Just a quick story to make sure we all check our situational awareness in our own homes under ALL circumstances.
Perfect example occurred last night in my home..... Very quiet suburban neighborhood with farms nearby, 02:30am, asleep for a few hours, door to deck is open, screen is closed and locked (to give that extra second or two of readiness) house is dead quiet, dogs asleep, blah, blah , blah.
Dogs give a quick "someones here" bark after hearing a noise on the deck, I also hear it as it wakes me up across the house. I jump out of bed, grab my pistol and Surefire 6P and tactically make my way across the house, clearing rooms as I go without light on. I can do that scenario in my sleep as I have practiced many times.
Get to the aforementioned room with screen door, peer around corner, don't see anything and then light up the deck area, pistol at fire position. Or so I thought.
Turns out that due to my heavy duty plastic type mesh screen in the door (the heavy stuff used so dogs won't tear it if pawing at it), light won't readily go through it and all the light bounced back towards myself. I could BARELY see out onto the deck. Once I took a few step towards it, the light got through , but from 10 feet away, forget it.
Turns out that it was just wind starting to kick up prior to storm, and must have been knocking something around, cleared deck, driveway, etc, but it taught me an extremely valuable lesson. I have already told my wife that the screen will no longer be closed at night and the glass door will. I have in the past practiced house clearing with the glass door closed, just never gave thought to the heavy duty screen.
Lesson being - Always think out of the box, even in your own home.
Perfect example occurred last night in my home..... Very quiet suburban neighborhood with farms nearby, 02:30am, asleep for a few hours, door to deck is open, screen is closed and locked (to give that extra second or two of readiness) house is dead quiet, dogs asleep, blah, blah , blah.
Dogs give a quick "someones here" bark after hearing a noise on the deck, I also hear it as it wakes me up across the house. I jump out of bed, grab my pistol and Surefire 6P and tactically make my way across the house, clearing rooms as I go without light on. I can do that scenario in my sleep as I have practiced many times.
Get to the aforementioned room with screen door, peer around corner, don't see anything and then light up the deck area, pistol at fire position. Or so I thought.
Turns out that due to my heavy duty plastic type mesh screen in the door (the heavy stuff used so dogs won't tear it if pawing at it), light won't readily go through it and all the light bounced back towards myself. I could BARELY see out onto the deck. Once I took a few step towards it, the light got through , but from 10 feet away, forget it.
Turns out that it was just wind starting to kick up prior to storm, and must have been knocking something around, cleared deck, driveway, etc, but it taught me an extremely valuable lesson. I have already told my wife that the screen will no longer be closed at night and the glass door will. I have in the past practiced house clearing with the glass door closed, just never gave thought to the heavy duty screen.
Lesson being - Always think out of the box, even in your own home.