ID target or Shoot

The only place this should apply is in your home, late at night, after you have gone to bed. Any other scenario would allow identification.

If you cannot identify an intruder you have not thought out your home security plan very far. There is more to HD than just a gun.

1. Solid doors, no glass, double locked.

2. External Storm Doors, Glass allowed. Also double locked and door frame covering main door lock.

3. Sturdy windows, for security not for looks.

4. Alarm sensors on all of the above.

5. ATD/Brnks alarm set on "stay" , with ear piercing siren wailing from attic if any of the above sensors are violated.

6. Night lights lighting all rooms. (you won't need a whole lot of light, just enough to ID intruder)

7. I have cheap wireless security cams covering interior of Garage and both main doors to house. I can see all of living room and kitchen. Handbeld, battery driven monitor is on night table.

8. Cell phone on nightstand on wife's side of bed. ( she is my RTO)

9. With no kids ar home, we stay in safe room (Master bedroom) for whole incident.

10.Plan: Hear noise, grab monitor check both rooms, meanwhile call 911 (wife), I reach down next to bed for 12 gauge and throw wife the EDC. I don't have to announce anything, siren does it for me. (alarm system is wired underground as is electrical wiring and telephone. ( Boxes are internal , utility room closet)


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My biggest worry about shooting in the dark without ID, is that it could be one of my older married kids (they have keys to house and code to alarm.) I have briefed them to always call but you can never tell what could happen.
 
Hey wjh2657: Nice list/advice. You can also add:
Put a small rug or some form of towel on floor jammed into the bottom of bedroom door. If door is locked and is then being forced open, the perp still finds he is only partly into bedroom because the rug or towel is blocking full opening. Meanwhile you have the upper hand ready with your weapon.
Have a bright LED type flashlight aimed at door. As he tries to open the door, all he sees is bright light. You should be standing at a distinct angle away from the light so you can see him but his aiming at the light is nowhere near you
Keep your car key remote on nightstand. The emergency button that activates the car lights and horn is another noise that will be in your favor and allow police to find your home. This is even more important if you do not have an alarm system that is already "screeching".
 
Kelcarry,

I left out the Surefire Tactical Light on nightstand! Experience with police in our area has been that if house is "hardened", thieves avoid it like the plague. Everything depends on stealth and timing. If houseowner is prepared, they have lost advantage. We live on a "loop" road and sheriff department can close off both ends, fast! Substation is only 2 miles away and they and fire department get there quick. Sheriff cars pass house two or three times a night. LEOs are all local boys and "kinfolk" so relationship between public and sheriff's Dept is very close.

This is "Davy Crockett" country (Lots of hunting and fishing) and any hood worth his salt knows that he is going to be facing the mandatory 12 gauge pump shotgun when he gets inside. They can't afford noise or loss of time, in this area that is a death sentence!
 
It is just me an the dog, everyone that knows me, knows not to walk in if there are no lights on. So if i here someone sham on them
 
I had a situation a few years back that would have been tragic had I shot first. We participated in a yard sale with some friends that live several miles away. We set up on Friday night and my wife decided to stay the night with our friends.

About 2:30 am, I woke to tons of sirens heading my direction. A car screeched to a halt in front of my house, a car door slammed, and a body went over my fence. I looked out the window and saw close to 20 cop cars in the street. I immediately assumed they weren't after the average petty BG. I invited an officer in to check my back yard and my basement. We found nothing so I went back to bed.

About 20 minutes later, my dog started growling and I heard footsteps creeping through the house. I grabbed my Glock and my HID and stepped into the hallway. I saw a silhoutte enter the hallway as my dog continued to growl. I flipped on the HID and said Freeze A-hole. It was my wife. She had decided to come home without calling me.

We both learned a valuable lesson that night. I will not fire without positive identification.
 
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Not as dramatic as your situation HardCorps, but a couple of friends of mine had a similar situation.

Carl is asleep and hears someone pull up to the house at 1am. Somebody gets out, and Carl hears them open the gate which means they're headed for the house and approaching the front door.. He grabs his Mini 14 and moves as fast as he can to the door. About the time he gets there, the door starts to open at the same time he loads a round into the chamber.

Upon hearing the action of the gun, the guy on the outside freezes and says, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! It's me, William!"

There was enough light in the livingroom to see whoever was opening the door(had it opened all the way). Carl says he wasn't going to shoot without identifying his target, but I can see where things might have gone very badly. William has a blanket welcome to come over anytime and stay in the spare bedroom, and normally calls ahead of time. He didn't this time because he knew that would wake up Carl. You can bet he'll be calling every time now.
 
It could be anyone, anyone like someone you really didn't want to shoot. This is the first rule of self defense with a firearm, make darn sure of the target. Look, we have all been awaken from a deep sleep. Groggy, and not all there yet. What if the misses went outside to walk the dog, or kid from college decided to surprise the old man by coming home early. What if, is a game we can not afford to lose.

Flashlight is great, but what is wrong with a remote to turn on the lights in specific rooms. If it is a bad guy, it might be more than one bad guy. It happened fairly recently, a guy heard a noise in his kitchen, got his trusty flashlight and pistol. He got the drop on the bad guy, only to be killed by the bad guy he didn't see.

He was half right, and most surely dead right. If you don't have to confront them don't, grab your piece, grab the phone, and call the law. If they decide to come to where you are, then all bets are off, but for goodness sakes know what, or who you are shooting at.

Scott Williams
Black Dragon Personal Protection/Firearms Training/Unarmed Combat
 
Hey blkdragon: You are absolutely right on with your comments. The only scenario that a recent poster presented that cannot be argued with is in a house where there are children and their bedrooms are located on the other side or other level of the home. I live with my wife and there are no other people who should or could be in my house in the dead of night. If you have kids, per the above situation, you are obligated to go on some form of offensive in the face of an unknown and unseen perp. What I like about this forum is the responsible responses that make up most of the comments and not the very Rambo-type messages that tend to proliferate many of the gun forums. It is easy to talk a talk when you are sitting at a computer and it is another thing to walk the walk in the middle of the night with the possibility of dying. I think many people get carried away when they write into forums and if the real thing comes down they will not be so sure of their actions. I try to think of the what ifs and what I would do but until it actually happens I really could not say for certain what I would do. I do know that I will try to do whatever I can to avoid even thinking about the use of my weapon, which to me means I am in serious fear of my life or my loved ones and at that point my actions are crystal clear.
 
My wife (who also carries and is trained) and I have instructed our grown sons, who both have keys to the house, to NEVER wander in un-announced in the middle of the night. I don't know why they would, but you never know...

I like these discussions as I believe they help us all to think about how to conduct ourselves under different scenarios. The more I think about shit, the more I believe I am less likely to shoot someone, unless it is the most dire of circumstances. I think we got our fair share of "arm chair" shooters, whose attitude seems to be, basically, "shoot the f##ckers and ask questions later". Well, I hunt a lot, and have watched a lot of critters die, and I don't EVER want to be looking down on some teen-age idiot, as he gurgles his last breath due to the 45s lodged in his chest. If he's trying to hurt me or mine, he will be shot, if I have to, but I'm gonna give 'em every chance to make another decision, for as long as I can.

The "bump in the night" will ALWAYS be identified first, even if it costs me some of my advantage.
 
kelcarry said:
Hey blkdragon: You are absolutely right on with your comments. The only scenario that a recent poster presented that cannot be argued with is in a house where there are children and their bedrooms are located on the other side or other level of the home. I live with my wife and there are no other people who should or could be in my house in the dead of night. If you have kids, per the above situation, you are obligated to go on some form of offensive in the face of an unknown and unseen perp. What I like about this forum is the responsible responses that make up most of the comments and not the very Rambo-type messages that tend to proliferate many of the gun forums. It is easy to talk a talk when you are sitting at a computer and it is another thing to walk the walk in the middle of the night with the possibility of dying. I think many people get carried away when they write into forums and if the real thing comes down they will not be so sure of their actions. I try to think of the what ifs and what I would do but until it actually happens I really could not say for certain what I would do. I do know that I will try to do whatever I can to avoid even thinking about the use of my weapon, which to me means I am in serious fear of my life or my loved ones and at that point my actions are crystal clear.
Click to expand...

The problem is when you hear something go bump in the night but didn't hear enough to justify calling the police. You end up checking it out.
 
Hey maybejim: In my house it is only my wife and I and we lock the bedroom door at night. If there is a "bump in the night" (and from listening it is not just something falling but obviously real visitors) outside of our bedroom, I call 911 and stay in my bedroom. I will yell out that police have been called, I will activate the emergency horn blowing on the car, and I will yell out as I rack the shotgun that it will be a big mistake if you try my locked door. I will think about the insurance claim I will make if they leave with something before the police arrive or they leave without trying my bedroom door. If they try the door and manage to force it from the locked position they will be very sorry. I do have alarms at all external facing doors and windows but do not always use them or soemtimes they may be in disrepair--I would think the alarms, if working, will preclude "visitors" but you never know with dopeheads.
 
Target identification is one of the safety rules that everybody should learn before handling a deadly weapon.
One night, I woke up and snuck out out of bed to avoid waking my wife. While walking toward the kitchen, I heard and saw someone coming through the front door. In a fraction of a second, I had a gun, cocked and aimed. Thankfully, because of years of training and practice, my finger wasn't near the trigger. Don't you know I became weak in the knees when I discovered the 'target' was my dear wife?! :fie: She was looking away, never saw the gun, and doesn't know to this day she had a gun aimed at her. Somehow, I hadn't woken up when she got out of bed.
 
My wife and I have a ten year old son and a seventeen year old daughter still living at home. The kids often have friends over to spend the night on weekends. Our house isn't Grand Central Station but it's a pretty darned busy. You can bet I would have to verify a threat before firing my pistol. I don't think I could live with myself if I shot the wrong person. I keep control of my CC weapon at all times to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
 
Good answers guys. As I have said, I lock my bedroom door and put a wedge under the door. For that door to open, someone has to be in my house in the first place and then has to work hard at opening the bedroom door. It could, in some strange way, possibly be my wife but my intent would be, once someone is trying to open the door to yell out that he is making a big mistake as I rack a 12g, which sounds loud in a quiet house. I also will aim a high-lumen flashlight directly at the door opening and place myself at a severe angle away from the light but in fine position to hit what I aim at. If, for some crazy reason, it was my wife, I am sure she would say something in response to this kind of wake-up call but if that bedroom door starts to open after all I have done to prevent it opening, I will give the light one chance to see who is there and if it isn't my wife (the only other person in my house, who by now would be screeching it is her), there will be life-changing events happening in my home. PS: My wife is well aware of our precautions and even if she went into the kitchen late at night without my being aware, she cannot lock the bedroom door nor put a wedge under the door as she exits the bedroom--the door could be closed but not locked or secured. Any heavy attempts to penetrate the bedroom have to be coming from an intruder.
 
This is something I've been thinking of for a while myself. I wear glasses, and my night vision without them is horrible. The absolute worst home invasion scenario I could possibly envison is for me to hear what appears to be someone breaking in, and me grabbing my shotgun while I go investigate. I've always wondered what if I don't have time to grab my glasses and cell phone? By the time I grab those thngs, I could already be dead or seriously hurt. Is this something any of the other glasses wearers here have ever had to deal with or consider?
 
Hey tattedupboy: Two comments on your w/o glasses comments. 1) If you have the shotgun, the first thing you do is rack the shotgun if it is a pump--that noise is as good as it gets and 2) Shotguns are basically point and shoot guns, when firing double O shot. If you have any sort of eyesight it should serve you well even if your eyesight is not great.
Other than those comments, methinks you had better develop an intense plan on reaction to a breakin that includes those glasses.
Hopefully as I would say to all of us on this forum, we NEVER have to actually present our weapons anytime.
 
tattedupboy! Not sure how old you are, I wear glasses and find that for shooting at distances of twenty yards or less I don't need them. Spend a little time on the range using just clear shooting glasses, I think your fears will be abated. As far as point and shoot, as a cop I can tell you that shooting a shotgun at close range will really open your eyes. I can take head shots at 7yards, hit the bad guy target in the "ocular-cranial" and not touch the hostage target! I am good with a shotgun, but not as good as the SWAT guys! Don't fall into that false belief that a shotgun spreads out far and wide in such short distances, it ain't true!

Another mistaken idea, my home defense shotgun I use #6 shot. That's right! It holds a tight pattern, won't over penatrate into neighbors homes, and will get the job done. Center-mass, or head keep shooting until the threat disappears. Your concerns regarding the cell phone, and glasses are ones that you can address with ease. If you have a spare pair, maybe you should try to fasten the case(containing the glasses)to the butt of your shotgun. This can be done with a rubber band. A prepaid "safe phone" to be used just for emergencies can also be taped to the oposite side of the stock. Everything is there in a neat package. You guys are great! This is the place to kick things around, find a problem address it.

Scott Willams
[URL="http://www.blackdragonpersonalprotection.com/
 
I remember an awful story some years ago, I think it was in Louisiana...Guy hears "bump" in the nite, grabs his piece, goes to investigate, and someone jumps out of a closet with a yell. The guy, obviously startled, promptly shoots and kills HIS OWN 14-year old son, who apparently was just spoofing him. What a horror! So, this makes me think...COMMUNICATE with everyone who MIGHT wander into your home or pull some boneheaded stunt like this. I think, basically, your close friends and loved ones MUST know that you are routinely armed. I don't think you can fault the guy in the above situation but that's gotta be beyond words awful to live with. I ran over and killed my own dog recently and I feel like I'll never get over that. I can't imagine this.
 
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