My thoughts during 20 seconds before I realized I had accidentally set off home alarm

[Sheepdog1968]

The wife and rug rat were away for a few nights so I was alone. As titile said, I set off the home alarm just as I was heading to bed but it took me about 20 seconds to figure that out. It's not often one gets this to have what amounts to a drill that one is unaware is a drill so I thought I would share what went throught mind mind. I had a pistol on me so I was armed when it happened. Also, I train weekly and have taken many quality classes so I am reasonably well prepared and have spent time thinking through home defense.

1. The wife may be back early so don't shoot the wife or child. In other words, I was conscious that I needed to identify the target. Mostly I didn't want to shoot my loved ones by accident. It's unlikely my wife would come home early unannounced but you never know.

2. The pistol was the one I would chose if I had to pick one. Having said that, in the moment it felt like I had a squirt gun in my hands. I distinctly remember felling, thinking is how can this possibly stop anyone. For what it's worth, it was a Glock 30 in 45 ACP. It's the biggest caliber pistol I own and I've trained a lot with it. I do have long arms in the home ready for self defense and are my preference but I sorted things out before I had gotten to them.

3. Time and vision were distorted and it was more difficult to think than normal. I know this is highly likely to happen and I had hoped lots of training would remove this from happening. It didn't. Maybe it was less than it would have been otherwise. The 20 seconds felt like 5 minutes.

4. I didn't find myself expecting anyone to come save me. I knew this would be over before there would be any help or rescue. I was at peace with that.

Needless to say, it took another 90 min or more before I was able to go to bed. Also, the shotgun came out of its usual spot and stayed next to me that night and the next as well as by my side when I was in the home.

 

[Ranger Roberts]

Coincidentally this happened to me about a month ago. My wife was also away. Long story short, in the morning my wife disarms the alarm while I put the shock collar on the dog, then we take the dog out. On the day that she was away, I did my part with the collar but my wife was very neglectful of her duties (ok, ok, she was 600 miles away, so all is forgiven)! I'll tell you what, it definitely disoriented me for a second. By the time I reached down to draw my pistol I realized my mistake and made a run for the alarm panel (the panel is near my garage door and I was taking the dog out the front door). I think the worst part of the situation was the look on my German Shepherds face, the darn dog actually shamed me!

 

[Sheepdog1968]

I had a bit of disorientation as well. Annoying. You would think after thinking what to do I would just move at the response of the stimuli.

 

[Jeff White]

I always assume an alarm is a malfunction of some type. I never think much about it until I verify that there is in fact an incursion. I responded to way too many false alarms in my career to have any other initial reaction.

A couple weeks back I did get a bit of an adrenalin dump when I was awakened about 0300 by what I thought was someone pounding on the door. No alarm was sounding but I checked the perimeter anyway. No sign of anything amiss. I still don't know if I actually heard that or if it was a dream I woke up from.

 

[Jenrick]

I'm with Jeff, far too many alarm calls at work to get too excited. Also my house alarm had a habit for a while of just randomly going off when the wireless modem lost signal to the mothership for whatever reason. Nothing like having the "wire cut" alarm go off at o'dark thirty in the morning because the monitoring station lost power in another part of town.

Our neighbors are younger and still party quiet regularly. Which in and of itself isn't a big deal, they keep it to their back yard and turn off the music at a reasonable hour. I'm not going to begrudge 20 somethings a good time on a weekend night around a fire compared to being downtown and being drunk and stupid. We had a young lady knock on the door around 0100 last Saturday. I recently upgraded the camera's to be able to check them on my cell phone and in about 30 seconds I could see exactly who was there, where they were, and check perimeter of the house. A quick text to my neighbor and they rounded up the errant guest. All told from waking to the knocking to seeing who was there was less then a minute. Technology is mighty handy sometimes.

-Jenrick

 

[old lady new shooter]

I always assume an alarm is a malfunction of some type. I never think much about it until I verify that there is in fact an incursion. I responded to way too many false alarms in my career to have any other initial reaction.

A couple weeks back I did get a bit of an adrenalin dump when I was awakened about 0300 by what I thought was someone pounding on the door. No alarm was sounding but I checked the perimeter anyway. No sign of anything amiss. I still don't know if I actually heard that or if it was a dream I woke up from.

For several years now I sometimes dream the doorbell is ringing when in real life it isn't. My tentative theory is this means there is some physical reason I need to wake up.

 

[locnload]

Kind of funny, in a coincidental sort of way, its 0400 here, and I'm wide awake because our alarm system, an 8 pound dog, has alerted me to the presence of something she thought I needed to be aware of. We live in a rural, mountain area and most of our "nightime visitors" are in the form of furry criters, from racoons and foxes to black bears. Its the kind of neighborhood that even stupid criminals can sense that there is a high risk of leaving the crime scene in a bag. All good folks, but a high quantity of guns and a low tolerence for dirt bags.
At any rate I'm awake and decided to visit the HR which I have not had time to do for awhile, and this is the first one I read. It made me think about how we all seem to become complacent and make assumptions when this kind of stuff hapens. If I assume its just a bear looking to take another crack at my "bear proof" trash can, I'm going to be befudled when a couple of misplaced urban goblins come busting through the back door, yet I don't want to "Rambo up" everytime there is a bump in the night. Likewise if those of you with alarm systems get complacent and assume every alarm is bogus, it won't help you when its for real. Soldiers on gaurd duty in a outlying firebase are generally pretty heads up because bad stuff happens on a regular basis, but when you spend night after night watching animals patroling the perimeter fence line for prey at a rear eschelon post people tend to slack off and sometimes it ends badly. We need to find the balance between reaction and overreaction.
I also use a G30 45ACP with a mounted light as my night stand gun. I have the whole "Clint Smith" set up with a pouch that holds a spare mag, extra flashlight, knife, and an old cell phone I can use to call 911 if needed. But most of the time I assume its a bear, so I grab the 12 gauge coach gun with the rubber buckshot and prepare to convince him to leave my trash can alone, without actually injuring him. But what if it is the goblins I refered to, now I'm standing there with a two shot gun with inefective ammo, fumbling to get the real buckshot off the nylon shell caddy on the stock and into the gun.
I recently aquired a Remington 870 Youth model in 20 gauge and I'm setting it up for a sling and mounted light. Its not a bad home defense gun at all and its small, light weight, and low recoil enough for my wife to handle. I think I'm going to stage it as the primary "go to" for nightime visitors. Few bears really need the sting of rubber pellets to convince them to leave, the sound of the boom will do, and yes we can do that out here in the mountains without endangering anyone. We all have different circumstances and living situations, and we need to taylor our home defense planning accordingly. Keep training, and don't become complacent.

 

[danez71]

I'll preface this - I don't have motion detectors and there is no delay for the alarm to sound when there is a breach.

Having said that,

I dont understand the reaction.... but, maybe its just me.

Ive set mine off at least a half dozen times. My wife's done it too.

Its usually been in the morning when I let the dogs out or opening the man-door from the house to the garage.


I dont think my hand has ever let go of the door knob before I realized that 'I was the knob' that set off the alarm.


The benefit of this specific type of false alarms being repeated is that the wife and I have come up with a way to let the other know that its a false alarm.

Who ever set it off yells out 'Ahh cr@p.... YOU forgot to turn it off AGAIN!"

 

[old lady new shooter]

low-tech alarm system: strings of jingle bells nailed or stapled to the moving parts of all windows