Not really newsworthy, but I thought I'd throw it out there since this was a real encounter and not something that happens daily.
At about 6:50AM my wife calls me from down the driveway to inform me that someone freaked her out. A guy was stumbling toward her and tried to get in the car.
I had to check it out, so I grabbed the Glock and met her outside.
At this point all I see are tracks in the dew, but he was nowhere to be seen so I sent her off to work and went back inside to finish getting dressed.
I went to grab my boots and BAM! The front door opens rather loudly. It was locked, but it is a POS and doesn't always latch correctly. It still requires significant force to open (we sleep with the deadbolt locked)... Lesson learned. I'm fixing that today.
As you've guessed, I know exactly where the guy is now. He is in my living room with no pants or shoes and is coming my way. He seems pretty pissed about something too.
Anybody that enters my home like that will see the business end of the closest available weapon (just the same as anybody I would guess). If he were much more aggressive or had I identified a weapon this is where things would have gotten bad.
Not being a direct attack, but still deemed a likely threat, the guy got the typical warning of impending doom should he come any further.
He lost his aggressive attitude and stance rather quickly and said "I didn't know it was that serious". A quick exchange of words did two things. I now knew he was a relatively harmless drunk, and it eventually dawned on him that he needed to leave pretty quickly.
While keeping an eye on the guy, I finish up with my boots and have the PD on speaker.
I'm informing them of what just went down (in the most sterile fact based manner possible) and watching this guy attempt to destroy my mother in law's Tacoma. I'm pretty sure he was just trying to get in and sleep it off, but he is banging on the glass pretty hard with something.
The response time was pretty good (only about 5 minutes for a non-emergency call).
A pair of officers showed up and hauled his ass off.
The contact with the police was rather pleasant. I pointed them in the right direction, informed them of the weapon (since this is an official contact), and off they went.
I watched from the porch as they wrangled this drunk into a pair of cuffs and stuffed his ass in the cruiser (nice SUV's BTW).
They came back and got the normal info from me. Never once seemed concerned about the weapon.
This is not the first time I've felt the need to draw, but it is the first time I've done so in my living room.
I've gone over the safety of such an issue in my head before. The layout of the house is awful in this situation as my backstop (should I miss) contains kids in other rooms. This severely restricts the angles from which I could defend my home safely. All of that came back to me and if I recall correctly, all of this was accounted for and everything would have been fine if things went south.
Now - Just why in the hell would I post about such a boring story?
It just seems like an account others would benefit from. I've heard countless times that "if my door gets opened, no matter the excuse, the F%#*er is dead".
I may even have agreed with such a sentiment.
But it just isn't always needed as I found out this morning.
At about 6:50AM my wife calls me from down the driveway to inform me that someone freaked her out. A guy was stumbling toward her and tried to get in the car.
I had to check it out, so I grabbed the Glock and met her outside.
At this point all I see are tracks in the dew, but he was nowhere to be seen so I sent her off to work and went back inside to finish getting dressed.
I went to grab my boots and BAM! The front door opens rather loudly. It was locked, but it is a POS and doesn't always latch correctly. It still requires significant force to open (we sleep with the deadbolt locked)... Lesson learned. I'm fixing that today.
As you've guessed, I know exactly where the guy is now. He is in my living room with no pants or shoes and is coming my way. He seems pretty pissed about something too.
Anybody that enters my home like that will see the business end of the closest available weapon (just the same as anybody I would guess). If he were much more aggressive or had I identified a weapon this is where things would have gotten bad.
Not being a direct attack, but still deemed a likely threat, the guy got the typical warning of impending doom should he come any further.
He lost his aggressive attitude and stance rather quickly and said "I didn't know it was that serious". A quick exchange of words did two things. I now knew he was a relatively harmless drunk, and it eventually dawned on him that he needed to leave pretty quickly.
While keeping an eye on the guy, I finish up with my boots and have the PD on speaker.
I'm informing them of what just went down (in the most sterile fact based manner possible) and watching this guy attempt to destroy my mother in law's Tacoma. I'm pretty sure he was just trying to get in and sleep it off, but he is banging on the glass pretty hard with something.
The response time was pretty good (only about 5 minutes for a non-emergency call).
A pair of officers showed up and hauled his ass off.
The contact with the police was rather pleasant. I pointed them in the right direction, informed them of the weapon (since this is an official contact), and off they went.
I watched from the porch as they wrangled this drunk into a pair of cuffs and stuffed his ass in the cruiser (nice SUV's BTW).
They came back and got the normal info from me. Never once seemed concerned about the weapon.
This is not the first time I've felt the need to draw, but it is the first time I've done so in my living room.
I've gone over the safety of such an issue in my head before. The layout of the house is awful in this situation as my backstop (should I miss) contains kids in other rooms. This severely restricts the angles from which I could defend my home safely. All of that came back to me and if I recall correctly, all of this was accounted for and everything would have been fine if things went south.
Now - Just why in the hell would I post about such a boring story?
It just seems like an account others would benefit from. I've heard countless times that "if my door gets opened, no matter the excuse, the F%#*er is dead".
I may even have agreed with such a sentiment.
But it just isn't always needed as I found out this morning.