In regards to Sunday's post (below) on what to do when confronting a bad guy in your house when you are armed, here's some additional examples of what can happen. My contention is that you are placing yourself at a huge tactical disadvantage if you try to disarm or detain a bad guy. In reality, you are going to have very little control of an intruder, even if you hold them at gun point.
In Sunday's post, I gave some examples of things that can (and have) happened when a homeowner confronts the bad guy. After a very quick and informal look, I found some additional real-life examples. All of these happened during the months of January and February of this year in the U.S.
Case 1 – Homeowner and wife are awakened by their barking dogs in the middle of the night. An intruder has gained entry through the home's sliding glass doors. Homeowner arms himself with a .38 caliber revolver and stays in his bedroom with his wife. A masked intruder began to enter the bedroom and, almost simultaneously, homeowner and intruder exchange shots. Intruder hit, homeowner not hit.
Case 2 – Homeowner pulls into his driveway and witnesses a burglar is carrying homeowner's possessions out the back door. Homeowner challenges bad guy. Bad guy draws a knife and slashes the homeowner. A wrestling match ensues which ends up in the homeowner's swimming pool (this is in February b-r-r-r-r). Homeowner manages to get out of the pool and retrieve a rifle (the account does not detail from where) and holds the burglar at gunpoint until police arrive.
Case 3 – A woman and her children are in their apartment when a man breaks in. She takes her children and retreats to the bedroom, locks the door behind her and retrieves a handgun. When the intruder tries to get into the bedroom, she fires one shot. Intruder is found suffering from a gunshot wound outside the apartment complex by police.
Case 4 – Homeowner comes home and finds a burglar carrying homeowner's possessions (similar to Case 2). Homeowner reaches into his pickup truck and retrieves a .22 caliber rifle and challenges to burglar to put the stolen goods down. Burglar panics, runs back into the house where he slips on the linoleum tile and falls. This allows the homeowner to hold the bad guy at gunpoint until police arrive.
Case 5 – Homeowner is awakened in the middle of the night by a noise downstairs. He retrieves his semi-automatic handgun from his bedside nightstand. He goes downstairs to investigate and finds himself in a confrontation with 3 intruders. The homeowner fires "several" shots causing the bad guys to flee the house. Later it is determined that one of the intruders was hit.
Five different cases. Because we were looking for information on confronting a bad guy in your home while you are armed, by definition they have many similarities. But what is striking to me is the crazy kinds of situations that can unfold. A wrestling match that ends up in a swimming pool? A guy slipping and falling the tile floor? In 2 of these cases no shots are fired and the bad guy complies with the homeowner's demands. Note that both of these scenarios (Case 2 and Case 4) involve a strict "burglar" who is robbing an unoccupied home. When confronted, they complied. However, the "intruders" who invade an occupied home (Cases 1, 3, and 5) have a different mind set, a more predatory mind set. In these cases, it appears that they pressed the confrontation with the homeowners. Don't assume that someone who has the mind set to break into your home when you are home will be deterred by threats alone. You must be prepared to access different levels of force options to protect yourself and your family.
The case that is most like the course of action recommended in Sunday's post is Case 1. The homeowner did not give up his strong tactical position (he stayed in his bedroom). This allowed him to control the doorway (a fatal funnel) and to shield and protect his wife. Presumably they had access to a phone while defending the bedroom and were calling 911.
Remember, our strategy is to gain and maintain a position of tactical dominance.
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