Guess country life isn't safe either...

[Trent]

http://www.pekintimes.com/article/20121019/NEWS/121019510

This happened a couple miles from home; several bad guys stage a late night raid on a farmhouse to steal firearms. I thought moving out to the country would get my family away from stuff like this.

It doesn't say it in the newspaper article, but I know the people indirectly through my neighbors - the man works third shift, so the thugs broke in while he was away at work, and his wife & children were asleep. They slept through the robbery - one of the bad guys had a handgun "in case of trouble" while the others stole everything portable of value (starting with the firearms).

The bad guy that was armed is still on the run. They managed to steal a bunch of stuff from the house, including more firearms.

Two of the intruders caught were from the Peoria area; over 30 miles away. They drove clear out to the country to do this.

The bad guys were damn lucky if you ask me, a fair amount of the people in this area keep loaded guns nearby when sleeping. Don't know if this was a random robbery or if the bad guys had intel about when the man of the house would be away.

Anyway, guess it can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time...

 

[floorit76]

Had to be some kind of inside info considering the guy was at work. Still shocked that the wife slept thru it though. We have had a few out here, but there is always something that draws them, like a coin colection, something of value. And ussually a young addict family member. Sad.

 

[Trent]

My son goes to school with the teenage boy who lives there (he's 14 or 15, a freshman; my son is a sophomore). Our rural school has graduating classes of about 20 kids each year, so everyone knows everyone, for the most part.

I got some more info of my son this morning (had to tear him away from building a website)... the girl who turned over information to police lived in the house that was robbed; recent graduate. Evidently one of her friends was involved with someone that planned the robbery.

So .. from what I can put together, there was inside information about the home delivered via mutual acquaintance to the bad guys that performed the home invasion.

The people who performed the robbery ALSO stole a rifle (model unidentified) the same night from a different residence in town - and ONLY a rifle on that one.

Evidently all firearms have been recovered but they still haven't caught the primary suspect (the one who was armed at the time of the robberies).

This line from the questioning was spooky - "A handgun was brought into the home “in case there was trouble” from occupants".

 

[Carl N. Brown]

One of my co-workers talked to a new neighbor a few years back. The new neighbor had retired from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and picked my coworker's rural neighborhood precisely because of the low crime rate. He wanted to retire from all that crime bother.

I can say that the countryside and small city tend to have lower crime rates per 100,000 per year. My home county (~140,000) went three years without a homicide. But low does not mean no.

I used to wonder at the practice mentioned by my grandparents of sleeping with a pistol under the pillow, because life seemed so safe, but I have since begun to wonder if life had been safe because potential home intruders were aware people were sleeping with pistols under their pillows.

 

[Trent]

Carl; yeah, I wonder about the logic as well. On a fair day, I can hear gunfire from seven or 8 different directions sometimes when standing out in my yard. Picking a random house to break in to here is REALLY damn dangerous. But, it's clear in this case that information was delivered (inadvertently?) via a mutual acquaintance.

I have to say this would have had a much different ending in my home; even if I'm put down by the first bad guy or I'm not home, my wife, both sons, and oldest daughter are all trained to shoot; you are NOT getting inside this house without alerting someone (dogs + alarm).

"Trouble" for armed intruders in the country could very well start - and end - with muzzle flash, not words.

Unfortunately, dumb criminals don't realize these things, until the worst happens to some of them.

Just because you live in a "safe" area doesn't mean you should drop your guard. If anything, you should be MORE vigilant, because help is often 20+ minutes away if you call 911 in the middle of the night. (Average response time here for county is well over 20 minutes).

 

[1911 guy]

'Hood rats have cars, too. I live in a small town, our phonebook is thinner than a deck of cards. Our local troublemaker got put away (turned 18 and was charged as an adult=jail instead of wrist slaps) but a few break-ins have happened since. Since you don't get here by accident, the local cops started keeping tabs on "suspicious" (not from here) cars. One was soon stopped with loot in it.

Moving to Mayberry doesn't mean the cretins can't reach you.

 

[Trent]

Also, the spooky part HERE is that last time we did a drill in my home - a few weeks ago - we specifically talked about multiple attackers.

We do tornado drills, fire drills, and home invasion drills here. My little ones (6 and 8) have a special place they know to run to if any of the adults yell a specific phrase - solid enough to stop small arms fire. My older children have places to go which are also hardpoints, with firearms nearby, although they're instructed to only acquire those weapons if "dad goes down".

It sure sounded paranoid as hell when we did the drill last time. My kids definitely thought Dad had lost it! "Dad, we're not going to have 5 or 6 people kick in the door in the middle of the night, you're just being paranoid."

When we did the "training", there hadn't been any nearby home invasions involving multiple armed intruders in recent memory.

I think my family will take the next drill a lot more seriously.

Am I paranoid? Debatable, but I prefer to think of my family as "well prepared."

 

[hso]

If you and your family don't maintain sufficient privacy about owning firearms then you set yourself apart from your neighbors that do. Robberies aren't random when someone comes to your home because they know more than a curbside view will tell them.

I've made a point of explaining that talking about what we have in our home (other than critters) to others can lead to bad people wanting to come to our home to take those things and possibly hurt us.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Keep the mouth shut.
Layered security.
Dog.

 

[Trent]

HSO -

Very valid point.

And I believe I've made myself a potential target, having taught several of my son's friends how to shoot. THOSE kids are good kids. Their other friends they talk to.. might not be.

We can't live entirely secluded, unfortunately. And I can't fully limit the impact that 7 other household members have on our privacy - others are going to know we have firearms.

Hell, I shoot in my backyard, so there's 100 houses within earshot who know I have firearms. (It's how gun owners out here find each other out here - I've gone to several neighborhood "shooting parties", completely uninvited, simply by walking down the road following the sounds of firearms, with a range bag over my shoulder! Great way to meet the neighbors.)

Hell, I had one neighbor roll up in a golf cart one time while I was mowing the lawn, asking if I had any 50BMG ammo for sale (I did, and sold him 300 rounds). One of my other neighbors told him about my Barrett M95 ...

My lawnmower broke this summer, told one neighbor about it, and another neighbor started mowing my lawn - didn't even ASK - just found him out there mowing my grass one morning. I knew he had a 1911, so I paid him in 45 ammo.

So, yeah, there's a line to draw in the sand about privacy vs. socialization and camaraderie and fellowship. I choose to live more openly than most do, and accept the consequences. This also means I have beefed up my external security a heck of a lot more than most.

It also means when there's an unusual car parked outside my house in the middle of the day I get multiple phone calls on my cell phone. "Yes, that's my friend Roy, he's over here picking up AR15 parts, I'm here visiting with him."

In larger cities you don't get this level of "community".

And I sure as hell love it out here.

 

[Trent]

Used today's news article as a motivation for a trip to the range with Jr.. he went to town with the Taurus PT92, shot through 200 rounds of 9mm today.

I tried to catch an actual shot, but this was as close as I got, can still see the muzzle smoke cloud disbursing in front of him.

 

[SSN Vet]

Loose lips sink ships!

 

[gbran]

Glad it didn't turn ugly, but as to the firearms, I keep all mine in safes, except for what I keep out for protection. Outside of a small circle, nobody knows I own guns. No signs, no NRA bumper stickers either.

 

[Malamute]

No, no lace is entirely safe, its all relative though. Some are definetely safer than others. It's all about what you're willing to live with, both the convenience factor from a town, and even what part of the country, and what level of risk you're willing to live with.

Some places you're truly more likely to be mugged by a critter than a person. Most people don't care for that level of inconvenience from a town, and the lack of the sort of jobs/wages they are used to.


Many openly say they envy where I live, but I'd guess most aren't willing to pay the price it takes to live here.

 

[Trent]

Malamute - I want to retire out to the rocky mountains. This country living is kind of a .. staging area.. until my kids are all launched out to conquer the world.

Even so, we have roughly an hour round trip to go to the store, or get gas; we're pretty remote. Pizza delivery is already a distant, fading memory, and we've only lived out here 5 years.

This story had a (relatively speaking) happy ending, anyway. The guns were recovered quickly, only one person is still on the run (out of the 5), and most importantly - no one died.

If they'd picked a different house to rob, there might be a mess of weeping parents right now. Some of us country folk are much less friendly to armed intruders, nor are we likely to sleep right through a home invasion.... dogs, alarms, and sturdy doors make it much harder to get in without making your presence (loudly) known to those inside.

 

[Malamute]

How much longer?

 

[marktx]

"Trouble" for armed intruders in the country could very well start - and end - with muzzle flash, not words.

Y'all need to read The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse by Fernando "FerFAL" Aguirre. The book is fairly well known in gun circles and discusses his experience with the economic collapse in Argentina. While there is a certain romantic sense of survival being out in the country it also has a significant amount of risk. The risk of being out in the country is that you just can't be on guard 24/7 for potential intruders and eventually they will catch you off guard. Being somewhat isolated they will often times take their time and torture you/your family in order to be sure they have found all the valuables. It definitely made me rethink my ideas about being out in the country.... the muzzle flash, not words goes both ways.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Modern-Su...ie=UTF8&qid=1350783794&sr=8-1&keywords=ferfal

 

[shiftyer1]

Nope country life ain't never been totally safe and many things on the farm never get reported.

Most folks in the country also realize that the sheriff ain't around the corner and tend to plan accordingly. When im gone and the neighbor sees a strange vehicle I get a phone call.....when i'm home sometimes also........ain't much traffic around here so it's an event. lol

I sure do wish I could order a pizza delivered!!!!!!!!!!! I am blessed by having a really good pizza place about 12 miles down the road

I'm happy noone was hurt!!!

 

[JohnB]

The country is still safer than city life. I have a deal with Domino's. If I want a pizza delivered they will meet me half way. Like someone above said, this afternoon, all afternoon I could hear gun shots from several different directions. My closest neighbor was sighting in his AR-15 in his back yard this afternoon. My other neighbor doesn't even call if he sees a strange car come down my 400' long driveway. He just gets his 12 ga. and walks back here to check things out. My wife and my mother (84 next month) have concealed carry permits and are proficient. Oh yeah, my pit bull that has her own love seat to sleep on near the front door does not like being woke up in the middle of the night. The gator in the pond at the back of my property takes care of all would-be evidence.

 

[rondog]

Country folks should always have dogs. Large, unfriendly, territorial dogs. I love my sweet little Beagles and they love everyone else, but if I ever get to live in the country there will be a couple of more serious animals added to our pack. Country folks have to leave their homes unguarded far too often, and an empty house in the country is just a big target, IMO.

 

[Trent]

Malamute, my youngest is 6, so at least 12 years.

That is, of course, if my oldest boy doesn't end up living in the basement until he's 35.

My smallest dog is a 55 lb husky. My biggest dog is an Irish Wolfhound pup. He's 11 months old, is 38" tall at the shoulders, weighs over 165 lbs of tough muscle and bone, stands over 7' tall on his hind legs, and once knocked me out cold on accident saying "Hi" when I walked in the door. Has a hell of a right cross, that dog, and he's still going to keep growing for another 8 or 9 months.

Here he is .. demanding a cookie from my wife.

She made the mistake of teasing him with it, the chair (and her) ended up on the floor with the wolfhound hunting for the cookie that my husky stole during the confusion. You can make his blue eye out in the photo, barely, under the wolfhound's jaw.

Good with kids, fortunately. This is him with my 8 year old (2nd grade) daughter.

 

[Zoogster]

Telling people you have large numbers of valuables is risky.
A gun or a few might deter bad guys, but many can attract the bad guys.

Young people with ties from high school, early jobs, dating scene etc tend to socialize with everyone. This means even those that pose no risk themselves generally have friends that do. While older bad guys tend to be more surrounded with similar people of loose morality and so if you choose to socialize with such people you should know your risks in advance.
Young criminals are also less experienced and more stupid so prone to do riskier things, and perceive small reward as more.
Today due to social media it has become common for young people to blab about everything with many people, even in person. Privacy is less respected.


This means generally it is the friends of teenagers and young adults who themselves seem perfectly fine that pose the biggest risk. Or the friends of older adults that are usually more obviously bad news.





All homes are merely resistant. Living in the country allows one to make their home more resistant, there is less crime, but there is also privacy from others afforded to bad guys while they operate.
Laws don't really let someone set up a home to be hardened against anyone without explosives and indirect fire like would be easy to do for a defender. No sentires, no booby traps, vicious dogs are more likely to bite a neighbor and get you sued than protect your family.
Dogs also don't shoot, and while they deter most criminals, they are also readily dispatched by firearm armed criminals so in reality provide more of a distraction and force the bad guy to show their violent intentions rather than actually adding physical protection.
Really the law limits you to adding barriers, and there is typically fire codes that limit how much of that is even legal.
You can put all the lights and cameras you want, and they deter, but in the end they allow you to observe, and don't protect you from someone that doesn't care if you observe them.
You can harden a home, but the same privacy and space that gives more freedom also means a criminal has more time to bypass security, or use various tools to gain entry that would attract attention in a city.


However there is also many security benefits. In the country just an unfamiliar vehicle going by or someone on foot gets attention. In the city numerous people go by a residence all day and so the bad guy blends right in.
Most criminals are also lazy, and they rob their neighbors. The people most victimized are low income neighbors that live in bad areas with criminals, its not the valuables they have but the convenience of robbing someone close.
Those criminals willing to go out into the country where just their presence actually is noticed and suspicious is rare. Unless of course they are the teenagers of someone nearby who is a neighbor, or the city friends of a teenager that lives nearby (as is the case here?, didn't read story.)

 

[Dave P]

"Irish Wolfhound " I call BS - that thing is a freakin' horse, and should be kept in the barn!!

 

[Drail]

The "idea" that some places are safer than others is simply wishful thinking. The bad guys can go pretty much wherever they want. And dogs are the best alarm system you can have (if you're home when they give the alarm.)

 

[Owen Sparks]

Country living is safer simply because you are not exposed to as many people. It is an odds game. Any place with a thousand people within walking distance is going to be more dangerous than some rural setting with only a dozen or so neighbors who all know each other.