don't need to take some precautions. Get it?

2. If Dr. Petit was awake, and it took him 10 seconds to get to the gun, would that have been successful. Who knows.

His being asleep is irrelevant to the issue. Yeah, if you are in the tub and Norman Bates pulls back the curtain, you are in trouble.

The point was that bad things happen in good places and if you are not unconscious, having a gun on you is a good thing rather than running around like Chicken Little.

However, it is your life and you deal with the way you want. If you think your house is impregnable and 10 seconds works, go for it.
 
If you think your house is impregnable and 10 seconds works, go for it.
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In fairness to my argument, and many of the arguments I make on here, one small bit is being lost in it.

If my attackers are competent and determined enough to overcome my "passive" defenses (and I am going to somewhat incorrectly include locked and bolted doors because they are) in less time than it takes me to get to a firearm those attackers are of such a skill and determination level that having that firearm on me is not likely to make a difference in the battle.

For instance if get into the ring with Mike Tyson at his prime it probably does not matter if I have time to on "cheater" boxing gloves that are lined with steel or not. Their existence is not going to allow me to win.

Giving competent, determined, often numbered attackers the advantage of surprise and planning is likely to allow them to overcome any defenses I (or even the three of us in my household competent with firearms) am going to put up. I would need a much higher level of security then I have now to defeat such attackers.

So I disregard the truly competent and determined attackers. I have no idea why they would be after me but if they are... well I am not likely to win regardless.

So it leaves me with the "clowns" (I don't mean those in clown masks) who are not actually competent or determined. I am comfortable that my security and response can and will defeat them.
 
I CHL in a very comfortable rig. While not religious about it I usually have it-mainly because its comfy and doesn't bother me/forget I am wearing it.
 
Hatches are battened down waiting on the big rain and big wind. I will be armed at all times as these events bring out the scum of the earth looking for easy picking generators and anything else they can take under the cover of darkness. The wife will also be armed and we will have 2-12 gauge loaded and ready. The next 52 hours or so should be very interesting at the least. No we can't evacuate due to the wife's job/employer.
 
Hatches are battened down waiting on the big rain and big wind. I will be armed at all times as these events bring out the scum of the earth looking for easy picking generators and anything else they can take under the cover of darkness. The wife will also be armed and we will have 2-12 gauge loaded and ready. The next 52 hours or so should be very interesting at the least. No we can't evacuate due to the wife's job/employer.
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Be safe. I've been through my share of storms and hate them with a passion.
 
Not quite as bad, supposedly, more into the northern/central part of Florida. Right now, everyone is gassing up, buying water and food, etc. all typical before the storm. Afterwards should be OK where I am; even during Andrew things here weren't like Miami; but that also depends on the makeup of the area, density, poverty, etc.
 
I live in an apartment in a building with a doorman. My door is built like a M1A2.

Nobody's getting through the door without announcing themselves. And if someone goes through the window on the 11th floor, I'm boned because they're some sort of SF.
 
Don P, you must be close to me. I'm near Vero Beach. The joke around here a couple of days ago, after Weather Channel started advertising coverage was, "Jim Santorum is coming to Melbourne. This can't be good." I spent Wednesday putting up shutters and securing my house, my elderly mother's house, and my office. While I was doing that, the forecast changed drastically, from a glancing blow by a cat 3 to a direct hit by a cat 4. We would have evacuated with a better forecast, but an orderly evacuation, especially with a 90-year-old, takes more planning time than we were given.

Hunkering down, expecting the price of shingles to go up drastically. The worst part of this is that my mother is a teetotaler. Hurricanes with no hooch really suck.

We deal with hurricanes with pistols on hip for all the reasons you said, plus the fact that emergency responders can be stretched thin, making for long response times when you can reach them at all. In the next breath, though, I have to say that power, food, and competing for repair materials have in the past been bigger problems than looters. This one is going to be rough.
 
Thoughts and prayers to everyone in the path of this storm. Maybe we should all keep in mind that weather and civil events can quickly impact decisions like the one at the source of this thread.
 
TailGator - you are a direct hit, hope you got out.........this storm is going to change the East coast of Florida
 
Hurricanes with no hooch really suck.
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I prefer being totally sober during natural disasters when your life may depend on the decisions you're forced to make.

Get drunk when it's over.
 
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