I love this place! I can always count on some saying to same thing I did, more or less, just with fewer words, thanks. Oh and also when I said a short barrel Shot Gun was best in a home I did not mean to say folks should take their favorite or one and only Shot Gun and cut down the barrel. NO, please don't do that unless you have one you really don't mind sacrificing. But if you do cut one down make real sure you know what the legal minimum length can be in your state or by Federal law, State Laws may never supersede Federal laws but they make more stringent ones. So if the BATFE says 18 inches is peachy, your State could say the min is 20 and that is the one you have to go by. They can't make the legal length shorter than 18 but they can increase it. That’s true of any law in any State btw ( or was, I'm no lawyer so I don't really know if the US Congress ever changed that law)
Ya war and law enforcement are a lot different than protecting your own home from intruders. I also forgot to mention in the other post when you are I and others like us go out to do what we do, we have on Body Armor (forget the term "Bullet Proof" there is not such thing and never has beed) not just for luck but for the simple fact that the odds are someone of us Will get hit in the raid but the Vests saves our lives most every time. Not only do you need to train with your weapons, small arm, shot gun, long gun, but you really do need to make sure your entire family knows what to do especially at night. My daughter knew to hide under her bed and not move make a sound, My wife knew to stay in the bedroom and not say anything until I called clear. Or if necessary shoot the dipstick if I failed. My wife is Not that found of weapons, she has a ccw, but doesn't carry it or a weapon, she does know what to do if she's attacked outside. (I hope), and she aced her training class and back when she took it lasted 16 hours, 2 Saturdays, or 4 Wednesdays your pick. So if the intruder gets past me odds are not good for whomever comes through the door. But the point is everyone in the house needs to know what to do and why. (Daughters a lot older 24 now and she's had the course and has 3 of my Pistols and she knows how to take care of herself.) She know from the time she could talk never to touch any weapon. But that's us, and I also have a EotW (Zombie's?) kit ready if that day ever comes. And it has a CZ 550 .308 sniper rifle with a 5.5x22x50 0 stop MPR1 Reticle Night Force Scope attacked and in a special case.
Everything I said above is really up to each and every family to work out what works for themselves, But I would seriously suggest that all non-combatants are told in no uncertain terms to stay where they are and not make a sound, (And Ya good luck with that) I know Adults that aren't capable of that. Never ceases to surprise me none the less. And That part only works if the intruder(s) come in through anywhere BUT the bedroom windows. And for that very bad situation there is really not much anyone can do, except hope the kids wake up in time to get clear before whomever it is inside or grabs them. Burglar Alarms work great but not everyone can afford one even if it's not monitored in any way, just have it for the noise, Things are not that cheap and things are not good ecumenically for most folks. No one can tell you how to protect your kids/family (well yes they could if they were there to walk you through it, and everyone paid attention and actually did what they were told and remembered it) But that costs even more than an Alarm. Every single family is different, every home is different. Note I did not say house, house' can/are be all the exact same design and layout, but what makes it a Home is the people that live in it and the furnishings they use. We have given some folks thoughts they may not have considered and I hope we have helped at least someone, somewhere. I doubt we will ever find out, all we can do is Hope that folks can make any of this work for them depending on the circumstances.
Here is a whole nother scene, I am interested in seeing how anyone responds.
Hostages (your family member in your home): say you have confronted the intruder, but they either already have one of your family, or one of the family forgets everything they were told, come out from where they are and get close enough to the intruder to be grabbed and used as a hostage/shield. This is a world class nightmare for anyone, and I mean anyone, and how things turn out depends on, in this case, how you deal with it. First and foremost I have been shooting for 30 years give or take with the last 10 years off, I'm rusty as heck but now that I can see again I'm going to be spending a lot of time at the range getting back your skill set. so this is what I would do and frankly I think it's the only safe way to keep the Hostage alive, your family alive and the hostage alive (hostage being one of the family members or friends etc.) When I go to the range I go with a plan on spending an hour each on in the Black Center Mass both slow fire and rapid, one hour shooting with my left hand hoping to hit the target more or less in the center as much as possible. Unless you are naturally ambidextrous it isn't as easy as you would think. And one hour taking timed, slow Head shots, With the aim being to put the round through the eye and not just anywhere in the head. Ah you ask why? Well here's the deal. General placed Head shots do NOT switch off the entire body instantly. Depending on where you shot them in the head, you may get lucky and drop them without their pulling the trigger or cutting or stabbing, but that depends entirely where you hit them. Most head shots will kill the person, but that does not mean they can't still do harm even dead, and what I am talking about is called Galvanic Response. Believe it or not I actually spelled that correctly the first time, but I still checked. Anyway what means is that our bodies are pretty much run by our nervous system which is controlled by minute electrical impulses from our brains. Or if actually dead then you can make a leg or arm twitch using a wire hooked to two batteries, Basic Biology. Anyway when the brain gets a bullet zipping through it or bouncing around inside it's skull it scrambles all those minuet impulses to the muscles and can very likely make some or all of the body spasm for a second or so, and that spasm could very easily be their trigger finger, or arm/hand holding the knife, causing it to pull the trigger or slice with the knife. depending on just how much they are concentrating on holding that pose and how tight their muscles are because of it. But the odds are Not in the Hostages favor and there for not in yours even more. (Yes I Know on TV or the Movies head shots Always make the bad guy fall down without twitching, no convulsions, no spasms, and in Real Life that is bull) But people see that and think it's totally true, and now we have First person shooter games where that and even more stupid things work, and taken for granted by everyone that has never seen or heard of a real life violet death. Sorry back to the point, there is/are more or less three places you can actually shoot someone in the head and turn off Everything instantly, they simply drop like a bag of potatoes. The primary shot is through the eyes, Left eye is the very best but the Right works also, Really hard to get the idiot hostage taker to expose their left eye Unless they happen to be left handed. Oh it happens now and again when they expose their entire face to scream at you, but not something you can count on. We can skip the other two places since it isn't very likely you will ever have those shots unless you are part of the Hostage Team/sniper/ or LEO in the right place. And those shots are still up to the person holding their weapon on the hostage taker. I really have no intention of making this into a how to for breaking the law, and I'm not going to get into the argument about when self-protection books and information, can drift over into how to's for the bad guys to use against you. EVERYTHING can be put to bad uses.
So this brings up something else TV and Movies get wrong every time, and I have seen LEO'S do it also which really makes me wonder who is doing their training. IF Deity Forbid you ever end up pointing your weapon at someone holding a hostage NEVER ever lower it until the other person is dead or surrenders and then only if they drop their weapon first. Unless of course you want to die, and let everyone one else die also. People for some reason continue to think that bad guys aren't really that bad and if they make a deal with you they will keep it. Put that thought clear out of your mind now and keep it there, the odds a criminal will keep their bargain (forget giving their Word, you need Honor for your Word to be believed and they, the bad guys. almost never do) So the odds of them keeping their side of the deal is roughly 99 to 1 against that happening. You lower your weapon even for an instant and you lose, the bad guy is not likely going to kill the only person keeping them alive. That's not to say a suicide by police isn't possible. or that the hostage taker isn't a stoned out Psychopath who has nothing to lose and simply kills the hostage simply because they can, but if that's the case there is not one bad thing you could do about it or could have done about. Pretty much in that situation you have to decide pretty damn fast to take the eye shot a.s.a.p. and I hope you have practiced that a lot. Frankly it should not be that hard a shot since A) you will almost always be inside twenty feet of the person say 8 yards not more than ten unless you are the designated sniper which you won't be in your own home. And B) the eye is about the same size as the x in the center ring of a target so if you practice shooting at 5 and 10 yards aiming and hitting the x then you can take the shot and hit their eye. Now here the part I really hate about TV and Movies. Say the bad guy takes his weapon off the hostage and waves it at everyone around him or simply at you, generally yelling at you to get out of the way or whatever. You almost never see the actors shoot that person in the head or anywhere else, everyone just stands around watching as the bad guy puts the weapon back on the hostage. In Real Life, If they take the weapon away from the hostage and point it at you or anyone else and not directly at the hostage, SHOOT them in the head! Anywhere! Death throes aren't going to matter a whole lot. Unless everyone, but the bad guys, luck has taken the day off. Especially if the weapon is a knife, or the firearm is not cocked, as long as it's not pointing at the hostage or at anyone in particular, they will die before their finger hand actually gets to twitch if it does at all.
Ok you are asking what if the LEO's are there and pointing their weapons at both of you and telling you both to put your weapons down. What you do then, mostly depends on how good a shot you are, and how much you trust the LEO's involved to do the right thing. The risk here is not small at all it's in fact fairly substantial, but if it's me I'm going to tell them to piss off I'm not lowering anything until the bad guy lest the Hostage go and drops their weapon. But that IS ME! What you do is your call I can't choose for you because I will not be there to know everything thing that is involved and how it got that way. James I hope has some ideas but he isn't going to be there either to advise you or help. All you can hope is that the LEO's keep their act together and figure the bad guy is the most important person to worry about. And not shot me when I shoot the bad guy while he is distracted by the LEO's or anyone else that enters the room. It would not surprise me in the least if some City or State had a law that said in that type of situation you are legally bound to do as the LEO's tell you and if you fail to do so you can be charged with whatever their tiny little political bleeding heart minds decide to charge you with. I would take my chances in a court room every single time and that's including if I lived in the Republik of Kalli, or anywhere else that bleeding heart liberal anti-gun politicians control. Then again, they sure as hell have no legal grounds to try you for Murder, Manslaughter, Accidental Death, or anything else along those lines for the very simple reason that the FEDERAL laws clearly state that ANYONE licensed to carry or not may use whatever lethal force necessary if a Felony is being committed and you can stop it. And Federal laws in this case trumps any Local or State Law every time. And Hostage taking is very much a Federal Felony. It's actually a first cousin if not brother/sister to Kidnapping since they have a person against their will. is keeping them from their family & friends and using them to negotiate a way out of the CF they got themselves into.
Oh and James (or anyone else for that matter) if you ever get down to Orlando and have some free time look me up please cause I sure as heck good use some help learning to use my Long Gun, I have never been any good with them every which is why I specialized in Small Arms, and Riot Shotguns. Close quarter combat.
