Why not? What are you waiting for? A Ring doorbell camera with two way audio costs $99. You can take it with you if/when you move.
Homeowner and potential intruder trade shots through front door
- Thread starter Jeff White
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Second only to a fire extinguisher in terms of affordable risk management.
Hangingrock
Member
Our residence is such that we may observe/viewpoint whom is at the door with out being directly at or opening the door.
Yes, we do. It happened in Hesperia, California.
See the image for the video in Post #1.
buddyd157
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and what else is needed? a smart phone to VEIW the camera?
why should i now have to go out and buy one of those, do you think those are cheap?
so that $99 ringy-dingy thingy, now will end up costing me over $800...?????
NuShootr
member
Generally, if your TV supports WiFi or Bluetooth, the video camera can connect to that. Or if you have a computer or laptop with WiFi capability, you can use your computer monitor. Certainly, a newer cell phone with WiFi or Bluetooth capability can also work, but isn't necessary. I assume since you are on THR, you at least have a computer with an internet connection.
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That's good.
I attended Ayoob's MAG-10 class. That offers the opportunity for Q&A. Recommended.
I recommend that you also read The Law of Self Defense by Andrew Branca.
The Law of Self Defense Level 1 course (on line from time to time, or DVD ) is lengthy and expensive, but it is worthwhile.
There are a number of posts in the ST&T Sticky Library from which you would likely benefit.
Good luck!
Why so you say "unethical"?
JERRY
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I don't want to violate the political taboo laws here with what would most surely follow...
Prosecutors are sworn to uphold the law.
That would include prosecuting a person who had fired a gun at someone unlawfully.
It would, in most places, include prosecuting someone who had fired a gun recklessly.
The actor's having been a law abiding citizen before the incident might affect sentencing, but it would not be likely to prevent prosecution.
Nor would the character of the person at whom the actor had fired.
We do not want prosecutors who do not do their sworn duty.
JERRY
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of course not, nor do we want ones that use their personal bias or political ambitions as a basis which happens often (fulton county d.a. paul howard).
Grizzly2
Member
Jeff, you might not accept that from your soldiers, but I would not hold them in that high esteem. When our compound was rocketed and fired upon with enough machine gun fire in 1966 to get Gen. Westmorland to look things over, I learned a few months later when I arrived there that men, soldiers probably of all ranks were running down the second floor hallway firing indiscriminately through the screened in windows and shot most of the radiators out of our jeeps parked there.
I was given a mortar mission to fire and with about 7 rounds up in the air we suddenly realized that they were going towards a populated area. They went through the roof of a civilian house and cratered their yard pretty good. Everyone looked to me since I set the sights but it turns out the officer did a 180° math error.
I have no idea how many ad/nds were fired in the two years I was there, but there were many.
I got smacked in the back of the head by a chunk of concrete while in the mortar pits one night one someone in an interior bunker with an old BAR couldn't keep the rounds he was firing over the concrete wall.
There were two incidents of guns being pointed at ncos or officers by enlisted men while I was there.
One guy on guard one night was playing with the switch for the claymore mine. Sure enough, I was on another bucker quartering away from him when I hear a kaboom and see a cloud of smoke big enough to have been one of the really large tear gas canisters by the doorway go off. I put my gas mask on, only to find out later that a claymore was fired into a civilian house across the road. Looked like the A team had unloaded with a M60 on the pretty concrete front.
I think either spooky or a gunship hit a house next to us when called in for support. Killed an 80 year old woman and a pig. The civilians wanted compensation for the pig but said the woman was old anyway????
Our admin officer got on an old hand crank belt fed grenade launcher once to help a small ARVN convoy that was ambushed just down the road from us. The report came back that he did more damage than the enemy.
There's probably more but I'll let them rest in the dark corners of my memory.
The point is that when I was a auto mechanic and a van broke down hauling death row inmates and the time came for them to be transferred to another vehicle, the Ruger mini 14's came out. I had so much trust in uniformed, trained guards by then that I went around to the back of the building until they were gone. I've seen nds on our club ranges and in major matches by top competitors whose name we all would recognize and once by myself with a case of tunnel vision trying to lower the hammer on a sa while hunting.
I'm not saying any of this is right or should be overlooked, but I don't have as much faith in people whether uniformed or not as what you described. And yes, you are correct though, to hold them accountable. That is one reason that it took me four years as a gun enthusiast, club president, pistol chairman, hunter safety instructor and trained range officer to apply for my concealed carry permit once my state finally allowed it. That permit places an immense responsibility upon us who do carry and I'm well aware of how things can go wrong.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the years of accident reports I've read that happen every year in the hunting fields as folks shoot at sounds or images without clearly identifying their targets first along with a host of other mistakes.
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Phaedrus/69
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Hopefully this isn't steering things even further afield but this kind of highlights my issues with the glut of former MIL. and GOV. guys that are flooding the training market. I work for a non-proft that serves the special operations community; everyone I rub shoulders with was a SEAL, Delta, Green Beret, Night Stalker, etc. To a man, every one of 'em I met was an exceptional human being. I can't comment to their operation competence as I wasn't there in the field but as people they're uniformly good (not saying all soldiers are, just the ones I've met). I know that a lot of them are extremely experienced, some of them having more than a dozen combat tours (one of the did 18).
If I was shipping out to the Middle East I'd absolutely want to train under those guys! If I wanted to know how to set up my armor, set up my rifle, clear a structure, etc they'd be a gold mine of information. But a lot of what they do doesn't translate to what I need to do. I can't toss a grenade through the window and follow with my M4 blazing. My ROI are certainly different than their ROI.
Given our the "forever wars" we've been waging for the last two decades there are more combat vets out there now than at any time at least since Nam. And our decades of warfare have leaned more heavily on SPECOPs than probably any other war since our founding. So now we have a ton of guys that have mustered out that who, skill set basically revolves around combat. And culturally we're about as far from VN as it gets; we "support the troops" to a level that verges on fetish. So as a country we venerate them, we want to hear their stories, and we clamor to train with them. There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but we have to remember that a guy can be an elite gunfighter and warrior and still be clueless about the law and what constitutes a proportional response. Anyone remember the ex-SEAL that grabbed a couple of guns and a bag of mags to chase someone down for killing his dog? Do want to train to defend your home from Massad Ayoob or that guy?
If I was shipping out to the Middle East I'd absolutely want to train under those guys! If I wanted to know how to set up my armor, set up my rifle, clear a structure, etc they'd be a gold mine of information. But a lot of what they do doesn't translate to what I need to do. I can't toss a grenade through the window and follow with my M4 blazing. My ROI are certainly different than their ROI.
Given our the "forever wars" we've been waging for the last two decades there are more combat vets out there now than at any time at least since Nam. And our decades of warfare have leaned more heavily on SPECOPs than probably any other war since our founding. So now we have a ton of guys that have mustered out that who, skill set basically revolves around combat. And culturally we're about as far from VN as it gets; we "support the troops" to a level that verges on fetish. So as a country we venerate them, we want to hear their stories, and we clamor to train with them. There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but we have to remember that a guy can be an elite gunfighter and warrior and still be clueless about the law and what constitutes a proportional response. Anyone remember the ex-SEAL that grabbed a couple of guns and a bag of mags to chase someone down for killing his dog? Do want to train to defend your home from Massad Ayoob or that guy?
Things have changed a lot since 1966. I enlisted in the Army in 1974 and I will tell you that weapons handling was terrible in those days. However starting in the mid 80s more emphasis was given to actual weapons handling training. I really picked up after the GWOT started. Soldiers in Infantry OSUT began carrying their weapons everywhere and the drill sergeants were death on weapons handling mistakes. In a lot of ways it's not the same Army you were in. Heck It's not the same Army it was when I retired in 2003. My son is also an Infantry NCO and is on his final assignment before he will be eligible to retire so I'm pretty familiar with how things are today.
NuShootr
member
I think your point is very well taken. I also think it's important to actually get training! Even though I am new to firearms, I have CQC training, and my biggest worry with the 7M "new" firearms owners is, how many of those will actually become proficient with their firearms, and be good spokespeople for the 2nd Amendment? Training is imperative. The other issue is who to train with. My first foray into firearms was a disaster. The instructor was less than competent, was teaching really irrelevant techniques (like the hold the gun like your holding a bird thing), and the people in the class were outright dangerous with their firearms. There are so many places and people to get your training from. The most important thing is to find someone who you can connect with, training wise, and really pay attention to not only the training given, but the practice after the fact. Training in and of itself is great, but ultimately quite useless if not practice.
NuShootr
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God bless you, sir, and thank you for your service. God be with your son, as well.
Or the neighbor across the street. I completely agree.
We are on the same page as regards the error, risk, and responsibilities of the ND. Still to learn from others, we need to emulate the things he did right plus correct the things he did wrong. I noted before what he did right, but I'll put it here again: he had a camera installed so he could see the guy outside, he looked at the camera before he went to the door, he prepared ahead and had a loaded firearm if the aggressor had gotten in the house, he called the police, and he had his family move to a safe place. And this last one is ethical, not tactical, so opinions may differ. But I think that putting himself in harms way between the danger and his family was also very right.
I've been out of CA for some time (thank God), so the laws may have changed to be more draconian. The requirement in CA to keep a gun stored in a safe way when violated ranges from a misdemeanor to a felony. However I _think_ that the CA AG saying that guns must be stored unloaded is not a law but rather an opinion. (Although probably a good indicator of how a local DA in an urban county would treat you if there was any issues with your storage.) If it is just the AG's opinion, then I'd personally store the gun loaded in a quick access lock box (simplex lock).
To go back to the initial response of the homeowner:
1. One can get monitored alarm systems, such that on the first notice of a possible incident, it calls the police and sounds a very loud and obnoxious alarm. That would be my first move as compared to going to the door at that time at night. If it is a false alarm - the company and police would rather deal with that than a shoot out.
2. Shooting in the back : there are quite a few ergonomic analyses of how that happens in gun fights due to the physics of motion in the fight, being shot, etc. Mas talks about those as do others - based on the science. I have a reference somewhere. That's different from someone fleeing. Such is usually determined by the detective and experts while you try to stay out of the showers.
1. One can get monitored alarm systems, such that on the first notice of a possible incident, it calls the police and sounds a very loud and obnoxious alarm. That would be my first move as compared to going to the door at that time at night. If it is a false alarm - the company and police would rather deal with that than a shoot out.
2. Shooting in the back : there are quite a few ergonomic analyses of how that happens in gun fights due to the physics of motion in the fight, being shot, etc. Mas talks about those as do others - based on the science. I have a reference somewhere. That's different from someone fleeing. Such is usually determined by the detective and experts while you try to stay out of the showers.
It's hard for me to tell exactly what you are advocating, as monitored and automatic are not generally done at the same time. For an automatic system, calling the police automatically is generally a bad idea due to false alarms. At least in the SF Bay Area in CA, the first time the police come out due to your alarm going off and no one is there you get a warning. This is true if it's you _or_ your neighbors call the police. Subsequent calls cost you $500 a pop.
It it's monitored, then the alarm would generally go off silently and someone at a 24 hour center looks at the alarm. Generally they look at the camera feed and then call you, as they have no idea if that guy at the door is a burglar or your late arriving brother in law. (Remember that the guy never broke through the door, and he only kicked it after being there for 2 hours.) So at least in this case the homeowner would have gotten an early warning. BUT, it's still not likely. I didn't see anything in the video that the aggressor did that would set off most normal alarms - e.g., no opened door or window and no broken glass. That mostly just leaves a video camera as a detector, and in that case you're going to have lots of false alarms due to people walking by on the street, car headlights sweeping past the camera, bugs or birds flying past the camera, light changes due to light and wind, etc. And just like the police, the call center doesn't appreciate (or support longer term) a lot of false alarms.
My provider has wired our house, such that if we press the alarm button, it sounds the siren, calls them and they call the cops. There is no camera monitoring or decision making by them about that action. They then call me to check up. If I say it is a false alarm with a confirmation code, they call off the law - who should be on their way.
I would also call the law on my cell phone before approaching the door. As far as a false alarm, it is not a big deal here unless you do it repeatedly. The law would rather respond. There is no automatic triggering by outside stimuli, only door or window breaching or if we are not home, add the motion detectors. So I don't worry about false alarms. We had one when we forget to disarm before leaving. The siren went off, company called and stopped the law in mid response. No nasty compliants from them.
I suppose other companies might be different.
I would also call the law on my cell phone before approaching the door. As far as a false alarm, it is not a big deal here unless you do it repeatedly. The law would rather respond. There is no automatic triggering by outside stimuli, only door or window breaching or if we are not home, add the motion detectors. So I don't worry about false alarms. We had one when we forget to disarm before leaving. The siren went off, company called and stopped the law in mid response. No nasty compliants from them.
I suppose other companies might be different.
Gem, Thank you for the explanation. I thought that you were talking about an automated detection system, but what you meant was that once a person in the house hits the alarm button, the alarm bell, warning to the call center, and a call to the police all go out automatically.
If the original homeowner had a similar system, then the siren would have been going once the owner woke up and it might have chased the aggressor off.
One thing to note is that the homeowner claimed that his camera showed the guy wandering around outside the door for two hours before the guy kicked his door and woke him up. It's very hard to have an automatic system detect that kind of thing without having a lot of false alarms as well.
If the original homeowner had a similar system, then the siren would have been going once the owner woke up and it might have chased the aggressor off.
One thing to note is that the homeowner claimed that his camera showed the guy wandering around outside the door for two hours before the guy kicked his door and woke him up. It's very hard to have an automatic system detect that kind of thing without having a lot of false alarms as well.
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