I could hear someone trying to open my door!

[p35]

Just out of grad school, SO and I had our first house. Had plans to meet up there after work with a couple buddies so we could all drive out to the beach house together for the weekend. For whatever reason, the buddies got there before we got home, so they found an unlocked window, climbed in, got some beers from the fridge, and turned on the TV. Basically SOP in our bunch for that situation.

Problem was that my BIL also came by to visit. He had a key to the place, and had never met these 2 particular buddies before. He also tends to CCW- IIRC it was a PPK that day. He walks in and finds two strangers making themselves at home, leading to a "what the hell are you doing in my sister's house" conversation in which I believe they got a quick look at the PPK . Calm was restored by the time we got home, but it wasn't a great start to the weekend.

 

[Ivy Mike]

Similar incident triggered my one (AND ONLY!!!!!) negligent discharge.

I came in from the back yard of my old place with my new beagle. I had been playing outside with him after cleaning my Makarov. Well, after entering through the back slider, I noticed the front door hanging WIDE OPEN. This scared me to death as I am usually really good about locking any exterior doors and windows. I thought myself vary lucky to have a freshly cleaned and oiled gun sitting on the kitchen table. I thought myself even luckier to have a loaded magazine five feet away on a desk. I loaded the gun and proceeded to clear the house.
Now, I wasn't looking to harm anyone, so I left the front door open. If they want to run out, I'll provide easy escape and call the police later. I walked down the hallway with Mak-daddy at low ready. I turned a shallow right into a spare bedroom. No one there.
Next I looked into the third bedroom...no one there.
Third stop was a bathroom with light on. I s l o w l y pushed the door open and raised the gun to eye level. At that moment, I reached with my left foot to push the shower curtain open...the dog runs in, jumps up on my leg and I pull the trigger...BANG!

I run into the bedroom, change my drawers and clear the rest of the house with a flashlight.

That weak little .380 of mine managed to take out one layer of fiberglass, nearly a foot of fiberglass insulation, one sheet of painted drywall, passed through eight feet of open space, went through another sheet of painted drywall, through nearly 10 more inches of insulation, through chicken wire and through exterior stucco. I never recovered the bullet.
I never repaired a gunshot faster either.

 

[joab]

I posted this back in Nov

My wife and I were walking home from her work, it's a 2 1/2 mile walk one way so I use that to exercise my dog.
There's a section of the way that is a long dark semi deserted road bordered on one side by woods. We are usually harassed along the way by the local jerks.
I've learned to look out of the back of my head so that I can see when the occasional car comes by. That way I don't jump when they scream out whatever they do. Usually something about my wife. If they are too aggressive I'll watch until they are out of sight.

One night a group of kids drove by and gave the obligatory scream to make us jump one of them standing up through the sun roof yelled "I'm gonna f**k that Asian ass". Apparently we did not give them the necessary response, so after driving about 100 yards they U-turned and came back at us.
When they did I stopped and my wife handed me the cell, which was all but useless to me, because one hand was holding the dog leash and getting it's arm pulled out of socket and the other was at my hip.

When the car stopped 2 young men jumped out, one stood by the car and one ran towards us.
At this point the dog, who had been straining to go into the woods after a oppossum or something, noticed either the running or the open car door and thought he was going for a ride.
As the dog turned his attention towardsthe group the guy stopped coming towards us and spun around and ran back to the car.

At what point would you have drawn, let the dog go, or shot?

There is one minor but key detail to the story that I left out< I'll fill it in later
Assess this threat

 

[RyanM]

To the first poster; personally, I think lying in ambush was rather foolish. Maybe it's because I've lived in a quiet neighborhood my entire life, but if I thought I heard someone fiddling with my door (not kicking it down or otherwise forcing entry violently, and not already inside the house), I'd do something like: get a weapon if not already armed, stand to one side, out of the line of fire if they shoot through the door, then pound on the door very loudly and yell "hey, who the hell's out there!?"

If they're taking the time to enter your home without doing huge property damage, it's fairly likely they aren't looking for blood. You never know 100%, of course, hence the standing to one side and being armed.

 

[Horsesense]

I did what felt right. I hadn’t considered why standing by the door didn’t feel right but as it turns out that would have put my wife on the other side of the wall and in the line of fire.

The reason I got down was that out in the country, it gets dark (just the light from the VCR light up the living room) and you can see things way better if you can contrast it against the sky.

Why didn’t I just yell? That’s a good question, until I had decided that I did not want to kill if it could be avoided, I fully intended to kill whoever it was that was braking into my house. During the incident, I had time to think again and I decided that morally, ethically and legally I did not want to kill unless there was no other alternative.

I never claimed to be infallible and until I was in the place where, I thought, I was about to kill someone I had not given the subject due consideration i.e. how will the criminal courts and the civil courts and the next of kin and God etc etc react to my killing someone for braking into my house.

Besides, there just ant any good places to hide a body these days.

 

[Hot brass]

Before we had kids.

I bought the wife a Taurus 38. I always keep my night gun on the headboard. I am awakened by a noise at 0300. I hear the noise getting closer. I grab the 38. I freeze, I can see the shadow moving slowly into the bedroom. I wait, then I hear are you awake? The light comes on and my wife is standing there! She sees the 38 and looses it. I try to explain that I did not know she was out of bed! Talk about a long night.

 

[Plinkerton]

I haven't had any serious false alarms myself. I do have a story where I was the false alarm though.

I was about 18-19, (I'm 22 now, so this wasn't a long time ago), and I came home at about 1:00am, which I had done numerous times before. For some odd reason, my dad thought it odd that I would come home that late, and he was not expecting anyone in the house. We all sleep naked, so that's nothing new, but it has made me think how funny I would look in my house currently, walking thru the house butt ass naked, with a shotgun...

Anyway, I go rummaging thru the fridge, and as I shut the door, I see my dad peeking around the side at me. He gives me "that look" and says, "damn, I didn't expect you home..." I look in his other hand, and our ancient single shot bolt action .22 rifle is there, and his other hand holding a handful of rounds. I wouldn't expect this to be optimal, but better than nothing I guess. He was decently fast at loading it, so I guess that helped. He gave that gun to me when I was 7 years old, and he grew up hunting deer with it.

Anyway, it was funny as hell to me, to have my naked dad come around the corner with a gun in his hand.

Other than that, besides the random noises I've heard, nothing serious every happened.

As of now, my girlfriend and I have just moved into a new house, with many windows, and more than one outside door, which I'm not used to. The floor is hardwood, and creaks, which is a nice plus. I put those cheap little battery operated alarms on the front and back door. Hopefully waking me up, before someone gets too far inside. I'm hoping that plus my new 870 HD will be enough in case one of the MANY permanent residents at the park decides that he'd rather sleep inside that night.

As for false alarms from pets, waking up at 3 in the morning to my girlfriends cat pissing on my head wasn't that fun... I woke up, and my face was wet, and I thought I was drooling as usual. Then I realized that my drool doesn't usually smell like cat piss... Yummy...

 

[Sean Cloherty]

O.K. I'll bite.

We'd had a couple of odd "ring-and-run" incidents over a 5 week periood. One was at 8:30, another at 11:45. Both times I was stressed thinking that it couldn't be anything good at that hour. Cops to tell me that someone had died or a neighbor telling me that the house was one fire, etc. Both times I went to the door and checked the peephol, no one visible. From my front door, I can see all the way down to the main road (.25 miles) and up the street quite a ways.

One morning at 12:45 AM, we get another one. My wife is worried. Her reasoning is that it is school vacation week and with so many people away, burglars are probably testing to see who answers. Again nothing thought the peephole. Grabbed the 870 Marine Magnum and sat on the couch by the front door for 40 minutes - peering out into the nothinginess.

Found out the next day that a neighbor whose husband was traveling also got the same treatment. Not good.

For the next two weeks I had the SG and the MagLite by my nightstand and then one day at 2:15 I awoke to the doorbell. The adrenaline kicked in, I thought that no high schooler would be out at that hour just for a prank on a school night and no adult would care to pull such a lame prank either so it must be serious. I grabbed up the Maglite and 870 and ran (and no I didn't have on a robe or anything) to the door and peered out as the doorbell chime still rang. Nothing there. I had hoped to resolve this one way or another that night but no dice.

Weeks later, a neighbor who had suffered similarly, mentioned seeing a kid beat feet really fast up the street after a "prank" at his house. Lucky boy that one. Haven't got to the bottom of this one yet.

Another event was, after hearing my cockatoo screech at 1:00 AM, I grabbed a rifle and was walking a about in our new home. I stopped short when I saw lights coming from THE FLOOR!

As it turned out I had left the lights on in the basement and that is what our bird was complaining about. However, I had never done that at night before and was not aware of the fact that the flourescent lights in the basement would shine through the spaces of the wood floor above them. Creepy and nearly sufficient cause to need a change of - well nothing actually. Sorrry for the repugnant visual.

 

[cstreu1026]

My wife and I recently moved to our first house in a new town and new state. There are a far number of people roaming the center of town that seem to be of questionable personailty. This is also the first time in a long time i hve lived in a house that is not entirely brick. So with the house being brand new and the fact that vinyl siding does little to cover up wind noise I have been prompted to leave the cozy confines of my bed with my Taurus in hand. It also didn't help that we didn't really have any neighbors until this last month. I usually feel a little stupid when I realize its just the wind or our neutered male cat trying to frce himself on our spayed female cat (can someone explain that please?). But better to be prepared then be caught off gaurd by some of less than stellar social standing helping him or herself to my toys. I am feeling more comfortable now though with more neighbors including a couple of LEO's. Now I just need to convince the wife that a shotgun makes a much better home defense weapon and need to get one. (I have been eyeing an 870 Marine Magnum)

A good story though involves my my brother, who is 10 years older than me, sneeking back in to the house as a teenager. As he crept up the steps he was greeted my an angry mother with a Louisville Slugger in hand. He darn near lost his head that night.