No, a lot of home invasions are not mistakes.
As Jeff clearly pointed out, it's either about drugs, or a sexual relationship. Read the stats yourself from the Justice Department, they are on line, and the topic has been discussed frequently in the past.
You steal your druglords stash, move to a new location, they hunt you down to recover them and restore respect - by killing you.
You steal an overbearing person's sex partner - who may be manipulating the situation - they come over to recover their "property" and mete out physical punishment on those who facilitated it.
More than 9 out of 10 cases are one of the two - drugs or sex partner. Jeff was being nice, but basically the facts are it's about druggies, dealers, and dysfunctional relationships.
Latest case locally, not reported as a "invasion," a felon drove 96 miles to get a shotgun, bought ammo on the way back, pumped 5 rounds into the new "girlfriend" of the "estranged" wife he'd been living with for ten years, and shot his ex-wife, too.
Read the headlines - it's either a drug hit or revenge. Top two factors in over 90% of the cases.
Exceptionally, we also had the "mistaken" home invasion - perps showed up, knocked on the door, were let in by the homeowner, tied him up, discovered their mistake. Right street, wrong address. On discovery, the left, even offered a hug to the upset wife. Yeah, not all these perps are hardened street thugs. On arrival at the location they were looking for, one was shot on sight. The others are up for murder - get your buddy killed, you are the responsible party, not the trigger puller. That case has key phrases in it that hint about either stolen merchandise or drugs.
The papers aren't always out there about the cause - but they do give hints to the literate.
Jeff's point is that the internet forums are all about "You Wake Up to a KNIFE AT YOUR THROAT!" when the reality is that the people you run with and what they do are the most dangerous, irresponsible decisions made - up front. After that, paying no attention to home security, even making it easier for anyone to just break in is the next level of defense, which gun forums NEVER address. It's about home security, right? But if a gun isn't involved - oh, my, off topic first of all, and second, let's post about guns and their violent power to resolve conflict - not deadbolts and trimming the bushes away from the house.
Even in the discussions about "THEY ARE BREAKING DOWN THE DOOR, WHAT DO YOU DO?" we never discuss how they even chose your domicile, why they accepted the risk, what tactics and lanes of fire could be exercised, what lanes of fire THEY have, whether your family will even put up with rehearsing their response, etc.
We say "they know to go to the safe room," but I know that the typical American female spouse will raise her eyebrows and say "If this neighborhood is that dangerous we are moving!" and that will happen, regardless. Very few of us are forced to live in a free fire zone - we just keep coming up with excuses. Humans fear change and the unknown more than they fear the threats to life they are used to. Ex: The Mideast - with centuries of warfare, they keep trying to make a life there. Humans aren't always capable of making a better decision, they rationalize things to acceptability. It's how some voters put very poor candidates into office.
All this is why the Home Invasion threads are mostly bogus - the rate right up their with TEOTWAWKI and zombies, both equally likely prospects. But what has happened is that the first are generally against forum rules, the second recognized as Hollywood farce. That leaves the fertile overworked and under accomplished male ego to post threads about another very unlikely threat - to talk about how cool he would be wielding his massively powerful weapon of choice and vanquishing any and all evil intruders.
It is very definitely a macho thing for them, common sense and reason aren't allowed to intrude.
