Why do people think it's okay to keep trying to rob me?

[nothingclever]

Yes, clearly thats what I'm doing. I'm ready to pound my head against the keyboard trying to explain how the wombating thing works. I'm not making outrageous claims, or even endorsing it... If you shoot someone not dressed like Ralphie Parker with a taser they go down, even on (wow) substances. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

A bullet can be lodged in a man's brain and he can keep functioning yet you think tasers are flawless. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

[Stormthorn]

that's exactly what I'm saying Pyrian.

sorry. guess that means I de-railed the thread.

And thats what the spirit of the internet is all about.

The mentality that it is better to shoot and kill a person(even a criminal) than incapacitate them with a less than lethal weapon because you might somehow get sued strikes me as insanity.

Im from California. We are all insane.


And to the man with the highly club-able avatar: The guns still have one advantage. You can fire more than once. Specificly, you can fire twice at the torso and once at the head.

[Jack Squat]

Yes, clearly thats what I'm doing. I'm ready to pound my head against the keyboard trying to explain how the wombating thing works. I'm not making outrageous claims, or even endorsing it... If you shoot someone not dressed like Ralphie Parker with a taser they go down, even on (wow) substances. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

Taser's site puts the X26 up to two inches of cumulative penetration, or up to 1 inch per probe. So, at best you get 1 inch penetration. Now, make it winter, and have the person dress in layers. For me, in TN, my thickest is a t-shirt, polar fleece, and ski shell. Not terribly difficult to go through. However, I've seen people in in undershirt, overshirt, carhartt overalls, and decently thick parkas. When you get at best one inch of penetration (in a lab, where everything's set up to best work), I fail to see how it's hard to see how it's entirely possible that out in the field, in winter, a probe can fail to go through clothing. Even is advanced as they are, they aren't perfect, and can and do fail.

[SDF]

A bullet can be lodged in a man's brain and he can keep functioning yet you think tasers are flawless. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

I never said such a thing, I don't even know what you are arguing.

[Jack Squat]

I never said such a thing, I don't even know what you are arguing.

You never said it directly, but arguing that there's no way someone can fight through it/be drugged enough for it to not effect, nor that they can stop it with reasonable clothing doesn't exactly put you up for being in the position that they can fail to work if the probes don't miss.

[nothingclever]

I never said such a thing, I don't even know what you are arguing.

Yeah buddy, you pretty much did. According to you they're just as good if not better than guns. According to you they always work when they hit and hitting is easy and they're all around just as reliable as guns. Are you experiencing amnesia or something?

Your argument fails to fully account for penetration but you apparently don't think that's so because you're content with saying all you need is 1 highly variable inch of penetration. I've seen plenty of young wannabe tough guys and they have a habit of wearing very baggy thick jackets whether it's winter or not. I highly doubt your taser would work on them.

[Mystic Muse]

and like I said. one inch penetration will be ineffective against pretty much any coat.

[Trog]

On a related note I actually know a guy who has been tasered by the police. He's a BIG guy and well known to be pretty stoic and pain resistant in most situations. He did so as the willing guinea pig for a on-camera demonstration (lord know why) of the police taser.

He buckled immediately. Those prongs stuck into his flesh deep enough to leave bleeding wounds and he described the sensation as "it felt like my whole body was on fire and it was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life". After hearing that testimony my opinion is that the only downside of the taser is the one shot part and the fact that you may miss. EDIT: And the coat thing, if it is a heavy leather one.

As to using it in your home, you better also be able to do as the cops do once they have tasered someone and that is to be able to wrestle them into handcuffs and detain them. Personally for home defense I'd go with the old stand-by, the bat. If the bat and the announcement that you have just called the cops (regardless of whether you have yet or not) doesn't scare them away then you are likely in a much worse situation than your typical robbery anyway. And good luck with all that.

Realistically though you likely have someone in your house who fears the police, fears getting caught (or even identified), and just wanted to make a quick haul of your possessions and made the poor choice of doing so while the house had occupants.

[EleventhHour]

You could do it the old fasioned way for tresspassers ; shotgun shell full of salt.

[Mystic Muse]

You could do it the old fasioned way for tresspassers ; shotgun shell full of salt.

this has been discussed to death. general response is that it plain doesn't work.

[Jack Squat]

Trog: Not to demean your friend in any way, but it is indeed possible to fight through a taser

[Mr.Moron]

If you hear someone breaking in, why confront? Unless they're using a door right in front of you there immediacy of the situation isn't going to be measured in seconds. If you've got time to grab a gun find the target and shoot them, you've time to use a back door or window and flee.

Why escalate a situation into a lethal showdown when it doesn't have to be? Hell, putting aside shooting someone when you don't have to, what if they have a weapon? What if they're faster than you? What if you miss? Better to get you and yours the hell away from the potential danger rather running headlong into it.

Flight before Fight.

[Jack Squat]

If you hear someone breaking in, why confront? Unless they're using a door right in front of you there immediacy of the situation isn't going to be measured in seconds. If you've got time to grab a gun find the target and shoot them, you've time to use a back door or window and flee.

Why escalate a situation into a lethal showdown when it doesn't have to be? Hell, putting aside shooting someone when you don't have to, what if they have a weapon? What if they're faster than you? What if you miss? Better to get you and yours the hell away from the potential danger rather running headlong into it.

Flight before Fight.

What if it's your only way out? And why should you allow them to control you? Why not just stick all your stuff out on the sidewalk and save them the inconvenience of getting past your locked door?

[lvl 1 fighter]

If you hear someone breaking in, why confront? Unless they're using a door right in front of you there immediacy of the situation isn't going to be measured in seconds. If you've got time to grab a gun find the target and shoot them, you've time to use a back door or window and flee.

Why escalate a situation into a lethal showdown when it doesn't have to be? Hell, putting aside shooting someone when you don't have to, what if they have a weapon? What if they're faster than you? What if you miss? Better to get you and yours the hell away from the potential danger rather running headlong into it.

Flight before Fight.

That's the only door to my apartment. There are plenty of windows I could open and go out, and I wouldn't hurt myself getting down. Second story house, lots of roof overhangs.

But the deal is I don't even consider that option. I could say now, sitting here and typing on the keyboard, "Yeah, I'll try and think clear when it happens and consider my options." But I know from experience that it doesn't work like that, at least for me. It's one of the scariest things to me, and I freak out on the inside.

Without going into details, this type of situation (someone breaking into my house when I'm there) is almost exactly the same situation as one of my worst nightmares. It triggers a lot of different feelings and memories, and I react to it on a very basic level, with the Flight option removed.

That's another reason I wish they would stop trying. I give a crap about the stuff in my house. It's just stuff. But them doing this freaks me the **** out, and I hate that.

And I am worried about shooting and killing someone. I really don't want to hurt anyone, would like to avoid it if at all possible. But if someone breaks into my house, it's most probable that I'll shoot them.

[Pyrian]

This isn't the argument. The thread's about home defense, not whether a gun should be in every household.

...For home defense. I don't see an important distinction, here, and the question of whether or not a gun should be in the OP's house was very much the topic of discussion in the first place.

However, I'll point out that a kitchen knife or hammer can make domestic violence lethal much more quickly than if they weren't there. Should we remove these from households?

Not adding a gun to your household is a reasonably practical alternative to adding a gun to your household. Removing all blunt and sharp implements from a household leaves you with a nearly empty house and is highly impractical. Also, they're a fair bit less deadly: sure, it's possible to kill someone with a thrown knife (or vase...) at a dozen feet or so, but the odds just don't stack up; there are solid reasons why firearms replaced more primitive weaponry in military forces. The distinctions are enormous.

Presumably your daughter would knock on the door instead of kicking it down.

I was thinking she would open the door with her own key and try not to wake her parents 'cause its late.

Note that this is specifically in response to some of Keld's earlier posts in which he argued that firing right away was necessarily the more cautious response. It is quite possible that pointing a light and checking who it is rather than firing on sight could get you killed if the intruder simply opens fire before you've figured out they're up to no good. There's a risk either way.

[Mr.Moron]

What if it's your only way out?

This seems unlikely or at least uncommon. I've never been in any home that had only one entrance or exit. Hell if only because of fire safety issues I'm not even sure that a home with only one exit would be up-to-code for occupancy. If there is only one way you can get out of your home or the only ways out are tightly clustered you should change that.

And why should you allow them to control you?

Confronting them requires putting two or more lives on the line. At minimum, mine and theres. More if my confronting them puts them in a violent mood or if they have accomplices.

Why not just stick all your stuff out on the sidewalk and save them the inconvenience of getting past your locked door?

My stuff isn't worth a human life. Not my own, not theirs. Violence especially the lethal kind is a tool of absolute last resort. Honestly I can't even really comprehend this question, it just seems like such alien reasoning to me. If the harm they could cause me or the people I live with could be otherwise prevented, there is no reason to take their life.

If I killed over material possessions I don't think I could live with myself. Just the though of it terrifies me.

[Alteran]

I was thinking she would open the door with her own key and try not to wake her parents 'cause its late.

That's also fine, if she has a key. That would be another clue that it's not a break in.

[Jack Squat]

...For home defense. I don't see an important distinction, here, and the question of whether or not a gun should be in the OP's house was very much the topic of discussion in the first place.

Was domestic violence even brought up by the OP? I didn't read the entire thread, but as far as I can tell, he's alone.

Not adding a gun to your household is a reasonably practical alternative to adding a gun to your household. Removing all blunt and sharp implements from a household leaves you with a nearly empty house and is highly impractical. Also, they're a fair bit less deadly: sure, it's possible to kill someone with a thrown knife (or vase...) at a dozen feet or so, but the odds just don't stack up; there are solid reasons why firearms replaced more primitive weaponry in military forces. The distinctions are enormous.

I wasn't advocating removing them from households, I was saying that not having a gun won't really stop lethality from happening in a domestic dispute. You can always just grab something else, and most of the times they're within close enough ranges for it not to matter.

I was thinking she would open the door with her own key and try not to wake her parents 'cause its late.

If she lost her key, what are the chances she'd still have a key to her parents place? While not always the case, most people I know keep all their keys on one ring.

This seems unlikely. I've never been in any home that had only one entrance or exit. Hell just because of fire safety issues, I'm not even sure that one would be up-to-code for occupancy. If there is only one way you can get out of your home, only the only ways out are tightly clustered you should change that.

The OP just stated that he only has one way out. It's quite common for apartments. Not everyone lives in a house.

Confronting them requires putting two or more lives on the line. At minimum, mine and theres. More if my confronting them puts them in a violent mood or if they have accomplices.

But it also solves the situation. A criminal won't stop their life if there's no resistance to it. Running does nothing except make it likely that you'll be targeted again.

My stuff isn't worth a human life. Not my own, not theirs. Violence especially the lethal kind is a tool of absolute last resort. Honestly I can't even really comprehend this question, it just seems like such alien reasoning to me. If the harm they could cause me or the people I live with could be otherwise prevented, there is no reason to take their life.

If I killed over material possessions I don't think I could live with myself. Just the though of it terrifies me.

I'll give up my stuff instead of kill someone as well. What I've got can be pretty easily replaced. However, if someone threatens me, I'm going to protect myself. You can still get killed when running away, at least take the chance to defend yourself.

[SDF]

You never said it directly, but arguing that there's no way someone can fight through it/be drugged enough for it to not effect, nor that they can stop it with reasonable clothing doesn't exactly put you up for being in the position that they can fail to work if the probes don't miss.

Nothing is a 100% effective, thus my examples of guns jamming, ect. Failure for both is not likely to happen. My entire point was that it is a viable alternative if you want it.

Yeah buddy, you pretty much did. According to you they're just as good if not better than guns. According to you they always work when they hit and hitting is easy and they're all around just as reliable as guns. Are you experiencing amnesia or something?

Your argument fails to fully account for penetration but you apparently don't think that's so because you're content with saying all you need is 1 highly variable inch of penetration. I've seen plenty of young wannabe tough guys and they have a habit of wearing very baggy thick jackets whether it's winter or not. I highly doubt your taser would work on them.

According to me? Never said they were better than guns. According to me? Never claimed hitting was easy, or even mentioned anything about it. There is no need to be so hostile or start making a strawman out of what I was saying.

I suppose I could have clarified and said the shaped pulse extends the range of the probe, but I thought it was common sense. I wasn't even trying to touch on the clothing/thickness thing, just mentioning the shape pulse technology. But, there is always this. So, I wouldn't really doubt it would work on them.

[Keld Denar]

I think Keld is arguing that he's unwilling to risk the chance that the intruder will simply open fire immediately.

Keld is doing no such thing. Keld IS mearly admitting that as good as he is, he's not confident that hes better than the guy across from him. That guy gets a warning to freeze, then raise hands slowly. Thats all. Any sane person assesses the situation, realizes they might die if they move, and complies, explaining why they are intruding. Anyone who makes sudden or sharp unidentified movements after being told not to gets to meet with my self-preservation instincts. I'm not gonna wait till I see a weapon. I already mentioned 2 pages ago that I don't roll those dice. A person there on accident isn't gonna make sudden movements when confronted by an angry shotgun toting homeowner. I don't want to take a life, and would give a warning, but I WOULD keep my finger on the trigger and the safety disengaged in such a situation. I lock my doors. If a person is inside of my home, they bypassed my locks. Normal people don't bypass locks and break into a strangers home. That was the first warning. Second warning is verbal. There is no third warning.

I'm not saying this to be cool, or to shock you guys into thinking "man, Keld would kill a man, how badass is that". I'm saying that my life, my family, in my own home, are more valuable than anything else. I will defend my life with my every last breath. Honestly, thinking about it scares the hell out of me! That fear is the very same reason I wouldn't hesitate. Whoever it is had their chances. I'm not gonna play cowboy shootout at high noon with a prefect stranger in my own living room when I already have the advantage. I'm not gonna risk my life to see if I can identify his threat before he can wield it. I couldn't imagine the pain my family would feel to lose me because I hesitated. Thats just how I feel.

[Trog]

Trog: Not to demean your friend in any way, but it is indeed possible to fight through a taser

It doesn't demean him at all. You take a shot with one and let me know how that goes for you.

I'm sure that fighting a taser can be done. However, they also seem to work fairly well on police shows such as COPS the few times I've seen them used (and they actually hit). And again you'd have to be able to restrain a robber afterward which typically is not an easy task even for the police. So it's a messy solution at best for home defense. I'm not deluded into thinking a taser is some magical freeze ray that will stop every possible assailant in his tracks and be the be-all-end-all. Hence my not having one. But they are damn painful.

As I said, I'd sooner go for a bat and the threat of the police in the event of a break in.

[Pyrian]

That's also fine, if she has a key. That would be another clue that it's not a break in.

Not much of one. Break-ins are frequently pretty quiet.

[Mr.Moron]

You can get a Remington pump shotgun at wal-mart for ~$200 and in most states you don't need ANY permit.

Frankly, that's horrifying. I'm going to have to be sure to research these kinds of things before I move anywhere. Thanks for the warning.

[lvl 1 fighter]

Not much of one. Break-ins are frequently pretty quiet.

First time was about 2 months ago, I woke up around 1AM to what felt like the whole house shaking (it's a small house, I have the top half) as they tried to kick down my door.

They're stupid, and don't know how to kick in doors. All they did was scuff it up and make some dents near the bottom. But their efforts knocked loose a window screen which fell and made lots of noise, which I presume scared them off.

Maybe smart robbers don't make noise. Not mine though, thankfully.

[Stormthorn]

Taser's site puts the X26 up to two inches of cumulative penetration, or up to 1 inch per probe. So, at best you get 1 inch penetration. Now, make it winter, and have the person dress in layers. For me, in TN, my thickest is a t-shirt, polar fleece, and ski shell. Not terribly difficult to go through. However, I've seen people in in undershirt, overshirt, carhartt overalls, and decently thick parkas. When you get at best one inch of penetration (in a lab, where everything's set up to best work), I fail to see how it's hard to see how it's entirely possible that out in the field, in winter, a probe can fail to go through clothing. Even is advanced as they are, they aren't perfect, and can and do fail

Im from California. Depending upon how the seasons go we might be lucky to be wearing half that during the winter. Of course, i know people who wear trenchcoats all time sof the year.

[THAC0]

There's another problem with just jumping out the window when someone comes in that arises when you have, say, children sleeping in another room.

[lvl 1 fighter]

Frankly, that's horrifying. I'm going to have to be sure to research these kinds of things before I move anywhere. Thanks for the warning.

Gun laws by State. Double check with the official regulations, but this is a good start.

I'm in Tennessee. You only have to register a concealed weapon (and get a CW permite).

[Mr.Moron]

Gun laws by State. Double check with the official regulations, but this is a good start.

I'm in Tennessee. You only have to register a concealed weapon (and get a CW permite).

Wow. Scary stuff. Glad my own state seems to be fairly reasonable. Dang. I think that's about the most I can without getting political. Still though, .

[Pyrian]

Was domestic violence even brought up by the OP?

No, but the amount of people killed by the firearms in their own household is high enough that I think it's worth mentioning.

I wasn't advocating removing them from households, I was saying that not having a gun won't really stop lethality from happening in a domestic dispute. You can always just grab something else, and most of the times they're within close enough ranges for it not to matter.

And I'm saying that having a gun in the household DOES make domestic disputes escalate to lethal violence much more quickly. Also, this is not a particularly disputed or controversial statement; it's a well-known fact. http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/domviofs.htm "Having a gun in the home makes it three times more likely that you or someone you care about will be murdered by a family member or intimate partner."

If she lost her key, what are the chances she'd still have a key to her parents place? While not always the case, most people I know keep all their keys on one ring.

I feel like I'm talking to people in some alternate universe who've never snuck into their own parents house at night on one errand or another. A quick survey of five friends revealed that every single one of us had done so at some time or another, often more than once.

A person there on accident isn't gonna make sudden movements when confronted by an angry shotgun toting homeowner.

I think rather that people who don't realize they're creating any kind of threatening vibe when suddenly confronted by a shouting shotgun-weilder might very well panic and duck.

[Jack Squat]

Nothing is a 100% effective, thus my examples of guns jamming, ect. Failure for both is not likely to happen. My entire point was that it is a viable alternative if you want it.

Yes, guns jam, but that can be cleared in under a second. If a taser doesn't work, it takes a bit longer to get back into action. I'd say that for the range, Bear spray/RAID is better than a Taser, as you don't have to be accurate first time around.

It doesn't demean him at all. You take a shot with one and let me know how that goes for you.

Oh, I know I'll go down. I was stung by a bee today and was jumping around in pain (admittedly, the jumping was because I was wearing sandals and trying to kick the thing out from between my toes)

I'm sure that fighting a taser can be done. However, they also seem to work fairly well on police shows such as COPS the few times I've seen them used (and they actually hit). And again you'd have to be able to restrain a robber afterward which typically is not an easy task even for the police. So it's a messy solution at best for home defense. I'm not deluded into thinking a taser is some magical freeze ray that will stop every possible assailant in his tracks and be the be-all-end-all. Hence my not having one. But they are damn painful.

As I said, I'd sooner go for a bat and the threat of the police in the event of a break in.

I'd choose the bat first as well (actually my current choice is a hockey stick), and it's worked great for my dad in the past; but if I've got tools up more for the job I'm not going to leave them behind.

Frankly, that's horrifying. I'm going to have to be sure to research these kinds of things before I move anywhere. Thanks for the warning.

In all of the US, people are allowed to own guns. In most of it, you don't need a permit to, just clear a background check showing you aren't a convicted felon or involuntarily committed. I don't want to go into the political issue of gun rights, but there is an inverse correlation between how freely one can keep guns and frequency of violent crimes.

No, but the amount of people killed by the firearms in their own household is high enough that I think it's worth mentioning.

And discounting suicides, most of the injuries by their own or a family member's gun is because of stupid mistakes; most notably not checking to see if it's unloaded before handling it.

And I'm saying that having a gun in the household DOES make domestic disputes escalate to lethal violence much more quickly. Also, this is not a particularly disputed or controversial statement; it's a well-known fact. http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/domviofs.htm "Having a gun in the home makes it three times more likely that you or someone you care about will be murdered by a family member or intimate partner."

Yes, most people are killed by people they know, and guns do a pretty good job of killing people. I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that if there isn't a gun, it's not really a stretch of the imagination that they'll head into the kitchen and grab a chef's knife instead. Violent people will be violent no matter the circumstances.

I feel like I'm talking to people in some alternate universe who've never snuck into their own parents house at night on one errand or another. A quick survey of five friends revealed that every single one of us had done so at some time or another, often more than once.
.

In the original scenario you posted, a daughter was going into a house because she forgot her keys to her place. All I was saying was that if she lost her keys, how likely is it that she would she have the keys to her parents place? If I lost my keys, I'd either use the garage door (which is fairly noisy) or knock. Neither is really "sneaking in"; of course, our house also gets locked up at night, so I need a key to sneak in. If you want to change the scenario fine, but my answer will still be identify the target before putting your finger on the trigger and you won't have any problems.