You’re sound asleep when all of a sudden a loud noise jars you awake. You sit up and hear people rustling around down stairs. Your heart immediately starts pounding, a sense of panic rushes through your body and you have only seconds to react.
According to the F.B.I. one in five homes in America will experience a home invasion or break-in. Do you have the necessary skills, training and weapons to protect yourself and your home? Can you calm yourself down fast enough to react in away that will ensure a favorable outcome?
Prevent yourself and your family from becoming the next victim:
Prevention – Prevention is the number one thing you can do to survive a home invasion. The harder you make it for a criminal to enter your home, the more likely it is that they will move on to an easier target.
- Lock your Doors – It may sound like common sense, but most break-ins occur when people fail to take even the most basic of precautions. Take a minute and do a quick run through before you leave your house, and before you go to bed at night.
- Think like a thief. Walk around your house looking for weak points. Are there areas that would make it easy for a criminal to hide? Are there windows or doors that have been left open or vulnerable to entry?
- Break into your own home – Putting yourself in to the criminals mind can help you expose any weaknesses that you may have overlooked. Scope out your own home and see if you can find a way to break in.
- Secure your Windows – Windows are one of the weakest security points in most houses. To better secure your home make sure all window glass is double-pained laminated glass. As an added security measure you can apply Security Window Film
that will make your glass shatterproof.
- Lighting – Lighting is an important aspect of home security that’s often overlooked. Criminals rely on stealth and surprise in order to commit their crimes. If you can make both of those harder on them, they are less likely to see your home as an easy target.
Situational Awareness – Being aware of your surroundings is extremely important.
- A Quick Look. Before entering your home or garage do a quick inspection of your surroundings. Does everything look normal? Does it look the same as when you left?
- Keep an eye on who is in your neighborhood. Make sure you know what people and vehicles are in your neighborhood, and be on the look out when a strange face starts lurking around.
- Change it up. Criminals are experts when it comes to situational awareness. They often scout out their targets weeks in advance. They watch for patterns and routines so they can strike when you are most vulnerable. Try not to live by a strict schedule, and make sure you vary when you arrive at home and when you leave for work.
Weapons and Training – In a life or death situation, having the right equipment and training can mean the difference between life and death. But having a gun doesn’t necessarily guarantee your safety.
Don’t get me wrong here, I 100% believe that having a gun and knowing how to use it is probably the most important thing you can do to prevent becoming a victim. But please notice the part where I mentioned “knowing how to use it.”
Having a gun is important but even more important is:
- Knowing what type of gun to choose for home defense.
- Knowing how to use it in a home defense situation.
- Constantly training in order to be effective when the time comes to use it.
- Making sure that everyone in your house knows what to do during a home invasion.
We train in the hopes of never having to use our skills in a real world situation. But should an unfortunate event happen, that calls us in to action, our training is the one thing that will likely determine the outcome.
