To very loosely paraphrase a big city major crimes detective of my acquaintance who has investigated more than a few of these sorts of incidents, most of the time someone is in your house, it’s because they think you aren’t. (I mean, unless you live the sort of life where you have targeted assassination squads after you, and I’m afraid that that sort of thing is way, way outside of my lane.)
Lying silently in wait in the dark for someone to shoot is practically a recipe for starring in a Claude Werner blog post. Your house is not a free-fire zone, and you are not laying ambushes for Charlie on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Even if it is a bad guy and not a family member, pet, or drunk neighbor, ensconcing oneself in a safe position, dialing 911, and loudly announcing that you have a gun and have called the cops is likely to save money for carpet cleaning bills and legal fees.
A friend quipped “What, and no advice to drag the body inside?”, which was funny, but … y’know what? I got to thinking about that, and this is even worse advice than that.
“Jes’ drag ’em inna house” is something that most non-dumb people who have watched some TV police procedurals can suss out for themselves as bad advice. It trips the BS detectors of all but the most inept.
But this? This sounds like plausible advice because it sounds like how “bad guy in the house” scenarios play out in Hollywood. The bad guy is never a tweaker who’s after a watch and some jewelry and who bolts when they realize the homeowner is there and armed. (It’s also never the homeowner’s husband home a day early from a business trip.) It’s always some elite killer team or serial murderer who’s there specifically to get the homeowner. And why wouldn’t you want to hide and ambush those guys?
Tamara Keel, “Rules of Engagement”, View From The Porch, 2019-03-27.
May 19, 2022
QotD: “Rules of engagement” for home intruder drills
2 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I had a burglar break into our house twenty years ago while our family was asleep. I woke at the noise, grabbed a baseball bat, and started for the stairs – he made a mad dash out and ruined the only thing he got (a VCR he ripped the cables out of in a mad grab to get SOMETHING).
The saddest part is that just FIVE MINUTES later, the police officer living next door pulled into his driveway after ending his shift. Just five minutes later and the burglar would have run out of the house and right at the David. Grrr.
The second saddest part is that our beagle with an anxiety disorder who snarled at leaves in the yard as if he were Cujo slept through the whole incident. Some watchdog!
Comment by George — May 19, 2022 @ 15:05
Your beagle sounds quite familiar! Our old Brittany would probably have done the same if someone had tried breaking in while he was around.
Comment by Nicholas — May 19, 2022 @ 15:47