Cshoff,
Your family members, or anyone else, with a safe room can have them as secure as they want. A safe room works well during storms. I have never heard of an entire family successfully using a safe room. Yes, a single individual can or even a couple that was already in the same room. I have a sprinkler system in my office. It is supposed to work in theory. It looks good, Will it work in practice? I cannot say for sure but it is better than nothing. A safe room is a feel good idea but I bet you have never known anyone to successfully use one during a home invasion. That safe room of yours would make a great place for someone to place your family while they burn your house down as happened with the dr mentioned in an earlier post.
Come on, you know that is just so much nonsense. A "safe room" isn't a "be all, end all" solution to a possible home invasion. It is simply one layer in (what should be) a multi-layered security approach. Clearly if a family was locked in a "safe room" and the house was set on fire, they would need to retreat out one of the windows. Likewise, if an intruder actually attempted to enter the house through one of the windows in the "safe room", then that room would no longer be considered "safe".
A "safe room", as is used by my younger brother and his family, is simply an effective way for he and his wife to make sure that their son is kept safe in the event of a home invasion. They can literally walk out of their bedroom door, take two steps across the hall, and be in his room in less than a second. Alternatively, if conditions dictate they do something different, then they have several contingency plans in place to deal with them. In each case, however, their son is their priority and his safety is their primary concern.
Nobody here is suggesting that a "safe room" must be used at all costs, only that it is a viable option under certain circumstances. Your suggestion that everyone just sit back and relax, on the other hand, and wait for the "bad guy" to find you, is NOT viable for most people who have kids in the house. You're going to be hard pressed to find a 6 year old kid who will have the ability to hide quietly in his/her room while a home invader is working his way through the house, no matter how much the kid has been drilled to do so. And if you think mom and dad aren't going to try to protect that child, you better guess again. It is much better for this family to have a plan in place, with contingencies in place also, before hand.
A cell phone is a great thing to have since many burglars cut phone lines. My security alarm works off cellular notification so cutting phone service is not going to stop the police from being notified. Yet my alarm service is best for alerting me and possibly to scare away an intruder. It will still take several minutes for police response to take place.
Absolutely.
The problem is all the planning in the world is based on everything going according to plan. If one thing goes wrong, the entire plan falls apart.
Here, again, I disagree. PROPER planning is based on exactly the opposite. It is based on everything going wrong and then having to respond to changing conditions on the fly. It is, as I mentioned above, about developing a response plan that contains contingencies for dealing with changing circumstances. It is exactly why comprehensive firearms training doesn't end with good marksmanship. It is exactly why self defense training encompasses avoidance and deescalation skills in addition to unarmed combatives and weapons skills.
There are many layers of protection that one can have. My community is gated (a real joke). I have outside lighting , front and rear, that is on all night and covers 70% of my yard. I have double deadbolt locks on each of the three exit doors. I have my garage door switched off at night. All my windows are double locked. Then I have my alarm system. Then my loud barking dog. If one makes it past all that, I have me.
Yet why would a burglar want to break in to my house other than to take gun safes that would require a lot of help? WHy would one want to break in while I am home? What are they going to get from me that my wife has not already taken?
Home invasions happen while one is gone with maybe only one or two people home. They take place when someone answers the door and then force that person back in the home. Doing so allows them time to go through the house without interruption.
Home invasions are more likely if one lives in a rural area, a drug area, a low income area, have a business where the proceeds are brought home daily or have something of great value that is known in the area. I doubt you know of a single incidence where a home of a friend or family member was raided while the family was home during night time hours.
Yet we can read about home invasions that took place while people were home in the newpapers around this country every day. The stories are on our nightly news. PROPER planning would dictate that we prepare for the worse case scenario - ie: a home invasion that takes place while we and our family are home. We can't count on it not happening and it would be naive of us to pretend it can't. Denial can get you killed.
