When you sleep at night with a gun, do you leave your bedroom door unlocked in case..

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GuyWithQuestions

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medical personal have to help you? I've thought about this lately. I personally sleep with my sidearm chambered right next to me and lock the bedroom door, so that it will give me more warning in advance if someone were to try to come in. This lady the other day says that she locks the door to her house, but not to her actual bedroom door, just in case there is a medical emergency. She says that she has no history of medical emergencies and she's in her 20's.

What are your takes on this, strategy wise for both medical and self-defense? If you lock your door to your house and emergency personnel have to break their way in through the outer door, why would your bedroom door get in their way? Doesn't locking your bedroom door also give you more warning if someone's coming in? If you have a heart attack in your sleep, would emergency personnel be able to do anything "in time" anyway, and how would they even know? The only situation I can think of would be if you were to go into a coma while asleep and someone were to discover that you haven't woken up yet, how likely is that? But then I guess a lot of people leave their bedroom door unlocked just in case the rare situation of having a medical emergency happens (which I guess getting attacked in your house and having to use your gun is also the same way).
 
Medical emergency? If they knock the front door down they can knock the bedroom door down.
 
I leave all the interior doors of my apartment open so my cat can wonder about. I live in an 800 sq ft apartment. The front door is deadbolted and the alarm on instant mode when I'm inside.
 
I always sleep with the bedroom doors closed, but not locked. I never thought about locking them. The bedroom is upstairs and by the time someone broke in, triggered the alarm, and made it upstairs I would be ready for them.

Always, always, always sleep with your bedroom door closed. This is especially true if you are a sound sleeper. The "Smoke alarms" most of us have do not detect smoke, they detect ionization from something burning. You can have a slow buring fire, like a cigarette dropped into a sofa, that gives off toxic fumes that can kill you before the alarm ever goes off.

I don't remember the statistics, but I think the majority of people in house fires are overcome by smoke prior to actually being impacted by the flames.
 
I have a small apartment with a cat and two dogs. I don't think anyone would be very happy if they were shut either in or out. I've got a pretty good early warning system thanks to the pooches, who are very alert and sound like the big, aggressive dogs that they are.

Without critters in the house I'd probably lock the bedroom door, or at least shut it, for all the good it'd do. I can't see that being an impediment to emergency personnel.
 
I leave the bedroom door open. I'm more likely to hear things I should be hearing with it open. Interior door locks aren't very forbidding, and with a closed door, you might not know someone is in your house till they are in your bedroom.
 
I usually leave it open. "Medical emergencies" isn't something I worry about much. If you're functional enough to get up and grab the phone to dial 911, you can probably crawl a couple feet to the doorway as well.
 
gotime242 said:
Medical emergency? If they knock the front door down they can knock the bedroom door down.
Click to expand...
How can it possibly be any more complicated than this?
 
An 8 year old could kick down my bedroom door. Anything that can get through the steel door in front with a deadbolt is going to go through the cardboard-ish bedroom door without a problem.

I lock mine just to keep the cats out. They learned how to operate the door levers a long time ago.
 
Depends on where I am, and what I am doing.

Currently - I rarely actually sleep in a bedroom.
I sleep dressed, armed and in a chair , or sofa, where I have "options" in the structure.

I have for example-
When I and ex wife built a house, interior doors were special metal doors, and were locked.
Options for us, with "Texas Style" master bath and closets leading off master bedroom included more solid metal doors, with special locks, and two options of actually exiting into crawl space into attic.

Her son's bedroom also had special metal doors, and his closet was basically a vault, which he was taught to lock himself into.

First Responders...
Communications were handled with some trusted folks.
Such as retired US Marshall, Sheriff Deputy, FBI and Treasury Agent.
Nice retired neighbors and we kept tabs on one another, and had "access" and "communications" with each other.


Things get serious, we had ways for folks to assist us.

*think out of box*
 
I keep the bedroom door open so I have a better chance of hearing something going on elsewhere in the house. I have a 3yo in the bedroom right next to mine & it would be a whole new level of suck if I gave someone else an extra little advantage at harming him by essentially dulling the sense most likely to wake me.

sm- I feel very fortunate that I havenn't gone through what you have. I don't know the details of your life, but if anyone has fantasies of burning down a local semi-connected gang banger or whatever other criminal, reading through some of your posts & the precautions you've had to take should take the romance right out of that idea. That said, it sounds like you're handling things & that is to be admired.
 
Tip:
Baby Monitors are not just for babies, or the elderly staying in one's home.

Good used one's can be found in yard sales and the like.

So...with a bedroom door locked, one can still hear what is going on in a structure.
Even simple everyday normal things, such as pets wandering around at night, or someone coming in after folks retire, such as those that work late shifts, or have left after being called in ( on-call persons).

Simple code words of the persons leaving/entering can let others know behind locked doors, if everything is okay, or not.

*think-out-of-the-box*
 
There is such a thing as over-thinking things, I think. 'Layers' of protection are a great thing, IMHO, and one more locked door is one more layer of protection. Anyone who can get onto your property and get into your dwelling can get into your bedroom as well, whether for good or ill.

Murphy's Rules Of Combat included one that said something like, "Make it impossible for the enemy to get in, and you also make it impossible for you to get out."

I'd make sure there was a smoke alarm and a CO alarm behind that locked bedroom door too, if I were you. Either one of those problems is more likely to come your way than a home invasion while you are asleep.

lpl
 
I lock mine just to keep the cats out. They learned how to operate the door levers a long time ago.
Click to expand...

They'll kill you when they figure out the can opener...

Anyway- I haven't considered locking my bedroom door. It is always shut as I am too light a sleeper and the noises in the house (crickets to feed a lizard...) will keep me awake otherwise.

Front door is always locked. Bedroom door, even if it were locked, would not be much of an obstacle.
 
My brother, sister and I are all past 60 and sis has medical problems so sometimes she needs help at night. For that reason each room has an intercom and the doors are open. I also have a large wrap around porch on the house and anybody walking on the porch is like walking on a drum, you can even hear light footsteps from anyplace in the house. If you get past the porch you still have to get past Mr. Dan Wesson and Mr. Mossberg in my room or Mr. Schmidt-Rubin and Mr. Ruger in my brothers room.
 
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