I live in an apartment on the top (third) floor of an apartment building where the street door locks automatically when closed. It's in a pretty bad part of town (though to be blunt the whole town is a bad neighborhood).
To get into my building, one must either have a key to the street door, or be "buzzed" in by one of the residents. (Or I suppose someone inside might just physically, manually open the street door from inside if they happened to be standing near it.)
This is not a foolproof system because some of the residents will "buzz" in *anyone* who keeps persistently buzzing one or several or even *all* of the apartment buzzers, without even knowing who it is. Also, from time to time some of the tenants themselves are pretty unsavory characters, or else they have a *lot* of unsavory guests trooping in and out. (One of the latter stole a plastic owl of mine that had been perched unbothered on a cabinet in the hall outside my apartment door for years.)
I selected this place largely for the slight added measure of security and privacy provided by the automatic-locking-door-door-buzzer/intercom system, which is unusual in my neck of the woods, though pretty common in bigger towns, I guess.
I also selected a top floor apartment *specifically* to make it tougher for anyone outside to peep in through the windows. In addition, all windows are always heavily draped and/or "blacked-out."
Since I *never* buzz anyone in unless I'm expecting them, and no longer use the intercom either, because the minute I speak on the intercom I have given it away that I am at home (or that *someone* is here, anyway). I don't entertain socially here. In fact I actively and passively *discourage* all visitors, especially unexpected, uninvited ones.
Before I even started moving any of my stuff in here in September, 1999, I got a locksmith in here and had him install a deadbolt lock and a wide-angle "peephole" door viewer in the apartment's hall door. (I got special written permission from the landlord to do this, on the condition that I provide him with a key. I provided him with *a* key, alright. Whether it'll work in my lock -- the *only* deabolt lock in the whole building -- is another question.)
I also (without bothering to inform the landlord, whom I distrust) converted the walk-in closet in the master bedroom into a sort of poor man's strong room. My so-called "gun safe" (one of those $120 sheet metal Wal-Mart things with the tubular keys) is screwed to the wall inside the always locked "strong room," inside the master bedroom, which is also always kept closed and locked whenever I must have the landlord's parolee "maintenance" henchmen in here.
So, "buttoned up" to the degree that I usually am here, I wonder how a "sweep" like the one in Oshkosh would have gone down here? If I just "played possum," didn't respond to the buzzer or use the intercom, or answer the hall door at all if someone got inside the building and came up the stairs and knocked on my always-locked (and *braced*) door? I mean not respond to a knock on the door, not even to refuse consent for a warrantless search (or even one *with* a warrant, for that matter).
Would my lack of response, or the uncertainty of the police whether I was even home or not, be sufficient "exigent circumstances," or "probable cause," for them to force entry, or attempt it?
Suppose I lived in some considerably more secure and private place, a house that was designed from the ground up to be, or extensively modified to be, *seriously* hard to break into?
I mean a place where no one unexpected, uninvited, or unwelcome could even get *to* the door to knock on it without doing some "Guns of Navarone"-style rock climbing, or blasting or ramming their way in with explosives or heavy earth-moving machinery (and the latter would be hindered by wide, deep, steep-sided ditches and various obstacles), or "fast-roping" in from a helicopter or something. A place where, once invaders managed to breach the outermost gate or portal, they'd find themselves at least temporarily trapped like fish in a barrel, and perhaps bewildered as well by maze-like, dead-end passageways, false doors, etc.
If I ever have any money worth mentioning I intend to build a place more-or-less like that. And it's not just ordinary, common criminals I'll be trying to keep out either.
I am not a druggie or pot grower or any kind of criminal as far as I know. (Though who really knows anymore what "laws" they may be breaking just by being alive?) I live alone so there is hardly likely to be any kind of "domestic dipute"/"domestic violence"-type complaint. I do own several guns, all of which were bought through normal commercial channels from licensed dealers -- all legal and proper and all the forms filled out. At least everything was legal when I bought it.
So how come I -- a relatively honest, peaceable, even bland and shy fellow -- feel the need to go to such lengths to defend my rights, not so much from criminals as from the armed agents of some level or other of government?
I want to be able to say "No," and really make it stick, at least for a while.
MCB
I'm just a sneaky guy. And also a coward!!! I was really hoping you wouldn't look at the thread again. I certainly wouldn't have posted just because I wanted to continue the dialogue....