Isaac-1
Member
I am really not sure if anywhere is all that safe anymore, it seems the criminals are willing to range farther and be bolder all the time. We just had a bank robbery last week in my quiet small town (2nd or 3rd this year), 4 armed men entered a local credit union, assualted bank employee and got away with an undisclosed amount of money. 2 have been arrested 90 miles away in Texas, so maybe the other 3 will be caught soon.
As to home safety, security etc., there is all this talk about how home invasions are rare, and it unlikely you will ever need to defend yourself, which may be true, but I have known of at least 3 incidences where it happened to people I know (at least to some degree).
1, About 10 years ago, my sister's employeer of many years was killed in his vacation house in the caribbean by an armed intruder. He and his wife were there, he was shot and died in the hospital some days later.
2, The next involves my mother's next door neighbor, the husband owned a ranch with a small ranch house / cabin in Oklahoma, he would go there for several weeks at a time a few times per year leaving his wife at home. One time after he left to go there and his wife did not hear from him for a couple of weeks she called the police in Oklahoma and asked them to check on him. It turns out some escaped prisoners were living in the ranch house, they had shot and killed him when he arrived.
3, Also about 8-10 years ago a local somewhat wealthy business owner that was a friend of my step father came home one day to find armed men holding his wife hostage and they demanded he give them a large amount of money they thought he had stashed in the house. As it turned out he had a few thousand dollars in the house, but not the sort of money they were looking for, thankfully they only beat them a bit and left them tied up to be found alive some hours later. Could have ended much worse.
(on a side note the same sister that was mentioned in example 1, along with a number of other people witnessed a woman being kidnapped from a "safe" grocery store parking lot a few years ago, some random man grabbed her threw her into the trunk of a car and took off, I don't think she was ever found, maybe I should ask, but not sure if that would be a good topic for Chistmas dinner which will likely be the next time I see her)
As to home safety, security etc., there is all this talk about how home invasions are rare, and it unlikely you will ever need to defend yourself, which may be true, but I have known of at least 3 incidences where it happened to people I know (at least to some degree).
1, About 10 years ago, my sister's employeer of many years was killed in his vacation house in the caribbean by an armed intruder. He and his wife were there, he was shot and died in the hospital some days later.
2, The next involves my mother's next door neighbor, the husband owned a ranch with a small ranch house / cabin in Oklahoma, he would go there for several weeks at a time a few times per year leaving his wife at home. One time after he left to go there and his wife did not hear from him for a couple of weeks she called the police in Oklahoma and asked them to check on him. It turns out some escaped prisoners were living in the ranch house, they had shot and killed him when he arrived.
3, Also about 8-10 years ago a local somewhat wealthy business owner that was a friend of my step father came home one day to find armed men holding his wife hostage and they demanded he give them a large amount of money they thought he had stashed in the house. As it turned out he had a few thousand dollars in the house, but not the sort of money they were looking for, thankfully they only beat them a bit and left them tied up to be found alive some hours later. Could have ended much worse.
(on a side note the same sister that was mentioned in example 1, along with a number of other people witnessed a woman being kidnapped from a "safe" grocery store parking lot a few years ago, some random man grabbed her threw her into the trunk of a car and took off, I don't think she was ever found, maybe I should ask, but not sure if that would be a good topic for Chistmas dinner which will likely be the next time I see her)
, noting your location I would seriously consider a house constructed from steel beams/studs or solid concrete, either blocks or poured. This will protect your home from the weather and will also harden the home against intruders. 
