Home Defense/Self Defense: The Precautions you Take

[Fury Resurrected]

12 minutes ago, Starkess said:

Yep. One of the victims was a grad student at UChicago too. Just shot sitting in his car in the parking lot of his apartment complex. 

Oh, I hope we don't scare you away! Chicago is a lovely city. Crime happens everywhere, and visiting Chicago is less dangerous than the flight or car trip to get here!

The traffic is the actual scary part of Chicago

[Mlle. Zabzie]

24 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

The traffic is the actual scary part of Chicago

There is NO GOOD WAY TO GET FROM THE AIRPORT TO DOWNTOWN.  The El is marginally acceptable.  That is all.

[BigFatCoward]

22 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

And the cab drivers  wear your seat belt and hang on for dear life!!!

I've also got concerns about the abomination they call pizza. Straight up heart attack food. 

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, SerHaHa said:

There are many, many options available that allow you to store your firearms securely, while still giving rapid access when required.  Small spring door safes the size of a very large book, that have either biometric or a keycode (in the shape of the fingers of your hand), which will keep a handgun secure while still being nearly as fast to access as though it were sitting in a drawer or on a nightside table.  There are standing safes/vaults with the same sort of electronic/bio access systems available for shoulder supported weapons like rifles and shotguns as well.

The very best defensive system you can have for your home, or even while out and about, is a fur missile.  A well trained dog, in particular a breed used as a military working dog (ie German Shep, Belgian Mal, etc etc), will serve very well in this role.  You get early warning benefits from the dog's senses, plus there are legal benefits as well (ie instead of dealing with a potential shooting, even if justified, you're dealing with a dog bite(s)).  A dog buys you time as well, and just an FYI the equation that rules all CQB combat is Time=Distance=Cover.  Time to get your family to safety, time to actually access any defensive systems you may have at the ready, and time to consider options properly, even if it's just a few seconds, as being the victim, you do NOT have time or surprise (critically important) on your side.

At our homes, fur missile comes with us everywhere, so he's always present as both a deterrent and a defense.  Yes, we have firearms, and yes, they are secured properly, as well as  having long worked in the field of private military contracting, the military, and LE, frequently as a training officer, we have sufficient training.  Things that are often overlooked on this subject are armor, first aid, and communications.  Body armor is cheap, and having a set for every family member if you're in a high threat area or occupation, is IMO necessary, more so than weapons.  Old cell phones without being activated on a plan can still access the 911 network, so keeping one charged where the armor/weapons are stored is a cheap/free way to ensure a communication device is available. First aid is also something non-professionals rarely bring up, but having a couple tourniquets and other basic first aid supplies can mean the difference between surviving or not, for both you/family, or even your attacker, as medics usually arrive after police in terms of first responders, and you may be responsible for saving your own life/lives.  You should know how to do that, as well as have the supplies on hand to do so. 

 

I'm sorry, but I just couldnt function if I worried about stuff that much. 

[DMC]

31 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

There is NO GOOD WAY TO GET FROM THE AIRPORT TO DOWNTOWN.

Just fly in to Midway elitist.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

32 minutes ago, DMC said:

Just fly in to Midway elitist.

LMAO.  I always look at Midway....and then end up flying into O’Hare, cursing and screaming.  And, in the before times, I went to Chicago about once a quarter......There was a lot of cursing and a lot of screaming.  

[Liffguard]

Honestly my main method of self-defense when out and about is a willingness to de-escalate and swallow my pride. It's pretty unlikely for someone to want to hurt me just for the sake of hurting me (as a very normal-presenting cis white man). Any violence likely to come my way is either going to be acquisitive, in which case it's easier to give up possessions and deal with it later (I am profoundly unwilling to risk either being hurt or hurting someone else for the sake of my five-year old £90 motorolla), or alternatively due to heightened emotions / alcohol / dick-measuring, in which case de-escalating and/or walking away is the best bet.

[SerHaHa]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

I'm sorry, but I just couldnt function if I worried about stuff that much. 

Don't be sorry.  I'm not worried at all.  Being prepared for the absolute worst case scenario, and being worried about it, are completely different things.  

You also may have a far lower threat level due to your location and other factors, than those I'd recommend use some/any of the above measures I mentioned, and which I/we're employing.

[Fury Resurrected]

16 minutes ago, SerHaHa said:

Don't be sorry.  I'm not worried at all.  Being prepared for the absolute worst case scenario, and being worried about it, are completely different things.  

You also may have a far lower threat level due to your location and other factors, than those I'd recommend use some/any of the above measures I mentioned, and which I/we're employing.

@BigFatCoward is law enforcement, I imagine he still knows what he’s talking about here.

[Starkess]

No kidding. O'Hare is awful. I live on the south side and getting to O'Hare takes about 1.5 hours minimum and involves a bus-to-L transfer with several blocks of walking and dragging a suitcase. Unfortunately whenever I'm flying internationally it pretty much has to be ORD.

Midway is better, it's directly west of me so I can just get on one bus the whole way. But I have to take the bus literally the entire length of its route and it stops constantly so it takes quite a while still. It's actually marginally faster to take a bus to the Loop, transfer to the Orange line, and take that to Midway, but I've never actually done that as at least I can just get on the bus and zone out without transfers or anything. Also the bus goes through some sketchy areas so I probably wouldn't want to ride it too late at night.

Once I was taking the bus to Midway and I was the only person on the bus. The driver just stopped at some random stop about 75% of the way through and said that was the end of the line. That is most definitely NOT the end of the line, and there were no notices posted about route changes or anything. I'm still convinced he was making that up. But in any case I ended up stranded in an unfamiliar neighborhood, about to be late for my flight, and my cell service was so terrible it took 15 minutes to call a Lyft. Ugh. At least it was the middle of the day!

[SerHaHa]

1 hour ago, Fury Resurrected said:

@BigFatCoward is law enforcement, I imagine he still knows what he’s talking about here.

And so was I. I know BFC is LE, I also know what country he resides in which is primarily what I was referring to regarding the threat level.  Are inferring I don't know what I'm talking about here, by saying he does?  I've only instructed 1000s of soldiers, including many Tier 1 units, police officers, and civilians on this very subject.  So, me being a subject matter expert on the subject at hand, what is your specific resentment?

[Fury Resurrected]

Just now, SerHaHa said:

And so was I. I know BFC is LE, I also know what country he resides in.  Are inferring I don't?  I've only instructed 1000s of soldiers, including many Tier 1 units, police officers, and civilians on this very subject.  So, me being a subject matter expert on the subject at hand, what is your specific resentment?

My specific issue was how dismissive you were of others with experience who were expressing their personal opinions. You were just being kinda rude, unnecessarily. And now you’re being weirdly defensive about it being pointed out.

[SerHaHa]

27 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

My specific issue was how dismissive you were of others with experience who were expressing their personal opinions. You were just being kinda rude, unnecessarily. And now you’re being weirdly defensive about it being pointed out.

Uh, okay. First, it wasn't "others", it was only BFC, one of the members I'm familiar with here, and been involved in other threads which he has been.  Second, BFC said "Sorry, but i couldn't function etc etc", to which I replied "don't be sorry, as I'm describing actions taken for a much higher threat level area/person than himself, whom I know to be LE in the UK", and that I myself was NOT worried, as I/we have taken all the actions necessary should the extremely unlikely event of violence happen in our homes.  How is that in ANY way dismissive - understanding why he isn't worried, and explaining why I'm not either?  It's the exact opposite in fact, and certainly not "rude" either.

 Sounds more like you're projecting your own issues, as I was demonstrably neither dismissive or rude. Sorry if that seems "weirdly defensive " to you, I get that way with unwarranted attacks.

 

To expand on what I mean when I say higher threat level - the break/enter and home invasion stats in the UK are lower than the places we have homes (US and Canada). I also have had warnings from the joint FBI/RCMP task force which handles threats to citizens from AQ/ISIS/ETC a number of years ago, when they gave me information showing that employees of my company had gotten serious threats, and that they had detected a lot of  online chatter about operations against civilians in North America, and advised me and my partner shut down all social media, change our numbers, and a pile of other PITA actions in order to be a harder target.  This is when we began to take our home security seriously, as well as incorporating it into our training curriculum at our training Academy.

And before you think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, the Taliban infiltrated my company, and their operative murdered American troops we were tasked with guarding, and when one of these operatives was taken into custody, he said he'd given his fellow insurgents all the information they needed on his coworkers (ie me and the other Westerners deployed there) and their families back home.

 

[PyroclasticFlow]

1 hour ago, SerHaHa said:

Uh, okay. First, it wasn't "others", it was only BFC, one of the members I'm familiar with here, and been involved in other threads which he has been.  Second, BFC said "Sorry, but i couldn't function etc etc", to which I replied "don't be sorry, as I'm describing actions taken for a much higher threat level area/person than himself, whom I know to be LE in the UK", and that I myself was NOT worried, as I/we have taken all the actions necessary should the extremely unlikely event of violence happen in our homes.  How is that in ANY way dismissive - understanding why he isn't worried, and explaining why I'm not either?  It's the exact opposite in fact, and certainly not "rude" either.

 Sounds more like you're projecting your own issues, as I was demonstrably neither dismissive or rude. Sorry if that seems "weirdly defensive " to you, I get that way with unwarranted attacks.

 

To expand on what I mean when I say higher threat level - the break/enter and home invasion stats in the UK are lower than the places we have homes (US and Canada). I also have had warnings from the joint FBI/RCMP task force which handles threats to citizens from AQ/ISIS/ETC a number of years ago, when they gave me information showing that employees of my company had gotten serious threats, and that they had detected a lot of  online chatter about operations against civilians in North America, and advised me and my partner shut down all social media, change our numbers, and a pile of other PITA actions in order to be a harder target.  This is when we began to take our home security seriously, as well as incorporating it into our training curriculum at our training Academy.

And before you think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, the Taliban infiltrated my company, and their operative murdered American troops we were tasked with guarding, and when one of these operatives was taken into custody, he said he'd given his fellow insurgents all the information they needed on his coworkers (ie me and the other Westerners deployed there) and their families back home.

 

 Are you Jason Bourne??? 

In all seriousness though, damn that’s some crazy stuff, I’m guessing you provided security at FOBs in Afghanistan?

[Kalbear]

 

 

[Iskaral Pust]

30 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

 

 

That’s dark, but really, really funny.