As the weather gets cooler and I start wearing slightly bulkier clothing I switch to a larger carry pistol, in my case that's a Glock 23 .40 S&W 4th Gen with a Nickel Boron slide, a stippled grip, slightly opened mag well and tritium night sights that fits into a Galco Summer Comfort leather holster and that's my fall and winter CHL pistol.
When winter changes into spring I switch out to either a Glock 26 9mm 3rd Gen with steel aftermarket sights and skateboard tape textured grips along with some stippling at the rear/front of the grip carried strong-side in a Galco Summer Comfort IWB leather holster or I go with a Walther PPS 9mm 1st Gen (paddle mag release) with a Talon rubber stick-em decal grip in a DeSantis Nemesis pocket holster. It just depends on whether I need general concealment (where if there's an accidental flash of the pistol it's not that big a deal) vs having someone from my sons speech therapy class see it (there's no 30.06 signs there, but they'd freak out if my shirt came up when I bent down to pick something up and had my pistol flash the waiting room). So I still carry there (that office waiting room also services a practice that treats mentally ill patients) because its legal and to have a means of protecting my son and myself, but I'm not looking to make any waves.
Group shot.
Walther PPS
At any rate rather than having dedicated pistols for our night-stands, I just keep my two alternating carry pistols out of the safe (whether that's in autumn and winter and it's a Glock 23 and a Walther PPS or its spring and summer and it's a Glock 26 and a Walther PPS). For my wife there's a Glock 19 and 6 loaded spare mags, the pistol is in a hollowed out book where she can grab it on her way to the bathroom and it's on a book shelf way out of reach of my son (who's not allowed in our bedroom, and these's also nothing for him to drag over there to stand on for him to reach it, same thing with me but a different book shelf).
Then there's a 9+1 semi-auto Stoeger M3K shotgun that doesn't have a rd chambered under the bed for me and then a 1990's Remington Marine Magnum in the closet located in our bathroom for her. The shotguns are kind of a default home defense long gun, I've noticed that shotguns aren't quite as loud as rifles indoors, my wife is more comfortable with shotguns than any other type of gun due to her shooting trap and skeet for years and with the tube extensions neither of them will fit into our safe.
In a couple weeks I'm getting a rail segment for the clamp on that semi-auto shotgun so that I can use a Streamlight TLR-1.
There's a few things I don't hear a whole lot of mentioned on these types of threads : Body armor, first aid gear and fire extinguishers.
There's a set of Level IIIA body armor for me by my nightstand and two sets of body armor (one for my wife and one for one of our other family if they're downstairs) on the way to our large bathroom and bathroom closets where she's supposed to go and make the call to the police.
I also have a first aid kit heavy on the trauma gear (two CAT tourniquets, quick clot, quick clot impregnated bandages, thirty-4x4's / three-5x9's and two of the huge 10x30" trauma dressings, occlusive bandages, 3 Vaseline gauze, 1 Asherman chest seals (for occlusive dressings), 1" and 2" tape, cravats, roller gauze, 2 Israeli dressings, a blue bulb for suction (better than nothing and it's better than those manually pumped v-vac units), two H-and-H dressings, a set of NPA's and lubricant, a set of OPA's, pocket mask (I can't fit a BVM in that small of a bag), two sets of trauma shears, sterile saline etc etc by my nightstand.
On the medical kit if you or a loved one are the subject to a home invasion or attacked by a burglar or group of burglars and you or a family member are seriously injured after either you successfully repel the attack or they leave it might be quite awhile before medical help will arrive.
First you have to make the call, then there's the response time of Police and Fire/EMS. Fire/EMS will stage around the corner until Police clears the scene and allows the Fire and/or EMS crew to make scene and to start working on you or your injured family member. Even if the incident is really over the crew won't come to your house until given the all clear by the Police. So something to think about.
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On how fire extinguishers relate to crime, it's no secret that criminals use fire. Molotov's for revenge attacks or pouring gas on a crime scene (your home) and lighting it up to eliminate evidence.
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We also keep an unused cell phone on a charger in the bathroom. You can still use it to call 911, that's the only number that will work on that phone since it's not hooked up for service. That way you can still call for help if you're old school and still have a landline and they cut it and your cell phones are out of juice or taken. I picked up that idea from another forum and we had an older Gen 1 iPhone and a charger that we weren't using.
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Edit to add other security measures that we've taken :
*Dog : We have a dog (she's a boxer) which while she might not be ferocious she does do her job and she investigates sounds that we might not pay attention to.
*Structural Security : Steel doors, had extra long screws used for the hinges, added a striker plate to resist jimmying, double dead bolts and had door guardians installed on all exterior doors. Also had storm windows installed that uses this film that's partially bullet resistant (small and medium pistol calibers) and that's tough to break unless someone were taking a sledge hammer and repeatedly hitting the edges of the window to bash it in as a sheet. It's somewhat like a vehicle windshield in that respect. Not completely impregnable, but better than window bars or grating and better looking.
*Exterior lighting : Had motion sensor lights installed in the rear of our home.
*Had bushes and plants removed from front : We had the bushes removed in front so that a person trying to gain entry in the front of the house wouldn't be hidden from the street. Hopefully if someone was trying to kick in the door and the neighbors or passers by would call the police.
*We've gotten to know our neighbors : We've developed a relationship enough where we smile and wave to them. Not enough to where we're in each other's business, but where if something were to happen and something didn't look right where they'd probably call the police to help us out.
*Hearing Protection : Two sets of Howard Leight Impact Sport electronic hearing muffs and one set of Caldwells. That's one of the reasons I put the AR's back in the safe in favor of shotguns. Had the opportunity to go through an improvised shoot house a buddy built on his deer lease and rifles are LOUD. I knew they were loud before, but I ran through once without hearing protection trying out a scenario where the shooter was getting out of bed and damn...it was loud. Did I mention how loud they were?
I've shot indoors a fair amount, but I've always used at least ear plugs. The shotgun and the pistols weren't quite as bad. So in light of that I switched them out. Plus I'm guessing a couple shotguns would look a little better to the police, district attorney, judge, grand jury, jury, the people reading about it in the news etc etc as opposed to an AR. Even though many .223 rds penetrate less through drywall, wood, brick and other building materials less than some shotgun rds that's not the perception that most people have. I imagine that a standard juror has never tried out such things at their family deer lease, read up on the matter on gun forums, seen it on YouTube or even heard of Box of Truth...so using a rifle to defend your home in suburbia with other houses around would probably be looked at unfavorably as opposed to a shotgun. Plus I'm going through a shotgun phase right now.
At any rate back to hearing : It would be hard to communicate with my wife in the other room (who would hopefully be on the phone with police/fire dispatch) if I'm deaf. AR's, AK's and other mag fed rifles obviously offer some advantages, but I'm just a regular guy protecting his family home and the worst threat I'm likely to face would be 4-5 armed home invaders (which is statistically unlikely in itself). It's hard to imagine a scenario where I go through 9 rds of 12 gauge, and then 10 pistol mags of varying capacity (13 rd G23-12 rd G26-7 & 8 rd PPS) and then back to the bag-o'-shotgun shells (about 100 rds of Double 00 and #4 buck) and the fight tonight is still going and they still want to keep coming to get our 8 year old TV and DVD player. I'm fairly well prepared if they do though.
