Principles of Home Defense
By R. Thomas Crawford
Copyright 2012 By The Author
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Personal safety begins at home. After all, if we don’t arrange a secure environment for rest
and relaxation, how can we ever afford to lapse into periods of “Condition White”, which you
will recall from previous chapters is a state of blissful ignorance of our surroundings which can
never be tolerated as we go about our daily business in public? How are we to ever safely
watch television, surf the Internet, or even sleep in the absence of a secure home
environment? The answer is that we simply cannot afford to allow our homes, where we
spend the bulk of our time, to go unprotected. Unfortunately, many people do just this.
When assessing your home protection measures, the first question you should ask yourself is,
“Do I live in a secured home?” A secured home is one in which an outsider would have to
break glass, splinter wood, set off an alarm system, or alert a noisy dog to gain entry without
the permission of the occupant. Arranging such an environment is job number one if you are
serious about home protection. If your home is a “walk-in” proposition, and remains that way,
there is very little meaningful you can do to improve your security. This is a simple fact, one I
confront and attempt to explain to clients virtually every day, with varying degrees of success.
Some of those I advise on home security look at the steps I recommend as initial measures,
and decide early on that it all seems like too much work, too restrictive, too inconvenient, and I
quickly realize that there is very little I can do for them in terms of training or equipment that
will materially change the outcome of a home intrusion for them, because they are simply
insufficiently committed to the process of safeguarding themselves or their families. These
folks want a “quick fix”, something I can sell them on a one-shot basis that will instantly make
them safer. Unfortunately, home protection is a process, not a purchase. It’s funny how I never
have to spend too much time explaining this point to those who have been the victim of a
home invasion. They seem to get it. That of course assumes that they are still alive to hear
the explanation. Some victims will not be.
Let’s start with the concept of “hardening your home”, making it difficult to get into without
your permission, so that you can have that safe place to relax and let your hair down from an
awareness perspective. In many ways, doing this job is much easier than maintaining the
constant state of relaxed awareness (Condition Yellow) we must implement in the field,
because in most cases, we can substitute physical countermeasures for mental processes.
Such countermeasures would include things that discourage incursions on the property in the
first place, such as outside lighting and foliage control, as well as “notifiers” of attempted
intrusion such as visual and audible warning devices or alarms, and finally, physical barriers
to entry such as reinforced doors, good locks, and window frame pins. Once purchased and
put into operation, such measures require only the limited effort to actually use them, rather
than the sustained commitment to sampling the environment required while we are away from
home.
Understand that much of the physical security industry and many of the items or systems it
sells are geared to the protection of property while the owner is physically away from it. You
can spend shockingly high amounts of money attempting to protect your stuff if you wish to.
The net result is that you will merely discourage property criminals of relatively low
commitment by a process known as “risk shifting”, which means you have made your property
slightly more troublesome to get at than your neighbor’s treasure, so the crook goes to his
house instead of yours. Overall, risk shifting is a reasonable way to lower the incidence of
property crime, proven for most of recorded history, which is why we still do it. While some of
the systems and products you could purchase to protect property have some dual role in
protection of human life in the home, the good news is that you really don’t have to spend a
ton of money if your principal concern is the protection of yourself and your family while you
are in residence. All that is really required is a little thought and effort, as well as some
planning to go along with minimal expenditures. The rest of this chapter will deal primarily with
the protection of innocent life within the home.
Let’s consider physical security of your home as something that is best done in “layers”,
moving from the outside inward. Think of the outer perimeter of your property, beginning at
the property line. We’ll refer to this as the “C” layer of protection. Depending on the size of
your property, you might wish to consider a fence surrounding your “C” layer to discourage
folks from wandering onto your property. Now, almost everyone can climb a fence, and a tall
security fence is not visually pleasing, nor is it what I am recommending unless you have an
unusual set of circumstances. What I’m suggesting is that fencing your property makes it less
likely that anyone will come onto your property at some unexpected point without extra effort
and without being noticed. Most people who observe someone climbing a fence onto a
residential property are much more likely to call the police to report it than if they simply see
someone they don’t recognize on that same property. From an offender’s perspective, those
who have taken the time to install a fence may have done so to restrict the movements of an
animal such as a dog, who the criminal surely does not want to meet, or the homeowner may
have well taken other security precautions. The fence is at the very least a psychological
inhibitor to intrusion.
Also within the “C” layer, we want to provide lighting, preferably lighting that can be controlled
from inside the home, so that we can see what is going on within the perimeter if and when we
need to. The mere presence of lighting discourages criminal approach. While more
sophisticated criminals are not really fooled by automated lighting, many less experienced
burglars are. Just make certain that whatever outside lighting you have is something you can
turn on, even if it’s not yet the programmed time for automatic operation, and that you can
arrange for it to stay on as long as you wish. As far as placement of lighting is concerned, it
isn’t really necessary to light up your entire property like a used car lot at night. This will
merely annoy your neighbors and interfere with your sleep. You do want to light anyplace
close to the entrances to the home where an intruder could hide to attack you as you enter or
leave. Also, arrange lighting on any spot in your yard where you are likely to go after dark,
such as the rack where the trashcans are located. Criminals have been known to wait there
after following your routine for a few nights. You really don’t want this kind of surprise when
your hands are full of Hefty Bags.
Finally, with regard to the outer perimeter, control foliage. I love trees and bushes, in fact,
some of my best articles have been written on the paper that comes from them, but an
abundance of trees and foliage can be a security nightmare, because it allows intruders to get
frighteningly close to a residence without being seen. When planning the landscaping on an
estate protection job, I never allow trees or bushes within 50 feet of an entrance, and I like to
keep the trees much further out so that intruders would have to cross a fairly large open area
to get to the building, maximizing the opportunity for detection. As far as your yard is
concerned, keep it simple, keep it open, and keep the big shrubs away from the doors. On
that note, no overhanging branches to rooftops or second stories either.
What about surveillance cameras? These are pretty cheap these days. I’ve seen some
residential type setups of reasonable quality sold at the local Sam’s Club recently. The visible
presence of cameras (in plain sight, not hidden) could serve as a major deterrent to the
offender who has not yet taken the time to figure out that in a residential setting, there
probably isn’t anyone watching the monitors. Most of them will probably assume someone is
watching and go elsewhere. So, if video is your thing, go ahead and put up cameras, but don’t
spend too much on them. Also, try to avoid making your home look like a “compound” of some
sort so your neighbors don’t think you’re a nut job.
How about a dog for security? Well, if you like dogs, they have their good points, chief among
them being their heightened senses of smell and hearing, not to mention better night vision
than we have. I suggest that if you keep one, you use them as a furry alarm system, which
also offers companionship, but NOT consider them to be a weapon. The smartest dog I know
has the intellect of about a four-year-old male child, and I would never entrust an attack
decision to a toddler. No dog other than one who is specifically protection trained can be
relied upon for this duty, and living with one of them can be miserable. The process of training
a true guard dog is called “agitation”, a refined term for making a domesticated animal who
would not normally attack a human being neurotic, moody, and pissed off enough to do so on
command. Being married, the last thing I need in my home is yet another mouth to feed who
will do this sort of thing on a whim. Get your dog as a pet, reward him or her whenever they
signal the approach of strangers, even when it is inconvenient for them to do so, and be
happy. Keep in mind that in most jurisdictions, even if your dog is within a fenced yard, and
even if you have posted “Beware of the Dog” signs, if they bite someone who is within your
fenced area but who is on the path en route to your front door, you are civilly liable for
damages.
The “B” layer of home security starts at the walls, widows and doors of your home, and
generally consists of good locks on doors and windows, locks that are actually used
whenever someone is at home. I like good reinforced doors on the front and rear of the home,
preferably metal, but if that isn’t possible or practical, we can install a “mag plate” setup that
reinforces the edge of the door and the doorjamb. Someone with sufficient determination and
enthusiasm can still get in, but it won’t be quick and it won’t be quiet, by which time you have
been able to arrange a welcoming ceremony for them that they likely will never forget. I
recommend locking or pinning windows on the ground level, or those that access below
ground levels, but only locking (not pinning) windows on the upper floors where people will
presumably be sleeping in many cases. This is from a fire escape standpoint. Make sure
these windows are not painted shut and will open in an emergency. While having nothing to
do with criminals, make sure you have a fire escape plan, some form of escape ladder, and a
rallying point for all family members to meet outside in the event of a fire.
One of the things I’m not wild about is decorative side windows made of glass on either side
of your front door. If you have these, either block them off, or change them to thick plexiglass.
Most fire codes are going to require that you have at most a single cylinder deadbolt lock on
doors that communicate with the outside, so it would be a simple matter for a crook to break
your side window glass (which can be done very quietly) and turn the deadbolt latch. Also, if
you can see through these windows, you can be seen, and therefore your location pinpointed
by an intruder as you try to use your door-mounted peephole to see who is at your door. This
is where I really like to use surveillance cameras, so we can quickly see, before opening a
door who is outside, without having to stand in front of the door itself. I also like to see an
intercom installed in this type of location.
It should go without saying that you should never defeat your “B” layer of security by opening
a door for someone you don’t know or did not expect, or by allowing yourself to be drawn
outside to investigate a noise, etc. Nothing out there is worth your life. If someone does come
to your home requesting assistance of some kind, offer that assistance through the door or via
the intercom, without opening or unlocking the door. Never trust a “night chain” to keep
anyone out who wants to get in.
What about alarm systems? They have much the same function as the dog, in that they offer
advanced notice that someone is trying to get into your home, but the upside is that rarely will
your alarm system poop on your carpet. The good news about alarm systems is that if you are
buying one for the protection of human life in an occupied dwelling, they are pretty
inexpensive. The real money comes in when you try to protect unattended property with one.
Do make sure that your alarm system makes a loud noise when it goes off, and ideally, you
should have a second control panel in your bedroom or other “safe room” (more on this later)
which is what the alarm geeks call an “articulated system”. That simply means that by looking
at your control panel, you can tell what sort of event is happening (intrusion, smoke, fire,
flood) and where the incursion is being attempted. One thing to be careful about is the alarm
company you work with. The larger “national chain” companies often use staff (and this is
perfectly legal in many cases) for up to three to six months before their background checks
are done or come back, and experience huge turnover. I’m not terribly enthused about this
idea, and think you should reserve the right to know in advance who is coming into your home
to do an installation, and that their background check has been successfully completed.
Further, some of the big names in the alarm business offer “loss leader” systems for
ridiculously low prices such as “$199.00” that will barely just power up at that price, but need
hundreds more in expense to be functional. On the low-end side of things, I’ve used travel
alarms in hotels and temporary residences with great success, and am convinced that in one
case, one of these devices saved my life. You should have one. Whatever kind of alarm
system(s) you use, use it religiously. All security failures are at their heart either a function of
faulty procedures, or, more commonly, failure to follow established procedures every time,
without exception.
Now we come to the “A” lever of home security, what some call the “defensive core” of the
home, or what I like to think of as the “safe room”. This is the point in your home where you
have decided, in advance, to make your stand in the event of an intrusion. If you have access
to a weapon and know how to use it, this is likely where we are going to find you, safe and
sound, when the police get to your residence. We may also find a dead bad guy there as well.
If you have decided to do the politically correct thing these days and be unarmed, either
because you don’t believe in the use of force, or think firearms are too complicated or unsafe,
well, at least we’ll know where to find your body without having to look too far for it.
Your “safe room” should consist of a room to which there is preferably one way in, and one
way out. Ideally, it will have a window to the outside world. It is essential that it have a phone
line, or at least that you bring your cell phone to this place every night, which argues for the
master bedroom as a prime spot. The door to this safe room must be fitted with a latch on the
inside of the door. Even a sliding latch available for a buck from the Home Depot will do. If
your safe room has a bed in it, great, not for napping, but to get behind while you watch the
latched door, so orient the bed accordingly. If you have a weapon, and you should, you
should store it here in a locked box, along with spare ammunition, a flashlight with fresh
batteries, and the keys to the front door of your home attached to a brightly colored key ring or
a small key ring flashlight.
In a standard home intrusion event when you think or know someone is in your house, you
should go to your safe room as quickly and quietly as you can, gathering everyone in there
under your protection. Latch the door. Get everyone behind the bed as you recover your
weapon from the locked box. (If you have to go fetch family members to the safe room, get
your weapon first.) Either you call the police, or have someone else do it while you cover the
door with your weapon, ready to shoot if the intruder forces entry. Tell the police dispatcher
your address (do not assume they know it if you are on your cell phone or live in a rural area)
and that you think someone is in your home. Tell them you are armed and where you are in
the house, as well as what you look like. Do not hang up. Leave the line open. Everything you
say is being recorded, as will be the sound of gunfire if any, and that’s a good thing. If you
have time, yell out loudly that you have a gun, the police are on the way, and order the
subject to leave your home as forcefully as you can, without resorting to colorful language if
you can help it.
All this assumes you have time to converse at all. When and if the bad guy forces the door
latch open, light him up with your flashlight if the lights are not on in the room, and
simultaneously light him up with your pistol unless he runs away. Keep firing at his chest until
he goes from vertical to horizontal or leaves the scene. He’ll be silhouetted in the doorway,
which we cop types call the “fatal funnel”, and he’ll be a pretty easy target at close range. If
you keep a good 12, 16, or 20-gauge shotgun in your safe room, use that instead of your
pistol. You still have to aim it, but it’s much more powerful than any handgun. By the way,
please remember that we don’t shoot at anyone we cannot identify as hostile, so please don’t
skip a step and shoot through that closed door. There could be a family member or police
officer on the other side of it.
Under no circumstances should you go searching your home looking for a bad guy. If you find
one, and he’s armed, the odds are overwhelmingly against you, while if you stay in the safe
room, the odds are all in your favor. The only circumstances under which I would consider
going out of the safe room is if someone in another part of the house needed my protection,
and even then it would be risky. The intruder may loot your entire home, and that is
unfortunate, but if you have everyone with you in the safe room, everything that is truly
irreplaceable is safe. Let him loot the joint. You may never even know when he’s left. If he
never forces that latch on your safe room door, nobody dies, and that’s a very good thing. If
he does force the latch and gets killed, he effectively committed suicide, having a number of
chances to save his own life.
So, what happens when the cops get to your home? We’ll, remember, you are still on the line
with dispatch, so they will tell you when the cavalry has arrived. The badge boys will come up
and get you. DO NOT go to the safe room door with your weapon in your hand. Satisfy
yourself that the person on the other side of the door is a police officer before you let down
your guard. I suggest that for confirmation, you ask the cop to turn up his radio so you can
hear it. We’ve all probably got one, and the intruder probably doesn’t. By the way, how did the
cops get into your home? Remember that set of keys on the bright key ring? You threw them
out a designated window, telling the dispatcher before you did it. The police picked them up,
safely let themselves in without property damage or undue risk to themselves, searched the
house and determined it was safe. Nifty, eh?
What if in your situation, you cannot reliably get everyone to the safe room, say perhaps those
who are immobilized or infirm, or very small children who sleep in another room? Well, you
might consider making the safe room their room instead, (minus the weapon if it’s a child’s
room, take it with you), and going there when the trouble starts, or you might consider using
what we call a “safe point”. A “safe point” is a point behind which is everyone who needs to
be protected, such as the top of the stairs. You as the primary defender go only to this point,
and get as small as you can and as low as you can, hopefully behind cover. You then defend
that point as if life depends on it, which it does. In such a case, my trigger point for the use of
deadly force would likely be when the intruder begins to mount the stairs. No matter what, he’
s not coming up there with my family at risk behind me. A flashlight is all but essential here,
because we must identify that shadowy figure on the stairs as friend or foe before we shoot.
While we are on that subject, make your sleeping arrangements with security in mind. Ideally,
in a two-story dwelling, everyone would sleep upstairs, but if quarters must be split between
floors, the primary defenders must sleep downstairs and closest to the entrances. Never allow
children to sleep downstairs with the adults upstairs, because you run the risk in doing this
that an intruder will get control of your children, and once that has happened, they control
you. If your kids sleep upstairs, your job in an intrusion is to defend that stairwell at the bottom
and not allow anyone up the stairs alive who you don’t know. If you do have your children
sleeping upstairs, please be sure to mark their outside windows with “Tot Finder” stickers so
that the fire department knows where to look for them for rescue purposes.
When traveling, these same principles apply in terms of defensive tactics and letting the bad
guy come to you. Minus the window, in a hotel room, the bathroom makes a pretty good safe
room. I’ve used a hotel bathroom as a safe room on many occasions while bodyguarding a
client in transit, and in a pinch you can have someone under your protection lie in the tub for
cover if you have to. You can apply these principles to your cabin, or even your camper, or in
a room you may be occupying at the home of friends.
Make sure you talk over your home defense plan with other members of your family who have
a role to play in it. Make sure they know what their jobs are, and where to go in case the worst
happens. Please make certain that everyone in your home knows never to force open a
latched door, because there is probably someone on the other side of it who is scared to
death with a gun in their hands. Let adolescents know in no uncertain terms that this is not a
joking matter, and if they screw around by sneaking into the house or not identifying
themselves, they are grounded for life.
Don’t overcomplicate your plan. It need not be perfect as long as it is sound and you can
remember it. In a typical well-secured home, you will have about 45 seconds to one minute of
free time from your first notice of incursion until you are face to face with a determined bad
buy. In an unsecured home you will have much less time, and you simply cannot sprinkle
enough loaded guns around your home to be safe if you don’t secure the place. 45 seconds is
more time than you think, although less than you would surely like. There is time to implement
a plan you have already thought out, but not enough time to develop one. Be governed
accordingly.
A home intrusion is by far the most common form of armed encounter between a private
citizen and a violent criminal, and normally, the intelligent armed citizen with a plan has a
major upper hand and does just fine in these events. Those folks who are killed and injured in
these events were beaten because they failed to plan, which as we should know is planning
to fail. Take this as seriously as your fire protection/escape plan, because in some places,
home intrusion is at least as likely as a house fire. Death and disability from home intrusion is
almost completely preventable, and now you have information to help you make your own
plan for home protection.