Someone broke into my house tonight.

[mark]

Freakin sliding doors,,

 

[Puff Daddy]

Freakin sliding doors,,

This! :lol:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

That's a hell of a story.

Cooler heads prevail, with or without a gun.  

A short friend-of-a-friend story:   guy is woken up by his wife because of a nearly identical situation:  someone is hacking the sliding glass door, and is inside.   Guy grabs his .38 and keeps it behind him, his kids in the next bedroom and his wife hiding in the bathroom.   Shadowy figure looking through a purse left on the dining table, very quietly.   The husband asks the guy the same thing:  "What are you doing?"   Dude that breaks in freezes freaks out, and starts bolting for an exit--any exit, in an unfamiliar place.   Break-in dude then, in desperation, pulls out a gun.  Husband gave him plenty of time to either leave, explain himself or get shot.   Husband shot four out of five rounds center mass.   Break-in dude dies.   There was no other choice.

Shooting first and asking questions later is just as bad as assuming any intruder is incapable of harm.

Notes about that girl:  the ability to, in a daze, break into a home and carry a long knife is concern enough.   Perhaps she was a girl on the fence, not quite bad or good, might have been partying with a screwy-crew, drugged, who knows.   I doubt very seriously she was an angel, but obviously not a demon.

About sliding glass doors:   weakest locked entry on any house, hands-down.   A child can force one open with a screwdriver or a large knife--as evidenced by PeeD's story.   Go buy a $3 closet dowel, cut it to length, and lay it on the track of the closed door at night.    Sure, the fire department hates that kind of stuff, but teach your kids that a chair or a thrown blender can make a large opening in said door, locked or not.   :lol: Hopefully this won't cost you more than a few sliding glass doors as a demonstration.

8)

 

[Stick]

There's some sage like thoughts here chaps. I have to say also PD, the presence of mind you showed was impressive. Many would have taken a different tact that would have most likely resulted in a tragic waste of life. Might be worth checking to see if your slider can be lifted off it's track too. That's a very common point of entry here in Blighty. Glad it all worked out for you mate.

 

[Puff Daddy]

All of this has had me reflecting on a few things, like perception and the aplication of empathy.

So I'm rushing towards the figure in the door and stop short because I identify it as a young woman wearing nice clothes. My fear and impulse to violently force the intruder back out the door turns immediately to empathy, and instead of shoving her back out or taking her down I guide her to a chair and let my wife wipe the mud and blood from her legs. Would I have done this if she were not young, was wearing ragged clothes and looking rough? I don't know, maybe not. Maybe I just push her back outside and call the cops. What if it was a young man instead of a woman? Would I have slammed into him as hard as I could and never considered a sympathetic route? Probably. We are products of our perceptions. I'm unable to feel worthy of accepting praise because my preconcieved perceptions dictated my reaction, not the situation itself.

Life is very strange.....

 

[Stick]

Call it what you will PD, your intuition served you well.

 

[DrT999]

Call it what you will PD, your intuition served you well.

This!

And I agree about the dowl as well. I'm glad this seems to have turned out well

 

[huffelpuff]

Keep in mind all that there are serious medical conditions that can cause severe disorientation and erratic behavior. Diabetics who are off their insulin is the first one that comes to mind. Also younger people that have been diagnosed as diabetic seem to think that they can drink with impunity if they tweak their insulin dose. Speaking as someone who has seen that before I can tell you it rarely works out well.

Glad things turned out PD. Could have been a really bad situation. Section of dowel in the track is your best bet for sure.

Jim

 

[Puff Daddy]

Door is now secured with an aluminium rod.

 

[Fr_Tom]

Door is now secured with an aluminium rod.

Excellent plan...

 

[bosun1]

Odd that the police didn't seem too concerned. Possibly not the first time the young lady has done this? And possibly her father is a judge??

 

[beardedbassguy]

As someone who is always armed...

Scenarios like this scare me a little. And remind me to always be vigilant, as well as always identify my target.

I'm glad you and your family are ok. And like others, I wonder about the girls' mental state... as well as her intentions with the knife. And if she was truly disoriented or in shock, how did she manage to get in? Sliding door or no, it's a decent feat.

 

[LL]

Given all the circumstances of this event in your house, you are to be COMENDED for your INTELEGENT and REASONED reaction to it all !! Especially in the "shoot first and figure it out later" mood so many folks have in this country now !! That was quite an evening you and your family had!! Wish more folks had the pressence of mind as you !

You are trying to retrofit your values / worldview on a situation that only by LUCK didn't involve someone getting hurt.

How many deliberate home break-ins are committed by people with criminal intent compared to zoned-out harmless people, do you think?  

It would take access to data that civilians don't have as well as depend on the city/neighborhood, of course, but I think it is safe to say that accidents (if indeed that's what this case was---JD is the size of a pro wrestler, drives a cement truck, and works out regularly, and HE couldn't pop the door) are significantly outnumbered by home invasions with criminal intent.

Meaning?  Unless you're feeling damn lucky, the correct response to a middle-of-the-night forced break in is to assume the worst.  i.e. shoot first and ask questions later.  Especially if you have a family.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Except in California, if you do something like that, expect to get as much prison time as a real criminal.  Especially if the intruder survives.  

8)

 

[LL]

Except in California, if you do something like that, expect to get as much prison time as a real criminal.  Especially if the intruder survives.

Which is patently insane.

Please read this entire story before commenting.  Also note the ages of the victims.  The couple---both in their 80's---he beat to death.  Their neighbors---one in his 80's and the other two in their 60's---he blew the heads off of with a shotgun.  It was a home invasion where someone with criminal intent was given the benefit of the doubt by the homeowners, and they tried to be polite to him.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/elderly-couple-beaten-kansas-city-attacks-die

You stand the Attorney General of the state of California in front of me this minute, complete with an entire bodyguard of armed shock troops at his side, with TV cameras broadcasting it to the world, and I will gladly tell him that he is an absolute, complete, and total utter ******* moron who ought to be ******* fired.  

The funny bit?  You know he and his sort are always armed.  Always.

Oh yeah...  the KC home invader had done it before.  Broken into homes and murdered people.  Wonderful guy.  If someone had double tapped his scumbag psycho *** early on, the rest of his victims would still be alive.

 

[puros_bran]

Preposterous Nonsense!!!  And quite typical of the low minded 'shoot first and ask questions later' crowd...   When someone inadvertently manages to defeat your security measure at 3 am it is clear that they mean no harm and only desire to sit and discuss tax code reformation over a nice cup of coffee and perhaps a piece of pie if you have one handy.

It is people like you that give us otherwise marvelously progressed Americans a bad name.  Please be civil and disarm yourself.. I mean with the Lightning fast dial to 911 and a good 25-30 minute wait in your locale for the police to arrive I'm sure you could perhaps offer some counciling to your undocumented guest..

And of course public servants of the administrative,judicial,or legislative type have armed security. My god man, there have been literally dozens of them assassinated since 1776.. They'd be daft not to seek protection.  I suppose in your delusional mind you imagine that you are as  important as these fine individuals.. Tisk tisk.    

Besides, arming yourself is hardly needed.. Jim has bedded down roughly 219,000 times in his life time and had an undocumented guest (shame on you fellows calling them 'intruders' 'burglars' 'murderers' and 'rapist'. Is it any wonder these people end up in the shape they do what with all the negativity YOU lash at them) one time.. Hardly any thing to worry about.

 

[mark]

It's amazing what a full moon will do.

 

[puros_bran]

It's amazing what a full moon will do.

I'm not a liberal but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.





Or to put it another way I've listened to enough of their insanity that I can spew it with almost as straight a face as they do.   When the free thinkers round up all the people that don't think just like them, at gunpoint nonetheless, I'll be able to slip away and start a resistance to the intolerant *******s.

 

[DoverPipes]

Puff: You were lucky that night. Could have been a mess if things went sideways.

LL: Whoa!! Haven't seen you in a while. Hope all is well!!!

PB: Stop stirring the  pot!!! :lol!:

It's amazing what a full moon will do.

I'm not a liberal but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Ha!

I've had a few miscreants roaming my property over the years. Most of them were escapees from a local group home / "half way house". One in particular was in my kids play house right outside my bedroom window at 0645 on a Sunday morning. Long story short, my Wife called the Troopers next door to us and I got dressed. I grabbed my Kimber, my cuffs, shield and credentials and my portable radio (Has all frequencies to talk to other LE Agencies). As I go outside I see two Troopers (one male, one female) coming out of the barracks and down the hill into my front yard. I give them a heads up and we go into the back yard. Whereupon, we are greeted by a raving lunatic who charges at us while screaming "I'm gonna kill you!" Needless to say, we dropped him like a sack of manure and cuffed him up.

As we are walking up the hill to the barracks, he turns to me and says, "You won't be so lucky next time. I'll be back and I'll **** the sh!t out of your Wife and kids and I'll burn the house down with them in it. I know when you leave for work!!!"

Needless to say this piss me off but I didn't deck him since he was cuffed. I told him he was "welcome" to come back anytime since he just made a terroristic threat that was witnessed by the two Troopers and I would be obligated to defend myself and my family in whatever way I saw fit. (Not really what I said, but that was cleaned up for public consumption! :lol!: )

We now go into the barracks and the Troopers give me the paperwork to swear out a supporting deposition to file charges. Just as I sit down and begin writing my statement, the female Trooper tries to remove the handcuffs from "Mr. Psycho" and he tries to attack her! I jumped up and picked the guy up and threw him into the wall across from the booking area. He bounces off and lands on his head. He gets to his feet and tries to come back at me. I then kicked him in the side of his quad / common peroneal nerve area and I heard a loud SNAP! Yup, I broke his leg with the kick. He hit the deck and was out cold!

We cuffed him again and called for the Medics. He was taken to the regional hospital and was admitted for a psych hold and the broken leg. Turns out, he was "off his meds" and was a career violent felon who was placed in numerous programs in lieu of prison. This time, he went away for a trip upstate. Last I heard, he was still "in the system" and wasn't being released. I still have an order of protection (not that I trust them 100%) against him and I have notifications in place upon his release.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

As the next stamp gets slapped on this one for express delivery to the Rubber Room... :lol:

There's a big difference between being capable of protecting ones family in an instant, with deadly force, without hesitation or frontal-lobe interaction, but there's also a few vocal folks out there that I think want to shoot someone, be they invader, cop, criminal or just a victim. I think it's high-fives at the local watering hole, home-town hero kind of ****, on up to the World War III guy with six bunkers and an M1 Abrams he's building from empty tin cans. I think it's guys sticking stolen guns in the faces of the unsuspecting who figure, I've gone this far, I take their money/broken in their house/take their car, might as well leave no witnesses. Yeah, it happens. Something about what Yak always said about cliches comes to mind. Certain people are gonna be certain people. Picking and choosing them is irrelevant.

It's the attitude, not the action. It's all a fun big-nuts hypotheticals until someone is an unwitting victim and have a fast, life-changing decision to make, which I hope (and guarantee) very few people commenting here have made or will make--even if they do have an opinion. Unless you're a sociopath, you simply can't enjoy killing another human. It's gonna screw with you. If you're protecting your life, family, and property that's the price that gets paid to make sure they're safe, and it's probably worth it.

No one should lay down and comply under anyone's pressure. Personally, I like options.

Everyone's got their stories.

Like the stoner-esque college age guy who came in the unlocked front door of my apartment at 10AM while I was in the back. He yelled "Hello, where are you dude? And plopped two bags of McDonalds on the table. I was in the middle bedroom. There's guns in that room, too I grabbed my revolver, which I kept out of sight. I come to the front room quietly to see a guy who is surprised to see me; I wasn't who he was expecting.

"What's up?" I ask calmly.

"Woah, wrong apartment dude, I'm so sorry, these places all look the same," he pleaded.

"It happens," I reply and relax. "You're lucky you didn't get drilled."

My gun is in my hand, now visible. I have no idea if this guy was being slick and testing the situation or what. He about shat himself, offered me a trembling plea to keep the fast food he plopped on my table. He apologized profusely. I smiled and said I understood, and politely asked him to leave. Which he did without hesitation. I locked the door behind him.

I'm glad I didn't shoot him. If that makes me a hippie, cool. I also would have shot him, and easily done as I'm a crack shot from the hip. If that makes me cold & heartless, cool. I'm glad I got to make the choice. Proclaiming the ability to do so or the amorality of doing so means jack. I'm under a pretty good assumption the people posting here are rational enough that if they did have to kill someone in defense, they wouldn't be celebrating gun laws or a triumphant win, but thanking God (or whatever pleases you), hugging the safe family, and trying to move on. I don't think life would be the same after that--but it would be life.

I'm also pretty sure we'd be pretty damned bummed if the gal who broke into Jim's place stabbed his kids. Life wouldn't be the same in that case, too. Turns out, everything turned out. Everyone had luck on their side. That's kinda cool. Life isn't the same, even still: PeeD's doors are more secure, and it's gonna take a couple of weeks to have that total-home-comfort feeling.

C'est la vie. Debate away.

<img class="emojione" alt="?" title=":shrug:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/emojione/assets/png/1f937.png?v=2.2.7"/>

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