Don Gwinn
Moderator Emeritus
Why do people carry at home and do other paranoid things? Because danger and fear intrude when they're the furthest thing from your mind. It's really quite rude, if you ask me.
So tonight, about 11 o'clock local time, I'm here in the living room while my wife is asleep in the next room. We're using the front parlor, complete with big picture window, as a bedroom while we restore the upstairs. She's off to sleep while I'm sweating the details of her grand birthday surprise for tomorrow. I'm perfectly happy to be sweating the details of my wife's birthday surprise. I eat this stuff up. I'm happy and have not a care in the world except how I'm going to transport all the surprise stuff to the car without her knowing it.
Then she screams and I hear feet pounding. Before I can get to the room, she has crossed it and thrown the big pocket doors wide. Her eyes are huge and she's almost stumbling with fear. Now I know we're in trouble! She's stammering and babbling, unable to get words out, but I catch the drift that there's a window involved. That room has a very large, 10' wide picture window that looks out on the front porch and a much smaller but still very tall window that looks out on the side yard. I concentrated on the side window, which turned out to be wrong, but it's flimsy and has the cellar door under it like a ramp. I was not carrying a firearm, though I did have my Spydie, so I grabbed a Glock 30 with night sights and a small LED flashlight I keep handy.
The first thing I did was look out the smaller window. Nothing. My wife told me then that whatever she'd seen was out the front picture window through the thin white curtains we keep drawn over it. She has woken up to hallucinations of nightmare monsters before, so by now she had already begun to insist that she had probably been dreaming. I asked her to get the cell phone and wait in the middle of the house near the kids' door (about where I had been working) and call if anything happened. I shut off the interior light in this room and went to the front door to switch on the porch light outside. With that on, anyone still lurking out on that porch would be well lit while I would not. Checking the entire porch necessitated checking through that door, then going to the front room and checking out the picture window. This I did, and no one was to be seen.
At this point, she has decided that she imagined the whole thing. She's ready to have a glass of water and forget about it. I'm not entirely certain, though I lean that way. On the other hand, I don't want to call the police for nothing, and the dogs are not acting suspicious. So I decide to do what they tell you not to do--leave the security of the house to investigate the outside.
I put Oreo, my horse-sized black mutt, on a stout leash which I hold loose in my left hand while carrying my Glock in my right. I am careful to keep the pistol well away from the leash. The plan is that if I encounter someone, Oreo will give me plenty of warning and I can hold the BG. If he refuses to be held, I can slip the leash so that I have two hands to use on my firearm and he has a dog hanging from his crotch.
Oreo was perfectly calm all the way around the house, and frankly delighted to be going for a walk in the dark. She never even seemed to catch a scent for very long, which implied to me that no strange person had been lurking outside our window.
I was glad to find that we were not in actual danger, but it shook me up a bit. I'm seriously considering carrying at home as a rule now. I can't really have quick access to a stashed gun without being nervous about my sons, but I don't want to have slow access if I need a weapon immediately. My beloved Stinger is biting the dust, and the small LED job wouldn't have done me much good outside. I've got to get a new battery for the Streamlight and then look into a smaller "serious" flashlight like one of the smaller Surefires. Wouldn't be bad to have one of those in my back pocket at night.
I was very, very glad to have the dogs tonight. Without them I would not have been certain what happened; since they didn't notice the prowler, I am reasonably sure there wasn't one.
So tonight, about 11 o'clock local time, I'm here in the living room while my wife is asleep in the next room. We're using the front parlor, complete with big picture window, as a bedroom while we restore the upstairs. She's off to sleep while I'm sweating the details of her grand birthday surprise for tomorrow. I'm perfectly happy to be sweating the details of my wife's birthday surprise. I eat this stuff up. I'm happy and have not a care in the world except how I'm going to transport all the surprise stuff to the car without her knowing it.
Then she screams and I hear feet pounding. Before I can get to the room, she has crossed it and thrown the big pocket doors wide. Her eyes are huge and she's almost stumbling with fear. Now I know we're in trouble! She's stammering and babbling, unable to get words out, but I catch the drift that there's a window involved. That room has a very large, 10' wide picture window that looks out on the front porch and a much smaller but still very tall window that looks out on the side yard. I concentrated on the side window, which turned out to be wrong, but it's flimsy and has the cellar door under it like a ramp. I was not carrying a firearm, though I did have my Spydie, so I grabbed a Glock 30 with night sights and a small LED flashlight I keep handy.
The first thing I did was look out the smaller window. Nothing. My wife told me then that whatever she'd seen was out the front picture window through the thin white curtains we keep drawn over it. She has woken up to hallucinations of nightmare monsters before, so by now she had already begun to insist that she had probably been dreaming. I asked her to get the cell phone and wait in the middle of the house near the kids' door (about where I had been working) and call if anything happened. I shut off the interior light in this room and went to the front door to switch on the porch light outside. With that on, anyone still lurking out on that porch would be well lit while I would not. Checking the entire porch necessitated checking through that door, then going to the front room and checking out the picture window. This I did, and no one was to be seen.
At this point, she has decided that she imagined the whole thing. She's ready to have a glass of water and forget about it. I'm not entirely certain, though I lean that way. On the other hand, I don't want to call the police for nothing, and the dogs are not acting suspicious. So I decide to do what they tell you not to do--leave the security of the house to investigate the outside.
I put Oreo, my horse-sized black mutt, on a stout leash which I hold loose in my left hand while carrying my Glock in my right. I am careful to keep the pistol well away from the leash. The plan is that if I encounter someone, Oreo will give me plenty of warning and I can hold the BG. If he refuses to be held, I can slip the leash so that I have two hands to use on my firearm and he has a dog hanging from his crotch.
Oreo was perfectly calm all the way around the house, and frankly delighted to be going for a walk in the dark. She never even seemed to catch a scent for very long, which implied to me that no strange person had been lurking outside our window.
I was glad to find that we were not in actual danger, but it shook me up a bit. I'm seriously considering carrying at home as a rule now. I can't really have quick access to a stashed gun without being nervous about my sons, but I don't want to have slow access if I need a weapon immediately. My beloved Stinger is biting the dust, and the small LED job wouldn't have done me much good outside. I've got to get a new battery for the Streamlight and then look into a smaller "serious" flashlight like one of the smaller Surefires. Wouldn't be bad to have one of those in my back pocket at night.
I was very, very glad to have the dogs tonight. Without them I would not have been certain what happened; since they didn't notice the prowler, I am reasonably sure there wasn't one.
