Round here we can ask help from any of our neighorbors and get it, thank god I live in a place like this.
This isn't really a good neighborhood/bad neighborhood kind of question. There are NO neighborhoods safe enough that house clearing becomes a reasonable risk.
Look, please read this thread.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=529243 It won't take you more than 10 minutes to read the whole thing and there are some very important messages in it. I can't promise it will change your mind, but there are some things you should be thinking about before you face that situation again.
There are some things "the local volunteer deputies and posse" have that you and your stepdad don't. And I don't mean training (some soldiers stationed in Iraq DO clear houses ... with fire teams and grenades...), or weapons, or body armor (of course you were wearing body armor ... no one would clear a house without protection) -- I mean they have the legal protection and insurance of their office backing them.
If you have a freak accident or a bad judgment call (both of which happen more often than not in "shoot house" environments) who's insurance is going to cover repairs to the damage you caused -- or the medical bills if you shoot your stepfather or your own foot or the kid from down the street who happened to wander in?
If you have that freak accident -- or a deliberate shooting -- and things aren't perfectly clear legally, who is going to pay for your lawyer? Who is going to pay your bail? Who is going to pay for your time off work while you attend trial? Who is going to serve your time if convicted of wrongful homicide?
The great benefit of the official position of a law enforcement officer (even if he's Barney Fife) is that it largely shields him from these great dangers and let him concentrate on his job without crippling worry over personal liability, medical costs, death benefits for his loved ones on the realistic chance that this doesn't go well, etc.
In the end, though, what you need to remember to do -- after the neighbor lady is secured safely in your house and the danger to her is removed -- when you're standing in front of the door to her house with your gun drawn -- is to say to yourself, "
This is it. I'm going in. If all I've read is true, and there really IS an armed bad-guy in this house, the odds are better than 3 to 1 that I won't come back out. I've lived nineteen long years and seen all the world has to offer. If I die in this house, so be it. At least they won't get her TV."
