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Home Defense, Geek Style?
Yo Maing writes "So my mom got lives alone, and got her car broken into last night. We have a motion sensor light in the driveway, and the car has an alarm but apparently both of these deterrents were ineffective. Crime has been rising around her neighborhood, and only action the police can take is to file a report. So I ask you, Geeks of Slashdot, what tricks do you guys have to defend yours and your loved ones homes against crimes like this? Not looking for anything that would get someone injured, but more in the area of detection and repulsion. Anyone have a holographic Yeti generator to scare away intruders? :)"
Buy a gun.
First I would suggest watching Home Alone 1. That kid is pretty damn clever and easily fended off joe pesci and that ugly guy. Next I would buy an outdoor webcam with some motion detection software.
If you don't have any pets, consider getting a dog.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
Maybe a pitbull!
Summary of all the "Home Alone" movies in 3... 2... 1...
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
I wait on the roof dressed in all black with my ninja sword.
That's worked pretty well for a few years.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
I live on an air force base. No problems. :)
Guns. Lots of guns.
Honestly all I have is video, I figure if it's some kids in the neighborhood I recognize I can go after them myself if need be... Unless they take my camera I guess....
No todo lo que es oro brilla
Geek it up some by controlling the shotgun trap with an old pentium running BSD.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Shotguns - a good shotgun, all you need for close range theft deterrent!
you could always use Charlie Fourie's Car Flame Thrower
i'm sorry to hear that :(
first problem is that you think a motion sensor light will do something. it won't.
secondly, i think a car alarm should do something, why didn't it work? was she not home? could she not hear it? if you tell us, we can find a solution for it.
oh yeah, get one of those steering wheel 'clubs', they help deter criminals (at least from stealing the car)
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
drive a yugo
the extra "got" in his first sentence. Now everybody move along now.
I'm a minister!
My cousin in Texas has outdoor motion sensors around his house, hooked up to a PA system than when activated, play a recording of a pump shotgun being cocked. It sounds real as hell, and you can't really tell where the sound is coming from.
How bout a full sized cardboard cut-out of goatse in the front hallway? I'd run....
http://request-header.info
Use what works, not what you see in the movies.
The duty of care owned by landowner or person in charge to a trespasser is to refrain from willfully, maliciously or recklessly injuring them. In other words, a landowner or person in charge cannot set traps for trespassers. A trap is a hazard that is known to the landowner or person in charge, but concealed to others. If a trespasser is injured by a trap, the landowner is open to liability for the injury, even though the trespasser violated he law by trespassing. The following have been held unlawful traps for which the landowner can be held responsible: (1) setting a spring gun, (2) creating obstacles on a public roadway, (3) installing a cable gate across a private road known to be used by he public. To reduce he liability risks for #3, the road should be posted as private access. If a cable or chain is used o close a road, it should be flagged with brightly colored flags or other materials.
A lot of bad english. Your mom 'got' nothing, she 'had' her car broken into.
Car alarm? Maybe a device that, instead of turning on a light as people approach, starts playing a taped conversation so the perp thinks someone is coming?
Just some thoughts, I live in Canada so we don't have any crime.
Seriously. I know it's cheezy, but cops I know say that it works at deterring theives.
Don't own anything worth stealing!
Studies have shown a dog with a good bark scares away most would-be attackers. There have also been studies showing dog companionship actually lowers the blood pressure of seniors.
www.hiredinsight.com
If you don't have anything of value, then you don't have to worry about someone ripping off your valuables. The things in life that are worthwhile are rarely tangible. If you're living in the crossfire of someone else's greed ... Move!
A sign that says "automatic GPS tracking System installed" on the vehicle.
A visible camera (fake, to cut costs).
An exploding permanent dye capsule.
A vicious dog
While it won't do jack to stop a motivated criminal, one of those signs that "warns" that a home alarm is installed could help. If nothing more, it could make a potential theif decide to try an easier target instead of possibly having to deal with an alarm.
Use the Force!
It sounds like you're concerned primarily with property crime, yes? That's actually pretty darn easy to prevent if you think about it logically. Don't leave anything in your car if you park it outside. Keep your garage door closed even during the day so people can't see in. Plant thorney bushes under the windows. Put up a couple of flood lights to take out the shadows in your yard. Keep your yard neat so it's obvious somebody lives there.
In terms of detection, nothing beats a well-trained dog. Train 'em to give a couple of barks whenever someone enters the yard (although just a couple so it doesn't get irritating).
This isn't a complicated problem, but as with a lot of things the best solutions are the obvious solutions.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
netfilter.
Well, if you don't mind repelling everyone instead of the ill-willed, you might try buying a computer off this guy. I'm sure the dead pig odor would keep thieves out of you're mom's car -- it's a deterrent whose effectiveness was recently proven on Mythbusters...
Seriously, if you aren't save in your area just move out. Better save than shot.
Get a Dog. Preferably a big scary looking one. Is it High Tech? Sure, Think of it as bio-tech / Genetic engineering. After all, the domesticated dog is largly a creation of man. (ie.. cultivating certain breeds.) It certaintly isn't new tech though.
You have 5 Moderator Points! Use 'em or lose 'em! They will expire before any good stories are posted.
...you mean you don't live at home?
I believe ThinkGeek has an interesting motion-sensor device that can auto-dial a phone in the event it detects something...unique approach and potentially very useful.
I know nothing
... 10 guage loaded with rock salt seems to do the trick for me.
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
What better place to ask about repulsion than a website where sweaty geeks hang out?
Get your own free personal location tracker
At least from my experience, the single biggest factor is where you live. If you have a house in a very high-crime area, then you're at risk, no matter how many alarms you have. On the other hand, if you live in a rural or sparsely-popluated suburb with an almost non-existentcrime rate, then you can have no alarms at all yet still be completely secure.
As an added bonus, you can also enjoy the "County's Most Wanted" section of the paper... 3 failures to pay child support and 2 unpaid traffic violations, anyone?
Seriously, first the story about a mushroom shaped cloud over North Korea and soon there was an article about bomb shelters and now this! Is there going to be a Homeland Security topic created soon? I'd suggest a chicken since the sky is falling.
...and here I thought that it was Ebonix
If you shoot someone, make sure the news camera arrive to take video of the body(ies) of the would-be burglers being carted off into a van. Then, run the video on a loop on the side of your house for any other brave souls to partake of when deciding if they will come into your house.
I plan on clipping a printout of the original inspiration, along with the cover of this week's issue of Time Magazine and put it up on my door...
It should be enough to scare the crap out of anyone.
Does she got breathes alone too?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Linux to the rescue: Setup a cctv system like that provided by http://www.zoneminder.com coupled with some cheap camera hardware.....if you want to go a little bit further you could always use an X10 unit to trigger a suitable deterent - 120v AC to the chassis of the car? ;-)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Personally, I believe the most effective way to deter theft is the human technology. If your neighborhood is suffering from increased criminal activities, I am sure you're not alone.
So get together and patrol the streets together.
Nowadays thieves ain't that scared of high-tech security devices anymore, they will always find a way to get around them, but it's just that much more difficult to get around 2 or 3 pairs of watchful eyes at night.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
I once saw a guy in a nearby city, who slapped all of the microwave guts into his car. Think of his car as a large microwave box, to bounce around the signals.
If the car was ever stolen, or driven without the keys, the guy would not only get cancer, but be cooked within a few minutes.
Fair trade to me, although he still had the car, we never got to see it in action.
Runnin' On Empty
If you have metal window grills, consider hooking up an electric fencer to them. (the type to keep animals in fields). It's not harmful and will discourage anyone from trying to get in. DO NOT just connect them up to the mains.
Secondly, always lock your windows and doors, even if you're only going out for a minute or two. Get a decent alarm for the house.
The car - get a steering lock for it. They might be easily removed by a professional, but it takes time and if the theif has a choice between your car and one without, they'll go for the easy option.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
I just bought a new house. Because it's our first house-house, I can't wait to finally build something I've been thinking of for a while.
A sentry gun.
Ever since playing Half-Life (oh hell, ever since watching Aliens) I've been intrigued by the idea of the sentry gun. With recent advances in electronics, it's easier than ever to build something like this.
Here's the plan, I'll use an electric actuator or pneumatic cylinder to pop it up out of the ground (when a motion sensor that covers the front sidewalk goes off) and unfold (using stepper motors or heavy duty servos controlled by an OOPIC programmable microprocessor) to aim a...
well...
I haven't figured out if it'll be a paintball gun (with human firing only, of course) or just something menacing that LOOKS like a machine gun) that'll use a CMUCam (which automatically tracks motion in one of its modes) to keep it pointed at anything moving in front of it.
I've done other robotics projects before, I really like the idea of all the neighborhood kids staying away from crazy 'old man Hallert' and his scary robo-house.
Security can not come from a device. A device on its own is like a car alarm going off in a parking lot, everyone ignores it. It has no power.
You can try to fortify yourself with baracades and iron bars. It will only sorta work. You have to leave your fortrous from time to time. Both you and your possessions will then be vulnerable.
Security comes from community. It comes from those around you looking after you. If your community wants you to be safe, then you will have more security than any gizmo will achieve.
Only one defense needed.
Insurance.
If you still worry then you might as well cancel the insurance and save the money.
Remember kids! Guns don't kill people - Americans kill people.
Well, at least they broke into the car instead of the home. Best defense for home, alarm and 12 gauge. Best defense for your car, alarm and a 12 gauge. I am not joking about this. Likke you said, the police can't really do anything about it. You have no way of knowing if they had intent to harm you, so don't chance it. Get a carry permit. Have your mom do so as well. Train on whatever guns you have. It may save your life someday. (It saved my brothers).
Kill one of them, and leave his body on the sidewalk, for the rest to see. Your crime problem will end. Your mom will be safe, because everyone will know about it (oh, she's the one with the crazy son, don't go there). It really works. In fact, Bubba let me keep my own pudding today, and Mitch says I'm all his, so no more gang-bangs (thank God, because my butt is getting pretty sore now). Life is looking up. In fact, maybe I'll even get a bitch of my own someday, instead of being one.
Recognizing that crime is often (not always, but often) a product of personal desperation I vote for candidates who will do things like:
At first, it may seem that, economically, you are better off keeping more of your dollars in your pocket (especially if you need them to pay the fees for your gated compound or personal home defense equipment). There is another equilibrium, which does mean higher taxes but on the other hand, makes the streets safe and crime less common, which is to reduce the societal risk factors that promote crime. Most wealthy Americans, for whom gated life and home defense is a minor cost, call this "rampant tax and spend looney pinko socialism". Many Europeans call it "responsible government".
Admittedly, shooting the "perp" and/or throwing him in jail does lead to a satisfied feeling that you have avenged, say, your Mum's honour. As many non-white citizens of your country can tell you, and good research has shown, your current system does actually promote, rather than prevent, the crime you wish to stop (cf. recent Cringly article as a starting point).
Want a safer society? Make sure it's one where everyone has a genuine chance, which doesn't oppress you if you're poor/black/unlucky, which is based on sound research and reasoning about policy (not 4000-year old policies promulgated in middle-eastern nomadic herding societies). Keep the police around to keep the hard-core cases under control.
It takes a little longer, and you guys nearly had it in the 60's, but it's worth it.
Most burglars will avoid a house with a dog. You don't even need a large/mean dog. I'm biased, but I think you can't go far wrong with a standard poodle. They're damn smart; easy to train; large enough to be frightening; and make good watchdogs, alerting their owner when anything unusual is going on; they don't shed, don't smell, and are hypoallergenic.
If a dog is out of the question, how about rigging up some electronic barking to the motion sensor light?
Proverbs 21:19
... but in the USA the answer is simply guns, surely?
For a slashdot specific answer:
Rig up lots of webcams, connect them to a Linux box with some open source motion detection software, and set off the mines in the front lawn and the machine guns when anything is detected.
So maybe you'll kill a few "innocent" people by accident. No problem, the American courts will let you off no trouble, and besides nobody "innocent" would be out walking anyway, would they.
Why not have the alarm wired to trip an aerosol can full of something that smells aweful? I would recommend something (relatively) harmless such as sulfur dioxide (rotten eggs smell). A joke supply shop also would have stuff in the category of "harmless but annoying". Make sure you keep it in this category or else you open yourself to legal liability.
If you're Mom is concerned about property crime, then her neighbors are probably concerned too. Setting up a neighborhood watch scheme could help. The biggest deterrent is making sure that your home is securely locked and the surround area. Most police departments have crime protection officers. That would be the first place to ask for advice.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
In the sense that a thief will likely move on to a car without the club, yes, it works. However, defeating the club is easy in most cases.
-Hacksaw through the steering wheel: 20 seconds on most steering wheels.
-Spray freon into the locking mechanism, then hammer and screwdriver to shatter it: about 60 seconds.
-Buy a "club buster" on the internet for like $100: Takes about 60 seconds to defeat any of those club-like mechanisms.
And so on... if the thief wants your car, the club ain't going to stop him, and will only slow him down marginally. If the thief is simply looking for any handy car, then the club might help.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I have a major crime problem can anyone give me some sugestions on cameras pref night vision if possable
Is a Steyr M-40 with nightsights and hyrdroshock rounds. Does dead count as injured?
Well, since you said "geek style", you could take a look at what the guy over at misterhouse.net has rigged up. Besides the standard lights on/off at certain times, etc., he's even got two 2 GPS APRS equipped cars he's tracking. (All working just great until they steal your computer and ham radio...) ;)
1. Get a club or some such for the car, to help prevent the car itself from being stolen. A removable face plate on the car stereo. Don't leave anything of value visible in the car. (Deter)
2. Outdoor video camera tied to the motion sensing light. This way, if something does happen, you have a record. DON'T go for the cheapest camera. It doesn't do any good if you can't recognize anything in the video. (Detect)
3. Defend is harder, since you said you don't want anything that could hurt anyone. A shame, as pain is a very effective deterrent. I'd suggest a nice rottweiler. They are lovable to those they know, but can be very territorial. Measure the distance from the front porch to the car, and affix a chain to the porch that is about 6" short of the car. With some sort of quick release, just in case.
A pump shotgun in case anyone gets nasty ideas and tries to enter the house. They take little skill and are quite effective at short ranges.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
dude that had been debunked time and time agien "This myth, stemming from a superficial "study" of firearm accidents in the Cleveland, Ohio, area, represents a comparison of 148 accidental deaths (including suicides) to the deaths of 23 intruders killed by home owners over a 16-year period. 2 Gross errors in this and similar "studies"--with even greater claimed ratios of harm to good--include: the assumption that a gun hasn't been used for protection unless an assailant dies; no distinction is made between handgun and long gun deaths; all accidental firearm fatalities were counted whether the deceased was part of the "family" or not; all accidents were counted whether they occurred in the home or not, while self-defense outside the home was excluded; almost half the self-defense uses of guns in the home were excluded on the grounds that the criminal intruder killed may not have been a total stranger to the home defender; suicides were sometimes counted and some self-defense shootings misclassified. Cleveland's experience with crime and accidents during the study period was atypical of the nation as a whole and of Cleveland since the mid-1970s. Moreover, in a later study, the same researchers noted that roughly 10% of killings by civilians are justifiable homicides. 3 The "guns in the home" myth has been repeated time and again by the media, and anti-gun academics continue to build on it. In 1993, Dr. Arthur Kellermann of Emory University and a number of colleagues presented a study that claimed to show that a home with a gun was much more likely to experience a homicide. 4 However, Dr. Kellermann selected for his study only homes where homicides had taken place--ignoring the millions of homes with firearms where no harm is done--and a control group that was not representative of American households. By only looking at homes where homicides had occurred and failing to control for more pertinent variables, such as prior criminal record or histories of violence, Kellermann et al. skewed the results of this study. Prof. Kleck wrote that with the methodology used by Kellermann, one could prove that since diabetics are much more likely to possess insulin than non-diabetics, possession of insulin is a risk factor for diabetes. Even Dr. Kellermann admitted this in his study: "It is possible that reverse causation accounted for some of the association we observed between gun ownership and homicide." Law Professor Daniel D. Polsby went further, "Indeed the point is stronger than that: 'reverse causation' may account for most of the association between gun ownership and homicide. Kellermann's data simply do not allow one to draw any conclusion." 5 Research conducted by Professors James Wright and Peter Rossi, 6 for a landmark study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, points to the armed citizen as possibly the most effective deterrent to crime in the nation. Wright and Rossi questioned over 1,800 felons serving time in prisons across the nation and found: 81% agreed the "smart criminal" will try to find out if a potential victim is armed. 74% felt that burglars avoided occupied dwellings for fear of being shot. 80% of "handgun predators" had encountered armed citizens. 40% did not commit a specific crime for fear that the victim was armed. 34% of "handgun predators" were scared off or shot at by armed victims. 57% felt that the typical criminal feared being shot by citizens more than he feared being shot by police. Professor Kleck estimates that annually 1,500-2,800 felons are legally killed in "excusable self-defense" or "justifiable" shootings by civilians, and 8,000-16,000 criminals are wounded. This compares to 300-600 justifiable homicides by police. Yet, in most instances, civilians used a firearm to threaten, apprehend, shoot at a criminal, or to fire a warning shot without injuring anyone. Based on his extensive independent survey research, Kleck estimates that each year Americans use guns for protection from criminals more than 2.5 million times annually. 7 U.S. Department of Justice victimization surve
My car was a victim for a long time. I just took everything out of it and never lock the doors. I keep it pretty trashy (which I hate to do) but no one wants to joyride in a trashy car. (coffee cups and dorito bags on the floor) Dog or rabid dingo would be the best bet.
They drain it and sell it to mobile bloodbanks. Seriously, haven't you ever woken up feeling all anaemic and seen your cat and dog counting out fivers?
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
I line my house with slashdot trolls and a few penguins! Keeps even the most dangerous perps at bay!
Fuzdout
..My sig ran away. Has anyone seen my sig?
Further, you mom, like everyone else, must understand that the police are under no obligation to come to her aide in the event someone does break into her house.
.38 revolver is an easy to keep, easy to use, effective choice for home defense.
I'd disagree about a 12-guage, though. That's too much weapon for an older person to handle. A nice
Load it up with hollow-points, teach her to shoot center mass, and then get a nice monitored alarm system that automatically calls the police.
Not looking for anything that would get someone injured, but more in the area of detection and repulsion.
Of course you don't want them injured; else they could sue. That's why you have to aim for the head; they can't hire a lawyer if they're dead. Later, use a hacksaw to remove the head and mount it on a poll in your front yard. You're be sure to repulse a few people with that. Oh, and buy lots of Fabreeze, as it won't be smelling all that pretty.The video mentioned off of the linked article shows the lego robot as far more active than the dog in the video anyway.
Car alarms are based on proximity? I thought they were just on a timer, set to go off at 3am.
Kinda low tech, but post a target like this in your window.
Nothing deters criminals like putting their heads on the spikes when they get nabbed. :)
1. Motion sensing lights at proper heights placed for full coverage of important areas
2. Motion detector webcam with pre-programmed scanning capabilities (the wireless Toshiba unit is superb http://www.toshiba.com/taisisd/netcam/index.htm)
3. Alarm system securing all major entranced points, and if you can afford it all the screens as well
4. Dog. Even if its a cuddly licker like a lab, dogs can hear and sense things no alarm system can handle. I'm constantly amazed how my lab KNOWS when someone is coming to the house, even when the car is still in the road!
Under no circumstances get a gun. It is a stupid precaution that only serves to increase your risk substantially. Killing someone is a tough thing, and your more likely to get shot with your own weapon (or get sued by someone you shoot) than you are to successfully defend your home.
Or as my friend always says, if you DO end up having to shoot an intruder make sure you finish the job...
-rt
I've got a 75lb lab, very friendly. That said, even when my gf comes over, whom she knows, shares a bed with when I'm out of town, and really likes, she barks at.
Shit, she barks at me when I'm in the yard. She sounds very vicious, and if you don't know her and know she's friendly, you won't come near the house.
So, not only will she scare people away that are snooping around, she keeps the Mormons and other missionarys away.
That said, I also keep a loaded 9MM in the drawer beside my bed, in case someone too dumb to be afraid of the dog comes along.
I think everyone should own, and know how to use, a gun.
Just be sure to keep an extra gallon of paint around, in case someone does break in.
Get a lot of really fine wire, like you get in old transformers. String it up around the house, hanging from trees etc. Connect this up to an old car alternator with a vibrating relay on it and then to a 12V battery. If it's dark, the intruders will get all tangled in it and get zapped with about 5000V. It's not parallysing like the stun guns but it sure as hell gives you a fright and makes you run. Non lethal as well.
I know, my brother did it to me as a kid.
Like everything else, a little awareness and some common sense will go a long way. Having lived in rough neighborhoods, here's some tips:
1) Petty thieves tend to only go after what they can get quickly and make money off of selling. Don't leave anything of value VISIBLE in the car.
2) If you have a nice stereo, make sure you take the face plate or the entire unit if it's removable. If not, make some mods to make the stereo look like it's not there (a false face that looks like the rest of the dash for example).
3) Perhaps finding an indoors place to park the car, or building a small enclosed carport if necessary (did this once - worked out pretty well!).
4) Neighbors can help - make friends, have them watch your back.
5) Theft deterrents such as the Club(TM) can help.
Now, if you want to be geeky about it, maybe a motion-activated web cam? Or, perhaps a GPS/cell phone rig just incase the car gets stolen?
Any more thoughts?
FoxND001
Alex Aguila
Rottweiler's have a very low and scary growl and tremdous bark that is quite scary. A dog like a labrador has a more 'friendly' bark that might not worry a hardened criminal. But that rottweiler sound, that will make anyone think twice.
In the neighborhood I used to live in, all those people with expensive alarm systems got robbed by people who knew better than the legitimate occupants how the systems operated. Additionally, some folks' alarm systems keep ringing and ringing for no reason (high number of false positives), which (1) they had to suffer from and (2) had the effect that if anybody was really stealing from them, pretty much nobody in the neighborhood would care about it.
We on the other hand, without any electonic alarm system, never had one single break in. How? Small stickers on the windows conspicuously advertising alarm systems (who weren't there), and a discipline of locking every door and window pane that there was at night. When we went away for longer, steel wire was used to secure the window pane closings so that a simple crowbar wouldn't pry the window pane too easily.
Don't trust technology when it comes to home security. Just make sure you don't make yourself the weakest link in the neighborhood. Between two doors equally easy to open, and equally not armed with alarm systems, you can bet that the thief will try first the one that doesn't bear a "warning security system" sticker.
Now you just need to get convincing stickers without actually buying the alarm equipment, but you can figure that out...
We do live within a few blocks of a large housing project which used to have a fairly serious crime problem but even at the worst of times over many years the worst problems we ever saw was that you couldn't ever leave something obviously valuable e.g. a power tool out overnight.
I do take some precautions for my motorcycle, but as it's not an HD (which are first-rate theft magnets) a good size chain plus a lock through the front disk brake takes care of that problem.
Of course if you gotta have a 30k+ car or if you're in an area that's going through a rough time there may not be such easy solutions.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
If its legal where she is, and she can safely handle one, consider a gun. Its a last resort option(obviously) but when all else fails, even showing a gun can often deter someone. There are plenty of articles out there on home defense with a gun, so look it up to select a good weapon for her and to get her in the proper mindset to make the right call when she has to decide "shoot or don't shoot?". This is probably the most powerful option, but also the most dangerous if you screw it up(both to your health and legally), so do some serious research before going for it.
Getting a large, or at least loud, dog can be very useful. Something that will bark loudly and incessantly if someone tries to break in, and will fight to defend the property. Be careful here too- the line between a dog that will fight to defend their master and a dog that will fight just because can be very thin, make sure you go to a reputable breeder and trainer if you want a dog that does more than make noise. But as with a gun, the mere presence can be a deterrent. Think about it, you start crowbarring a door and all of the sudden you hear loud, aggressive barking on the other side- all surprise is gone and you might have an animal on the other side ready to kill you. Most criminals will bail at that moment, to seek out an easier and safer(for them) victim.
For alarms, don't use the default alarm tone. 9 times out of 10 if I hear it I ignore it, because its so damn common and most of the time its only going off because it was set too sensitive. Choose something out of the ordinary. Machine guns, explosions, screams, something that does not sound like a typical car alarm. It will startle the perp a bit more(being unexpected) and it will be more likely that a passerby will notice and glance over to see whats going on. Also, don't have it too sensitive, if the neighbors know your alarm will go off in a mild wind they won't do anything when it happens. Going to the previous selection, if you can get an alarm that will trigger a realistic recording of a dog barking and growling like its ready to kill, you can get the detterrent(though not the defensive) effect of a guard dog without the cost.
Cameras placed in spots a perp will see when casing the place or running an impulse attack can also be a deterrent. They don't have to be hooked up to have deterrent value, or even be real cameras- a decent looking mockup will still be a deterrent. Of course a real camera that is hooked up can gather evidence in case they fail to deter the perp.
Locks are an obvious one- while they won't stop a determined criminal, they will slow him down and require he make more noise on coming in. Any lock that is not working properly should be replaced immediately, and you might want to consider upgrading really old locks even if they are working right, they might not be as secure as newer models.
To prevent people from breaking into my car, i leave it unlocked, and make sure nothing of value is left inside. Unless you have unbreakable windows locking the doors is only going to get you a broken window if someone really wants to get in and look around. An alarm might scare a thief away, but i wouldn't count on it, every time an alarm goes off in my neighborhood, it seems to take several hours for the car owner to react to it. There are things like the club and gas cutoffs to prevent someone from actually taking the car.
Sorry for being so blunt, but unless she's able to park the car in a secure area such as a garage, there's basically nothing that you can do beyond a car alarm to deter a break in.
The only other deterent I can think of is to get a beater mobile.
But even then, those get broken into for the spare change and $50 stereo inside.
This is a primary reason why auto insurance costs less in areas with lower crime rates -- there's not much you can do to deter a petty theif doing a simple smash and grab on a car.
That is actually incorrect. "Spring guns" are never legal. Ever. You can't say "never" too many times in the legal profession, but this is one of the times. Also, you are never allowed to protect your property with deadly force. Now mind you, I said property. If you are in your home and a burglar comes in and you shoot him dead, you weren't protecting your property, you were protecting yourself and your family - that's the distinction. So protecting your property with a spring guy is doubly illegle, even if the person on your property is a burglar.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Robocop.
1) Serve the public trust.
2) Protect the innocent.
3) Uphold the law.
"My Mom got lives alone..."
What the fuck are you saying? Foget home security, get some diction lessons.
Set up an automatic sprayer filled with cat urine
Not here in Texas! If the are on your property, and you feel in danger, feel free to FIRE AWAY!!! ^_^
I always imagined a system where a set of cameras (visual or IR?) would sense motion/heat, and a computer would triangulage the location and direct spotlights to follow the assumed intruder. Good psych value. No, I wouldn't go so far as to connect it to an automatic weapon. YMMV.
I recommend fire, and lots of it.
She pretty much takes care of herself.
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
Guns are problematic. First, there's the obvious safety issue of having a gun in the house. Second, there's the fact that if you miss (or even if you don't), you could toss a bullet through a wall and kill your kid sleeping in the next room or the neighbor down the block.
Pepper spray is good stuff. It's effective over any range you'll encounter in your house. It's nonlethal, so you can use it without being 100% sure of your target (is that shadow an intruder or my 16 year old sneaking back into the house?). It's even effective if you don't have a clear shot -- spray it into the hall and you'll deny access to a section of the house while you dial 911. And if your kids find it, the worse that can happen is they'll spray themselves and need an eye wash. Painful, but beats a bullet in the head.
Given the real risks of even keeping a handgun, in most realistic scenarios (aka, 35 gang members probably aren't going to rush your house), pepper spray is a far better solution given the overall risk/rewards.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
-Put a mannequin in the passenger seat (dressed, of course).
-Wire up a camera to the motion sensor in the driveway. You'll
catch the person(s) breaking in. Also, set the camera, if
possible, to put time & date stamp on the photo.
-Wire a barking dog to the motion sensor in the driveway.
-Put up a fence around the house, with a gate to get in and out
of the driveway.
Think deterrence, and capture, instead of bulletproof system.
This may sound kind of old school, but really if you've got a car alarm, and a motion sensing light, and somebody still comes and takes the car, what are you really going to do? You could add a camera possibly, and maybe that'd let you catch the guy after the fact, but it might not help and he'd still steal your stuff.
About a year ago, somebody broke into my apartment and stole a couple computers. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that big a deal. After paying the deductible, I got computers that were better than what I started with and there was no harm done to me or my loved ones.
Afterwards I briefly had a fit of paranoia, trying to figure out how to defend my home. Thought about cameras, etc, but in the end, it's not that big of a deal. It's just stuff. Nobody was hurt, and I'm pretty confident that had we been home, the guy wouldn't have even tried to break in. If the guy had been intent on hurting us, cameras, etc, wouldn't have done us a lick of good. Then your best off with old fashioned things like big dogs and loaded shotguns.
Then you won't have anything left worth stealing.
If you decide to get a dog, PLEASE rescue one and do not buy a puppy. Too many great dogs are euthanized every day because nobody wants them.
a very big, territorial dog, and a gun in case the dog isn't an effective deterrent.
The FBI tells us that somewhere between 200,000 and 800,000 crimes a year are prevented when the intended victim pulls a gun. The gun is only discharged in 1/10 of 1% of these instances, usually into the air and not at the criminal. So a gun is a very real deterrent, and the odds that you'll actually have to fire it at all are 1 in 1,000, if you're the target of a crime.
Most criminals are cowards. Most criminals will run if their victim is armed *even they're armed themselves*. Don't believe the claptrap that if you own a gun you'll get yourself involved in a shoot-out if you're the target of a criminal. The odds of that happening are extremely low.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Frink: Well as you can see when the burgler trips the alarm, the house raises from its foundation and runs down the street around the corner to safety .... won't burn quite so fast.. mohoy!
*house model crashes, goes in flames with the human figurines as well*
Frink: Hah.. well the real humans won't
Get yourself one of these.
I live in N Korea near the Chinese Border and someone tried to break into my place a couple of days ago. Luckily I was over 50km away at the time. Now I just need to wait for the radiation to die down.
...A shark with lasers attached to its head!
While living in downtown Miami, my passenger-side window was bashed out one night at a time when I lacked the funds to replace it.
Nearly every night thereafter for several months, there were intruders into my vehicle. Bums slept in it, random shady passersby stuck their heads in for a look just in case anything good might have been forgotten there; the crappy broken CD player was ripped out of it (I should have thought to stick a little post-it on the thing that said 'only the radio works on this one, please ignore') which sucked because it left me to drive in silence (aside, of course, for the blaring wind and driving rain which couldn't be helped.)
I was living, at this time, in an apartment directly above the busy street (Biscayne & 24th, for those familiar) on which I left the car parked, and became obsessed with running to the window to see if anyone was rooting through my poor little car, and dialing 911 and giving them descriptions of the people in the car right then.
Anyway, I finally solved the problem (until I was able to replace the window, anyway) with a home-made, zero-cost, silly-as-fucking-shit system of my own device: I ran a piece of twine down from my window and around the opposite side of the car, such that it was tied to the inside door-handle of the passenger side. That way, if the passenger door were to be opened, the bag of loud things I tied the other end of the string to would jingle! Ingenious, I know! I did this every single night.
Sure, the system could have been circumvented easily enough, but it wasn't! My car was never entered by another single foreign body. Which leads me to the MORAL OF THE STORY:
Don't shy away from doing silly shit like this, because it doesn't even matter whether it would work or not: it's the psychology of the thing that's important. If you make people feel like they're being watched--especially if you're able to make them feel like they're being watched by a crazy, potentially violent person (as I no doubt did and possibly was)--then they will leave your shit alone.
Insightful as all get-out, I know.
Art Schools Dietzilla
Bean bag turret.
http://www.zoneminder.com/ is a linux based security camera system. It detects motion and saves the jpgs when certain conditions are met. You can even have triggers for events, different kinds of zones that behave differently, and interface with X10 devices!
It is seriously great software, and 100% open source. There's even livecds (although not the latest version) so you can mess with it without installing anything.
I have it running under debian testing, and while there were a few quirks to installing it, it was generally pretty painless.
There's great support in the forums as well.
Standard poodles are great, dogs in general are great for many reasons. However buying a dog is a big commitment, which may be more than you are prepared to make.
It is cruel to keep a dog as a watchdog, or for any other reason, unless you are also prepared to offer him/her a reasonable standard of living. That means walking her/him for at least 30 minutes every day (for something as active as a standard poodle think an hour or more), brushing, feeding, taking him/her to the vet, and most of all, providing enough company for a naturally gregarious animal with the intelligence of a human child. If everyone is away from home during the day, don't do it! If you aren't prepared to make that sort of commitment, every day for 15 years or more, find another way to defend yourself and your mum.
On the other hand, the companionship of a dog can be perfect for improving the life of a lonely person.
Isn't your mom lucky? She can participate in an opportunity she didn't have just a few days ago. Now she can buy a AK-47 (the weapon of choice for home-defense professionals in some of the worst places in the world, like Iraq and Afghanistan) with as many combat-style accessories as she wants. Just tell her to buy a Bushmaster and put a sign on the lawn saying "Tresspassers beware - I can shoot you in the ass 80 times in a minute and then bayonet your corpse from here to Denver"
uzi 9mm; excellent for home defense
We had an attempted break-in this summer, and man did it freak me out. They didn't get in, but I could see the handprints on the windows they had tried to open. I called the police.
When the cop arrived, he pointed out a few things that he said could make the house more inaccessible, but he said that in all his years of investigating break-ins that he's never seen anything taken from a house with a dog. Not a fuzzy laprat -- a dog of 40 pounds or more. In fact, he mentioned that the people across the street from me were broken into that night and had some cash and jewelry stolen. They don't have a dog.
Then, a week later, I received a packet from the local police department, about 50 pages or so on how to protect your home. It included some very useful information. It showed the differences between cheap and useful locks on doors and windows. It showed how thieves try to circumvent most common types of doors, windows, and locks. It covered security lighting, alarms, realistic opinions of subscription security services (i.e. waste of money), landscaping considerations and patio furniture considerations.
So, rather than ask a bunch of tech nuts, just call your local police department and see if they have such a packet. As much as we hate cops when we get speeding tickets or raided for warez ops, when it comes to protecting your family they're generally willing to help.
You said in your post that her car got broken into, not her home. So, some more suggestions....
Put some semi-bullet proof glass in the car, to replace the side windows. Check out Bulldog direct, they have great prices.
Also, change the locks to something more sturdy. Sometimes the locks on a car can be circumvented by a simple flathead screwdriver. It happened to me once, someone saw the whole thing (though, the jerk never called the cops, but anyways....).
Get new locks installed in the doors, ones that are heavy duty and can withstand that kind of attack. They DO sell them, you'll need to search.
You could have it play a fairly loud recording when the motion sensor goes off late at night. The sound of a loud gun being fired, followed by a voice saying that the next shot won't be a warning shot, may work. If your mom actually has a gun, she can use it if the guy hasn't left after the recording wakes her up. ;-) Then the voice on the recording won't be lying.
http://www.nrahq.org/women/index.asp
Tape a picture of the Microsoft Windows logo onto your door. No one will go near it, or attempt to open it.
Here and Here .
Some classics are also available
Join the TWIT army now!
I live up 5 flights of stairs. I'd have to own something really valuable (I don't) for a thief to skip over all my neighbors and rip me off. Also, I don't own a car, so car theft is not a problem.
You will not need to protect yourself here that way.
No sig today.
I'm not kidding. Watch geese make a whole lot of noise when they spot an intruder, and they're aggressive, too. They also have the effect of confusing the hell out of some would-be criminals.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
I live in a condo complex in SW Houston. We have no gates on our parking lots. For years, our cars have been subject to break ins. Most of us just leave our doors unlocked. The car alarms do not seem to deter them, at least in one parking lot that is secluded, and not visible to any of the apartment windows.
One solution I have experimented with is using X10 motion sensors (MS13a). For 67$ I bought an activehome kit from x10 that has 3 motion sensors with a wireless receiver which is linked to a serial port computer interface. The distance from my condo and the reciever is greater than teh 30 ft or so that the ms13a wireless motion detectors will transmit. But I solved that by using a long piece of speaker wire looped around detector and run back to my condo and the antenna of the receiver. With that setup I was able to detect motion in the parking lot. However, the activehome software is crippled and will not allow me to execute a program upon detection (they want more money).
So what I think I will do is just find some VB or C code or perl or something that will monitor the port of that serial port and just execute an audio file when motion is detected after midnight and before 6 AM.
I think the audio file will just have to be some sort of sounds like a two way radio saying 10-4, and something else? But I need to place a speaker out on the balcony. And I don't have a speaker to spare!
Anyone know where I can lay my hands on that code? And may be a more elegant solution?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Until the police benevolent society office drives into the driveway to solicit for their annual fund. Having a gi-normous gun automagically enter the sights of an armed officer prolly isn't on your list of intended consequences... Remember people have been cut down for brandishing a 3 musketeers bar, much less a large gun-ish erm, - gun.
But hey, it's your descending aorta.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The goal here is to get people aware, know that there's someone in the neighborhood who cares, and get them calling the police whenever something isn't right. Having known a number of police in my lifetime I can tell you that they don't mind checking out a "suspicious car/person" while their on duty. Just like Open Source, many eyes improves security.
****
"I'd never want to join a club that would have me as a member" - G. Marx
http://www.hi-vel.com/Catalog__17/Perimeter_Alarm
like the pull string firework poppers only with siren shells or 'kick' . not for use without adequate shielding inside a car.
What I want is one of the talking alarms that count down until the alarm. Then during a countdown from 15 once it reaches 12 or something would fire off a stun grenade or something insanely loud.
Firefox &
Make sure that nothing is showing that might tempt a passerby. Possibly get a dog, if your mom wants a pet, but make sure she can still manage the dog. I suggest not getting a pitbull, as those things can get out of hand pretty easily. Perhaps something like a Schnauzer would be better (not miniature, perhaps even a Giant if you wanted the fear factor to increase) Have her double-check that everything is locked. You'd be surprised how people can forget to lock a car door, close the garage door when the head off to work, etc. I'm personally against floodlights. Maybe it's just because where I live, they're an annoyance, but I find them ugly and have more negatives than positives. Once again, double-check doors are locked, garage doors are down, windows closed and locked, and nothing valuable is showing.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
At the time, in a student living here in holland, we had the problem of neighbour city's youth coming over just before harvest season and grab those stuff out of your back yarden. ;)
:)
At a certain year we decided to just put over 30 of (inferior quality but fast growing) plants in our front yarden. They got in fact over 4m tall
So, everybody happy, they got there free stuff more than they could carry on their mopeds, we got good shadow and no more stining nettle, and of course the best 'leaves' for ourselves in the backyarden
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
Think about it - who'd steal a car without a radio?
Not wanting to pay for comprehensive makes me SOL if my car gets ripped. My friend and I were brainstorming and conceived of a camera hooked to a small system which, when however activated, broadcasts a jpg with an over lay with "This person is stealing my Red Crown Victoria, lic#zzz999, call the police or 123.555.4567 for a reward!? Ah, well, when I have some time off next year.
No one intent on serious theft or harm to your mother's property or person will be deterred by anything "geeky".
s ictrain ing.asp
You do not play with these people. If you do, you are liable to get yourself, or your mother, killed.
Someone breaking into your house in the middle of the night armed with a knife or gun is not a joke. It is not a, "let's play tricks on them."
The best option, very honestly, is for your mother to move.
The second option, is for your mother to take training - on an ongoing basis - on the use of a firearm in a home or self defense scenario.
She can start here:
http://www.nrahq.org/education/training/ba
Your mother does not need a "glock" or an "assualt rifle".
There are weapons adaptable to use by citizens of all ages and of all levels of physical capacity.
For your mother, for home and personal defense, I would lean toward a semi-automatic shotgun. You'll want an instrument with at least a 9 round capacity.
In close quarters, a shotgun can effectively maim, kill, or otherwise disable an attacker with - and I shouldn't say this, but - minimal precision.
Just remember, minimal precision does not mean minimal care. These instruments can kill, are designed to kill, and when they do not kill, are not being used effectively.
Where the geeky stuff does come in.
You'll want to install a motion detection alert system which your mother can turn on before she goes to sleep.
Also, don't overlook something like a Brinks, if she can afford it.
Keep my car out on the street with the doors ulocked. Have been doing so for nearly 3 years now, no problems.
The Brady Bunch would love to have you join.
And how is "against an intruder" defined? Did it include all the cases where a firearm detered the crime but the intruder or the victim was not injured? Was suicide removed from the study?
Blood will run in the streets tomorrow when the AWB expires.
Dont forget to vote for Kerry.
Sorry but thats just too much of a can of worms.
But you should understand that just about every single Brit supported what Tony Martin did.. its not our fault that our laws seem to support criminals, and work against innocent people trying to defend their homes.
I don't feel that owning firearms is necessarily the answer.. I just feel that the justice system should be doing more to punish the criminals who quite happily & blissfully ruin normal peoples lives.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
When you're home is invaded, I recommend coming down the stairs with a hockey mask on, wielding a small gas-powered chain saw.
Website contains slow BMP images and huge frames that gobble up most of the screen space. Avoid!
nt
In addition to an outdoor camera, you can get a motion detector and camera kit that turns on a VCR when triggered and also has a German Shepherd voice synthesizer, virtual Robo Dog. All kinds of gagets for a geek, and pretty simple to install even if you aren't. If you want to go for broke you can get the whole security system and program it to turn the lights on after the second time the robo dog barks. Or whatever -- be creative. Smart Home also has stuff (although some of its the same) if you want a 2nd source.
Finally, if you're in Bush Country, just go door-to-door with your good buddies Smith & Wesson (grin).
to the Engineer, the glass is neither half full nor half empty. Its just two times too big.
Two Blue Heelers, a Benelli M-1 12 gauge semi-auto shotgun, and a Sig 2340 .40 semi-auto pistol.
No robberies yet...
Just buy some broken outdoor video cameras, or just the housings...they don't need to work, just look like they do. Make them obvious. Criminals go for the low hanging fruit.
If the guy really wants your car, the club won't stop him: so if you own a Hummer or a Porsche or something, you should probably take additional anti-theft measures. But if you have a car that isn't an obvious target (and that's most cars on the road), like you say, the guys going to move on when he sees the club.
Car alarms and motion-active lights are old hat. Flash strobes, on the other hand, still have some surprise value left, and tend to universally signal that a picture is being recorded in ways that even the presence of a camera itself doesn't.
As such, I'd suggest a cheap digital still camera in a security enclosure on the side of the house (possibly wired via USB to a laptop or 486 inside, but this isn't so important), in combination with some AC strobes screwed into a few floodlight fixtures around the driveway.
The picture-taking aspect is really secondary to the element of surprise; most screw-in strobes can be slaved to the firing of a 'normal' flash (like the one built into the $30 digicam), so if you can rig the cam to snap once every... oh, say, 30 seconds for five minutes after motion is detected, you'll trigger all those slave flashes with it, flood the area with smile-you're-on-candid-camera flashes of light, scare-off or surprise any would-be thieves... and maybe get a visual record if they don't rip the camera off the wall.
Obviously, clear this with the neighbors first.
If you care so much about the plight of dogs, how about discouraging people from owning pets to begin with? Reduced demand leads to reduced supply. Fewer dogs are bred, and fewer dogs are killed. It's not rocket science.
Dress up as master chief, and run at em with glowing blue balls coated with super glue. Stick one on them and punch them in the face
And a sign showing a cute little stick figure flying into the air.
Geeks of Slashdot, what tricks do you guys have to defend yours and your loved ones homes against crimes like this?
If my wife didn't have a cat (she's a loner), I'd add a big dog or two to this list...
Live in a low crime area
Know the neighbors
ADT Alarm system
Phones available in nearly every room (Panasonic 8 phone system)
Exterior lights with motion sensors
2nd degree black belt
9mm Sig Sauer (and know how to use it)
12 gauge pump (ditto)
Several well placed pepper spray canisters
Despite some of the more lethal items above, the correct answer is always to avoid the confrontation, or attempt escape. I'd never use lethal force unless my life or a family members were in jeopardy.
Just another day in Paradise
Cheap stealth security:
l
t =3
t =6
t =5
t =15
t =16
Install motion detectors under your eves outside, and run a lamp, light fixture inside your house off a sensor switch to alert you when activity is going on. Motion is detected, light inside goes off. Silent alarm. Then call 911 and "embelish" about the eminent threat. Be convincing, sound scared. Police can use deadly force. Better to let them beat/shoot suspect than risk your life or health, or risk being sued.
Very Cheap. Goto http://www.homedepot.com
type : home automation
into their search field.
Look for these items in search result (cannot link directly to catalog, otherwise I would post a link):
(can also goto:http://www.desatech.com/heath/remotehome.htm
Heath Zenith
Wireless Command Remote Motion Sensor
Home Depot Model SL6030WH5
Internet/Catalog # 161731
$24.99 EA
mfg link: http://12.153.20.72/cgi-bin/remotehome.cgi?produc
Heath Zenith
Wireless Command Plug In Lamp Converter w/ alert
Home Depot Model SL6012WH5
Internet/Catalog # 161730
$19.99 EA
mfg link: http://12.153.20.72/cgi-bin/remotehome.cgi?produc
Heath Zenith
Wireless Command Screw In Socket Converter
Home Depot Model SL6010WH5
Internet/Catalog # 161729
$17.99 EA
mfg link: http://12.153.20.72/cgi-bin/remotehome.cgi?produc
mfg also offers kits:
Product: Motion Activated Indoor Alert
Model: 6019
http://12.153.20.72/cgi-bin/remotehome.cgi?produc
Features:
# Alerts you inside to activity outside.
# Includes remote motion sensor and indoor plug-in converter with alert.
# No wiring required.
# Plug-in controls up to 300 Watts of incandescent lighting.
# Plug-in includes audible alert with volume control.
# Sensor turns lights ON and OFF and activates alert up to 100' away.
# Sensor detects motion up to 70' away and 180 arc.
Product: Motion Activated Lamp Socket Control
Model: 6024
http://12.153.20.72/cgi-bin/remotehome.cgi?produc
Features:
# Adds motion security to non-motion lights.
# Includes remote motion sensor and lamp socket converter.
# No wiring required.
# Socket controls up to 150 Watts of incandescent lighting.
# Sensor turns ON and OFF up to 100' away.
# Sensor detects motion up to 70' away and 180 arc.
A shotgun is best for home defense. Its more intimitating, and you can fire it without having the round go through four layers of sheetrock.
Put a tux sticker on it if you have to be a fucking dork.
but I must ask first: you mom, does she have big tits?
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Look, I understand not wanting to hurt people, but you have to realize anyone that is commiting a crime against you is typically a peice of shit that deserves to be hurt.
I was once the same way, but having been robbed/stolen from several times in the past, my general philosophy has evolved so that as far as I'm concerned, once someone has decided that it is both necessary and appropriate to try to steal from or injure me or those under my protection, they have made a conscious decision that their life is now forfit. As such, I'm now the proud owner of several firearms that are kept with me basically all the time and will NOT hesitate to shoot to kill if necessary.
This brings me to an important point, if you decide to adopt my general outlook on things, get intimately familier with your local and state laws on when you can and cannot use leathal force, they vary greatly from place to place. For example, in Colorado where I live, it is perfectly legal to kill someone if you feel they have both the opportunity and means to injure/kill you or another person. This can amount to them saying they're going to kick your ass, then charging you. It's considered perfectly clean to throw down and blow their ass away right there. However, it is not legal to kill in defense of property unless it is to protect yourself/others. So you couldn't go outside and kill some duche for stealing your car stereo (sadly) unless he pulls a knife or something on you when you confront him. You could still beat his ass, just don't shoot or you'd likely eat a manslaughter charge. Now if he's trying to burn down your house and you do the world a favor, that would be fine, as arson often directly endangers human life. Meanwhile, in Texas (among several other states), it is perfectly leagal to kill in defense of property, so you will without question want to check on those laws.
Other than that, all I can tell you is to remember that anyone commiting a crime against you quite likely doesn't give a shit about you or anyone else and could care less what happens to you. I recommend you do the same when it comes to them. Oh, and make sure to shoot to kill. I can't count the number of times I've seen news stories where someone has been paralized robbing a house or mugging someone, but then managed to sue their victim and win a sizeable judgement in civil court. So make sure the only people that can sue are their family who will have a much harder time convincing the judge that they need $2 million to make up for the loss of that abortion their mother should have had.
It's a cold, nasty world out there. All you have to do to ensure your continual survival is just be the most stone cold motherfucker on the planet. Hope that helps. Good luck.
Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
Killing someone because of trespassing? Someone that's almost surely unarmed!? That's the last solution I would've chosen, if at all.
Flame me all you want, but deep down you know it's wrong. Guess Michael Moore was into something in the movie Bowling For Columbine.
er, put the car in the garage as most people would call it.
Better to get 10 in the pen, than to be carried by 6.... If in doubt shoot first.
Nuff said.
I saw this and i thought of homestar and the homestarmy with a picture of a comando, Strong Sad and the popkorn machine..
just get some mechanical puppets and have them walkin around the front of your house saying things like "do you have the five bucks to join the homestarmy?" or "listen up maggots, do you have the fortitude to bring a sack lunch to defend your country?".
Not only would no one dare rob your house, but i think no one would dare ever come over again.
I follow the SDK and GDN principles.. Spelling Dont Kount, Grammer Dont Neither
Flame throwers
0. Buy very expensive car audio system.
1. Buy two rubber mats (~30x30 cm). Buy lots of 1-1.5 cm long stud/pin/thumbtack/peg/brad (my english not so good, what are those like-nails-but-thinner-things).
2. push those pins through rubber mats from other side.
3. lay your rubber mat your cars front seat/seats so that sharp size of the pins are up. cover the mats with something soft and furry.
4. Lock the doors of your car.
5. When those punks get into your car, they will have to sit on front seats when they remove the very-expensive-car-audio-system (TM). Ouch!!
6. In the next morning call local hospitals and ask if there has been people with their testicles ripped and ass being full of small holes.
IMPORTANT!! REMEMBER TO REMOVE THE MATS BEFORE USING THE CAR OR LETTING YOUR FRIENDS USE IT!!!
Dyslexics have more fnu.
Q. How do you disarm an intruder?
A. With a bandsaw.
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
I love seeing gun-grabber hysteria/lies/myths debunked.
I totally agree with the all black attire on the roof w/ a ninja sword, i've been doing that for quite a while too... but since our beloved Bush is not interested in renewing the Assualt Weapon Ban (see google: "September 13 assault weapons) Just go get a couple of oozies, sit in a rocking chair in ur front lawn in a pair of denim overalls, and let the bad guys know who's boss. ^^ Just say u were hunting with those automatic military weapons :-) good sport!
***ZZZAAAPPP***
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Move to White neighborhood. Crime's 35 times lower than "diverse cultural" neighborhoods lader with inner city blacks and hispanics.
There are countless property crime rate statistics compilations that show this.
The darkest large metro area in all of america is Gary, Indiana and it has the highest property crime rate, for example.
100% perfect correlation.
Statistics are slightly skewed in secure apartement and secure gated condo areas of massively large cities, but in those areas, personal assault (mugging) on street increases but is not categorized with property crime. Sections of San Francisco such as Pacific Heights seem to have negligible property crime rates, though admittedly those neighborhoods are extremely affluent, but pepperred with county mandated section-8 housing and halfway homes and social services for people with mental illnesses. (they have to take busses to reach these crazy locales, but the purpose is to force millionaires to be exposed to : section-8 welfare, ex cons, bums, and the insane. The best parts of pacific heights in San francisco have internal garages and the people try to not park outside. I've seen 6 car break ins and 2 car thefts and two gun fights. None were perpetrated by residents of the neighborhood.
Its funny how speaking the truth is called hate speech.
Its normally easy to decide where to live safely.
Move to a white suburban neighborhood far from half-way homes, and far from section-8 welfare housing.
I have binoculars, a shotgun and a .45.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Does the club stop theft? Of course not, for the reasons that you state above. Does the club deter theives? Absolutely. All other things being equal, a thief is more likely to go after the car without a club than the car with the club sitting next to it. If that's worth $15 to you, then go for it. I think you can get your insurance knocked down by using it as well. It's not he be-all and end-all, but it works surprisingly well.
My Ruger .45ACP semi-auto.
Non-injurious deterrents don't tickle my fancy. If someone has the audacity to come onto my property and attempt to do harm to my home or family - they have no reason not to leave my property with holes in them.
Can't beat a good old dog. I know it might not help with the car but Moms saftey and your associated peace of mind are important. Any law enforcement offical will tell you a barking dog is a great deterent, and the dog would be great company to mom. Try and get what I call a 'dopey dog' , big and barkey but not hyper active. Like a lab or a basset hound.
that the lights just make it easier for the bad guys to work.
Toshiba makes a sweet net ready camera WITH wireless built in for less then $600. Vivotek has a 2111 that comes with great recording software but needs a housing, which will cost you anywhere for 75-275. Anyways the best bet would be a dummy housing looking at the parking space to spook the crooks
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Obviously a dog is going to be by far the best solution. Get a young dog from a local shelter, most even have pictures of available dogs online.
Although traps or guns might sound like a good idea, they'd probably get you into legal problems, and a hightech scare crow would probably end up being more silly than scary.
Yes, let's just give those poor, misunderstood miscreants a big hug.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archive/covers/0 ,16641,1101040920,00.html
;)
Wow. He's famous now.
No, he didn't set out intending to kill anybody at all. In response to repeated roberries, he set out to defend his business, which he has every right to do. Why the hell are you defending the robbers anyway, instead of the poor old man who was repeatedly victimized? Get your priorities straight!
And a glock 27 in the car.
I'm thinking that Mom doesn't want a shotgun full of rock salt (although personally I have a .22 - that's another story) So, garage that car. What say? Garage? Full of stuff. Clean it out sonny. Park the car in the garage. Lock the garage. Do not have a garage door opener. Have an alarm. Anyone who breaks in to get said car is now doing more than "vandalism and damage to private property" he's "breaking and entering" - which hopefully will deter him, but should it actually happen hopefully the alarm will go off. And/or the dog will bark (another of my methods) can even be a small dog - the most vicious dog on my block is a Jack Russell.
Basic steps...
1. Leave the lights on, Don't depend on a motion detector activated light. Thieves and vandals prefer working in the dark. A brightly lit yard will prevent them from getting close in the first place. Lights don't cost that much to run.
2. Trim any shrubs and bushes. No where to hide.
3. Get a dog. Smaller ones are yappier, but still effective.
Geeky stuff...
4. Camera and motion detection software. Catch them in the act.
5. Hook up the motion detector to a sprinkler system. Nothing like wet crooks. They'll leave wet footprints showing which direction they went too, if they cross the road.
no text
I recently saw a report that crime is at a 30-year low, although murder rates are up. I've noticed that the police is trying to get the community involved in police actions, at least in surveillance and reporting.
Here are some suggestions.
1. Get to know your neighbors. Talk about the incident. Visit with them every once in a while and make sure that you are coordinating.
2. Call the cops, even for minor things. See someone prowling around? Call 911 and tell them you see someone prowling around your neighborhood. A side effect is that you begin to develop a sense of community with the police. They will even begin coming to you asking questions about things you didn't report. "Someone in the neighborhood reported a crime last night. Did you see anything suspicious?"
3. Get involved in your city government, and tell the city council about your issues. They may honestly not know that there is a problem. Once the council gets word of it, they will communicate with the police, and will begin working on a solution. After all, the cops really do want to help. Work to get judges that are tough on crime elected in your area. The hilltop area in Tacoma Washington was notorious for the gang crime until the judges were removed and replaced with strong judges that punished the gangs heavily. For several years, the crime stopped. Every once in a while someone gets out, but they are usually caught committing another crime within days and locked up for good.
4. In really bad areas, organize watch shifts. With your neighbors, coordinate times that you will stand watch. Sit in your room facing the street with the lights off and record stuff as it happens on a notepad. Anything suspicious? Call the police and report it. Since you can't go the whole night, you will have to coordinate 4 hours shifts at night. Compare notes and you will begin to recognize patterns. You will get to know the people lurking in the shadows and when they commit a crime, you'll be able to ID them and the police will be able to link them to all the other crimes.
Too bad there is no technological solution, but crime is a human problem and is solved with that "eternal vigilance" thing.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
...can be found at nononsenseselfdefense.com.
Put an NRA sticker on stuff you don't want stolen.
d =SS21716-5-7
http://www.nrastore.com/nra/product.aspx?producti
Victimized. There's no victims on Earth man. If you live here, you're fucking guilty. You deserve everything you get. Read some Schopenhauer.
and use stink bombs in directional arrays around the home. the fact is unless you have a lot of money, effective home defense is unattainable without indisciminate injury. so it's back to the basics... don't leave stuff in the car, and leave the windows/doors open/unlocked. lessens property damage. don't leave stuff out in the home that can be seen through windows and pilfered later. so, until directional sound arrays become a commercial reality and become available with home defense in mind, don't hold your breath on serious solutions and if your poor(ish), you might as well get out of town. hurray for the insurance industry (groan).....
Wow, how classy of you to turn a reasonable point into a second-hand gay joke.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
In addition, he was facing armed robbers.
You could've hired me.
I remember reading somewhere that research into criminal fears concluded that dogs and disease were the things they were most afraid of. So just put a sign up that says, "Warning: dog has AIDS". 8^)
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
You can put together a home video security system on the cheap if you can hang a webcam somewhere usefull. I'm running Suse 9.1 on a Celeron 433 with a measley 128MB of ram and a software called motion that does motion detection and can save video or individual images to disk (or off-site) when it does.
When I travel I have the webcam pointed at the enterance and setup to ftp any captured frames to another server. When I'm home I put the software in streaming mode, point the webcam out the window and broadcast my view:
http://astroturtle.dyndns.org/
This won't prevent your mom's car getting broken into but I'll give you some ammo to hand over to the cops!
More linux video resorces here: http://www.exploits.org/v4l/
Good luck,
--
Luis Esteves
http://www.astroturtle.com
--- http://www.astroturtle.com
Magnavolt! The final word in auto security. No embarassing alarm noise, no need to trouble the police, and it won't even run down your battery!
Yes, the semi-auto "assault weapons" that were banned were all based on the same high technology from about 1911... the same technology that exists in many utilitarian arms that the libs did not (YET) have the courage to go after.
Goddamit people. Think! Claymores on the perimeter. Problem solved.
Doesn't *matter* if he'd been robbed, he still killed somebody. He set out intending to shoot and kill a person, which in pretty much *any* country is murder.
No.
In some US states, anyone who breaks into your domicile (that includes house or vehicle) can be shot, even if no other crime has been committed.
IOW, just the mere fact that a stranger is in the house w/o permission from the owner is justification for shoot-to-kill.
Anti-gun activists in Louisiana brayed that the streets would run red with blood if such a law were passed, and the law was passed, and, of course, blood hasn't run down the streets...
Brady types tried to spread the same fear about a concealed-carry weapon law, and the same lack of blood in the street occured.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
dot dot dot
I knew a guy who was staying at a house with a guard goose. The goose didn't like him and chased him whenever he was in the yard, trying to bit him. It only relented when he hit it quite hard on the head; after that, it still squaked at him. He was terrified of the thing.
http://www.amazing1.com couple a sonic weapon with a motion alarm as not to wear out your battry!
I tip toe like rats on vouge runnways.
...except that the originals poster's mom's car was broken into, so not only would you have given the criminals a gun registered in your name, you break the law by having a concealed (and probably loaded) weapon.
guns are only good if there's someone there to shoot it.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
I was watching from my window when I saw a guy breaking into my shed. I called the police.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't have any cars available to check it out."
I couldn't believe it. I was calling to tell them that I was witnessing a crime in progress, and they couldn't be bothered to come arrest the guy.
I waited for one minute and called again.
"Hi, I called to tell you that someone was breaking into my shed. Don't worry, I shot him."
Two minutes later, four police cars and an ambulance pulled up to my house, catching the guy red-handed. The lieutenant in charge was pretty upset.
"I thought you said you shot him!"
"I thought you said there weren't any cars available!"
There's not really anything you can do, except park in the garage. There's one thing the cops tell you to do - keep your car showroom clean. That means nothing inside. Someone will smash your window to get an empty pop can. They'll steal quarters from the tool booth bin, or anything else.
If you're tired of paying for repairs, keep it clean and keep it unlocked. They can't break in if it's already open.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
...anyone that is commiting a crime against you is typically a peice of shit that deserves to be hurt.
This is true. But that piece of shit (or his family, if you kill him) will find a lawyer and sue you for far more than the value of what would've been stolen from you. And that's if you're lucky.
If you're unlucky, the lawyer the piece of shit (or his family) finds will be able to spin the injury into some kind of racial shit, and you'll have Al Sharpton and a couple busloads of protesters picketing your home or business.
If you're really unlucky, you might wind up like this poor bastard, whose shotgun booby-trap, rigged in frustration after his business was repeatedly burglarized and he had exhausted all other means of trying to protect it, killed a burglar.
I've been pondering this for a while. I think the way to go is a bunch of USB cameras looking out of windows with motion detection software running. You could use this in conjuction with security lights - you've got an easy change to look for there and well lit images. Arrange for images to be uploaded to a friend's computer over the Internet automatically, so that even if they steal your computers, you've got mugshots. Then put a screen in a couple of prominent places in the house and have your system display said mugshots automatically, with a warning: these pictures are already on the internet - leave now and I may not prosecute.
*grin* Of course, if they wear masks, my cunning plan goes to rats...
What you need is a motion-tracking paintball cannon.
Ideally, if you could get a decomissioned Aircraft Carrier CIWS complete with fire-control system and mod it to fire paintballs, that'd solve your problem >:)
Doesnt sound like your mum was in danger - all the posters suggesting shotguns and pistols etc can get stuffed.
Make sure your mum has insurance for the next time her car gets broken into. Dont buy your mum a weapon; unless he knows what shes doing, and is willing to do it, it will be taken from her by someone really pissed off.
Weapons are not an appropriate response to petty theft.
...is more secure than the neighbours. Sounds selfish (and it is) but it's surprisingly effective. An intruder wants and easy time. They'll pick the easy option. Just make sure you have solid doors, windows etc, an alarm system (or a good dummy one), and take note of the other tips posted.
Most intruders are oppotunists or unsophisticated.
Silly rabbit
You can get a car alarm which will page you, but I don't see what a grandma is likely to do when her car pages her at 3AM...
I agree. So the solution is to move to an area with lower crime rates, and park her car in a secure area (garage) with surveillance.I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I wouldn't get a Pitbull for protection. They look intimidating but are often not really agressive towards strangers (human strangers that is). They are more a fighting breed than a protection breed.
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Someone makes an honest request for advice and it turns into a partisan discussion on safe gun handling.
Honestly, I'm not sure what the best tactic to keep your mom safe is. I bought a dog, he's good natured, cheerful, and barks like hell at anyone who gets close to the front of my house.
But come on, there's lots of stupid people around, some functionally illiterate ones. And they're the ones most likely to be looking through your garbage for deposit bottles. A nuisance if they make a mess, certainly, but it shouldn't be a capital offence.
If by "property" you mean "house" - that's a different matter. But someone walking up your walk and knocking on the front door (not noticing your signs, or being foreign, illiterate, nearsighted, or otherwise unable to read them) is not a threat.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
An increase in crimes = increase in patrol.
Please DO report it to the police. Some people say it's a waste of time, but they are wrong. While you might not see a detective looking into your case, your issue will be documented and will be part of the police departments stats.
As others have said, boobie traps might sound like a good idea, but they aren't. As you have said motion sensors and car alarms don't stop someone who is really wanting to steal something.
Be pro-active - don't leave anything in the car that can be stolen (or seen to be stolen).
Blow off a high power ultrasound device around 20KHz. You can find articles on the web about that. Don't know if it works, though.
Second, you can set up a massive pepper spray fogger in the front yard. . .
Guns? Bah humbug! Real geeks scare people away with their 1337 h4x0r>ing skillz!!!!!!!!!!!!11111shift+1
See, the problem is that these car alarms all set off sirens to alert people that the car's being broken into. Guess what? Nobody gives a damn; nobody even looks.
Get a car alarm, get the loudest goddamn siren you can; it should cause serious pain if you're within 10 feet of it.
Mount it INSIDE the car.
...(2) creating obstacles on a public roadway,...
Snake: [chuckling] Huh ho! Okay! Baldy-boy hits wire, head comes off, Li'l Bandit rolls to a gentle stop. Everybody wins! [twangs wire]
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/scg-9.txt
Mr. Spleen
Sorry, I'm not that afraid to buy a gun to kill someone.
And yes, if you buy a gun and take safty courses etc etc and practice...you're practicing to kill someone because they broke into your car. Wow, that really fits the crime.
Where does all this fear come from? I've walked in the Robert Taylor homes near Chicago before...wasn't hassled, didn't get killed, didn't get mugged....no one bothered me. But to hear reports of there you'd think it was a war zone.
Then it comes down to the final moment...could you really pull the trigger? Are you justified shooting someone that's just breaking into your car (after all, you suggested buying a gun and the original story is about a car break-in).
And why a gun? Why not a baseball bat? Why not a sword? Are you afraid the criminal may also have a gun? Then what does it turn into, a wild west shoot-out? Do you dive behind the sofa and fire over it? Break out a few windows and start blasting? Better practice the "cop roll" so you can jump out from behind the sofa and get that critical shot like all the cool guys in the movies do!
I mean..come on. It's not THAT bad out there. Sure, I've had stuff ripped off before...but I never wanted to protect it with deadly force. I'm not that scared to resort to taking another life.
Could you really kill someone? How many people, at the critical moment, freeze up? How many people, even after taking courses still screw up in the moment of truth due to nerves?
I grew up with guns. I was born and raised on a farm in Virginia. We would hunt deer to put food on our table every year...it saved us money. The pride and joy of my father, brother and me was our 7mm Weatherby Magnum we'd hunt with. But it was a fact of life. We didn't have guns to protect ourselves, we had them to hunt to put food on the table. I guess now that's very politically incorrect to do...but we weren't advocates...nor were we Ted Nugents either. It was cheap meat. Nuff said.
I'm 42 now, don't own any guns...not because I'm afraid of them or think their evil...I just don't own any because I just don't own any. Never really needed one and I don't hunt anymore. Also, never been in a situation to where I would think "boy, wish I had a gun right now".
But anyway, to each their own...just hope some goofball who's scared shitless doesn't shoot through my window by mistake. lol
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
You're welcome.
Now for the really geeky solution...
1) Motion sensor switches on PC and video cam.
2) PC checks for changes to video image, and if changes exceed predetermined threshold, plays sound of bolt action hunting rifle being loaded.
3) PC switches on laser and uses servo to guide red dot onto largest area of change in video image....
4) PC waits a few seconds and if changes persist, plays loud sound of heavy caliber rifle firing and triggers flashgun, followed by muttering about damn laser sight...
5) Police follow trail of brown (and rather smelly)footprints to determine where perp came from.
As long as we're putting out some truth on gun bans, I recently read an NRA article on Kerry the lifelong hunter -- "the only man in America who wears blaze orange AS camouflage." Of course, it detailed his duplicitousness in regard to gun ownership, noting his 100% perfect voting rating by gun control AND anti-hunting animal rights groups.
.22s are used for training, etc. (Then, you'd have to wonder if they wouldn't just make up a reason to buy one of everything else, just to get 'em included.)
The article mentioned an un-passed bill S.1431 that Kerry co-sponsored, about which I had been unaware. It would allow the Attorney General to ban private ownership of any weapon that has been procured for use by the military or federal law enforcement use. Wow! That would go far beyond "assault weapons," into just about everything. The first thing I thought of was the Remington 870 shotgun, used by most all police agencies. But, there are lots of other utilitarian shotguns and rifles bought for special needs or game wardens, and even
But the pork-barreling in social programs is nothing compared to the Pentagon/"Defense"/"Homeland Security" sector.
Look it up! It is roughly half of what the _Federal_ govt spends just on "public education", a role in which they should not even be, according to the US Constitution, leaving that the the States and local govt/charities/businesses.
Paul B.
In Texas, an adult trespassing after dark can be shot. A child can be shot of they are a clear threat to person or property.
You could've hired me.
To cut to the chase, about the only thing you can do is make certain the car alarm is working. Consider installing a good alarm system in your mother's house, since a car is expendable, but your mother is not.
Ignore the testosterone-laden bozos who tell you to buy a gun for your mother. A gun will have no deterrent value. Criminals are not telepathic. They will not know there's a gun in the house they're about to break into.
Once a criminal is in the house, of course, your mother can wave her gun around. That may, in fact, protect her. It may also involve her in months and months of legal anguish. If you do buy her a gun, be sure you also buy her some training so she doesn't shoot herself.
Remember, too, that the cops' job is to catch people after they commit a crime. Unless you can talk the local town council into stationing a police patrol in front of your mother's house, I wouldn't expect too much from them.
In the end, the real solution may be to move, if that is realistic.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I mean, who's going to mess with your pet cougar, or puma?
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
A person who would break into an occupied house is taking a risk. This burglar knows people have guns. I assume he is aware that to maintain his freedom, he may have to fight the occupant. Violence is inherent in the act of breaking and entering.
Robbing a house is no different from robbing a bank. If you rob believing that everyone would rather give up their property than hurt someone over material goods, you're in the wrong business. I won't risk my family on the assumption that a burglar is working within a code of ethics.
If he really doesn't want to see the scumbags get hurt then one option is to use rock salt in place of standard shot in a shotgun. Getting shot with rock-salt is one of the most painful experiences known to man, with the added "benefit" of being non-lethal.
I just hope she doesn't live someplace where you need a permit. I don't register my guns and I never will. I'm not going to put myself on a list of people the gestapo will come visit should the second amendment ever be struck down.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
the most geeky defensesystem you can get, a good firewall.
you want to leave your doors _unlocked_ so
the crack addicts can rummage through your
car without breaking the windows.
Well, not what you might expect, but it seems to me being a geek is also questionning the conventional way people solve problems.
You alluded to the context- your neighbourhood's crime rates are rising. I haven't looked at criminology data in an organized way, and not recently, but I encourage you to do so. There are a few things I have heard about that seemed quite promising- e.g. community gardens encourage people to be out and about where they would be more likely to notice suspect activity (not sure if that's necessarily accurate, but it seems like a good deterrent, especially as most small B&Es are made by people within a short distance of their residence). Traffic calming also sounds intriguing, as they also make for more active neighbourhoods and slower getaways. Leaving only 1 or 2 exits out of a suburban area also increases the psychological pressure on intruders.
You might also have immediate causes to the crime wave that aren't being dealt with by the police- gangs and/or increased drug use. These can be sometimes addressed by neighbourhoods and congregations in a more tactful way than police can- although requesting more visible presence can do wonders.
All this of course doesn't negate the need for a good alarm system and/or a dog. I would however steer clear of guns- if it's a young gang member trying to get quick money for his next hit, they're more likely to escalate if they see their victim has a gun. No amount of stuff is worth risking life and limb.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
- because someone really wants it (luxury cars, SUVs, whatever), or
- because it's available.
The late-model Hondas and Toyotas that are most commonly stolen fall into the second category. So put a club on one of them, and the thief moves on to its identical, unprotected, neighbour.All you need to do is pull it hard enough that one of the forks on the end of it comes off the wheel. Easy to defeat with little or no damage to the vehicle.
Car alarms are even easier. Most thieves defeat them with a high-voltage shock from a taser or similar device, applied to the door lock. Zappo.
Just the sound of chambering a round causes criminals to think twice about what they're doing. After making the purchase, I went to gunbroker.com and purchased some pepper blast and rubber ball ammo. The pepper blast is simply red chili pepper loaded into a shotgun shell that will incapacitate anyone in the vacinity where it is shot.
Rubber ball ammo is the same stuff that police use to disperse rioters, you can shoot people directly, or bounce it off the ground and hit people. Either way, it hurts like hell.
If you've got motion lights and a car alarm, and neither did the trick then I would say that more persuasive tactics should be used.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Plants with sharp thorns are also good, serving as an effective deterrent
The following Web site has more information for the horticulturally inclined: http://www.infowest.com/business/g/gentle/pp.html
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
I live in a fairly large city, and have had someone break into my (old) car before, as well as in the house. I think when they broke into the house, they had just started... we came home from the beach at approx 10pm and no lights were on in the house... come to find out they came in through the back door (poor simple lock). We came home to find the back door wide open but noone in the house. After that, I got some nice 3" deadbolts and many more locks and changed some of our habits. (This was also before we had central air, and there was a nice $500 air conditioner in the front window, I believe they were after that. It would have taken them some time, there were 3 inch screws into the window casings).
Here's what I would recommend:
- lights, plenty of them, get a timer or sensor for when it gets dark.
- good locks on doors, alarms on your car (we since have new cars and have never been broken into)
- don't keep valuables in the car. My last car, the most they could take was a few pennies. They used to break into it all the time, but it wasn't really breaking in, because I never locked it.
- make the house/apartment do odd things to make people think someone is home (or many people are home). Put a timer on tvs and lights to come on at and go off at odd times. A dim lamp in the living room might think someone is home, and watching them. (My living room is about 10 ft from my driveway).
- the jerk factor... someone could probably break into my basement windows. But, firstly, they'd have a heck of a time and would have to break some glass, and secondly, there's large furniture/shelves/objects in front of them... the chances of them coming in through those windows safely is very small. If they break in and break their neck, you only have to call authorities to dispose of the body.
- ok here's the geek one. Setup a network of linux boxes, usb cams and motion. captures still pics only when motion is detected... I was playing with this at work one time, got a bunch of cleaning people working in our office.
FLR
Seriously - the best way to reduce crime in any location is to put in place the kind people who will work to protect their constituents. Do your research, figure out who (or what party) has a history of lowering crime rates, and vote them into office. And when I mean research, actually do some, just don't buy into the bumper sticker approach to problems and solutions that seems to be so relevant today. Just because someone tells you the other guy is soft on crime doesn't mean that he isn't. That part is politics. Read the police reports and determine what policies are put into place by what individuals and partys that helped the police with their problems. That's called research. Making an arbitrary position because someone said their tough on crime in a campaign isn't.
Then do the rest of the work - form a neighborhood watch. Lobby for community based policing. Work at the State and National level to improve education, jobs and resources for everyone. No matter what anyone says, crime is a result of problems in society that are solvable (sure - there are some criminals that seem to be mentally skewed to crime, but the vast majority aren't).
Remember, it's a democracy, and you're in charge. But you do have to do some work to make it work.
You could travel to the center of the damn sun and not have problems. Guns and thugs will not bug you.
-I am an elective eunuch.
Seriously, it's true. The right breed of geese can be big, strong aggressive and vicious. And since they herd well, you can have a big group of them. One goose, (or dog), you could conceviably deal with, but 10 geese can be a real handful. Of course, you can handle geese if you know what you're doing, but then good animal handlers seem capable of handling really nasty dogs, horses, etc which no one else can even get near.
But anyway geese are actually a quite deterrent.
And the best thing about geese is: they work for grass.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Open Source Defense Electronics
That seems a very dangerous assumption to make.
What should I do? AIBO?
Canada has a much smaller population then the United States. Also having a much lower population density.
Trust me, don't get caught up in the creativity of what is a very serious task - keeping bad guys away from your home. Good lighting, unobstructed fields of view, an alarm system, and excellent locks are a good start. An awareness mindset it important, too. Last but not least, consider exercising your second amendment rights. Move to a state like Vermont that not only has low crime, but has very reasonable gun control - ie essentially none. Buy a handgun, carry openly or concealed, and leave it in a gunsafe near the bed. This is asymmetric warfare - don't try to repel criminal invaders with a "fake holographic Yeti" they'll just simply laugh, take your possessions (and possibly your life) and then leave.
Okay, so to bring the discussion back to things that are non-lethal but still effective, I recommend this: Take that existing motion detecting light, attach it to a timer so that it goes on after dark, then put the highest powered strobe light (entire fixture in a bulb, they do exist) into that sucker. If you do this, not only will it be effective, but you can laugh at the intruder as he or she stumbles about trying to get out of the driveway without falling down. Also, the light will attract tons of attention as well as disorienting the would be thief so much that they can't break into anything let alone walk straight. Make sure to include no tresspassing signs to cover yourself legally, and of course an overide switch inside.
You can have all the cameras and motion sensors in the world, thats still not going to physically stop an intruder.
Home Defense comes down to the basics:
1. Your home is your "castle", defend it at all costs. Most states have a "castle doctrine", meaning that while you can't blast somebody away on the streets, you can in your home (legally) in a last ditch effort to prevent an intrusion. Of course this varies by state.
2. With the Assault Weapons Ban expiring on Monday, I suggest going out and buying up a few M-16s and other large capacity handguns. Don't forget a few thousand rounds of ammo. Place these weapons strategically throughout your house (you may be cooking in the kitchen when somebody breaks in).
3. Take training courses on how to use those weapons.
4. For goodness' sakes don't keep those weapons UNLOADED or with LOCKS. Theres nothing worse than having a non-functional gun.
5. Apply for a concealed-carry license (depending on your state of course).
6. Carry atleast one full size weapon along with 2 extra magazines.
7. Live a life of avoidance, deterrance, and de-escalation.
Disclaimer: IANAL, YMMV, caveat emptor, boni anima teuri amen, and all that.
Its the Japanese student incident. Pity this home owner didnt have a hologram wookie...
.44 Magnum-carrying Rodney Peairs. Yoshihiro, thinking he had
found the party after all, stepped towards Mr. Peairs and said, "
'We're here for the party' ". Webb Haymaker then found himself
standing over his dying friend, Yoshihiro Hattore, a victim of
unintentional homicide."
Baton Rouge, Lousiana--October 17, 1992--8:30 P.M
"A Japanese exchange student, Yoshihiro Hattori, was searching for a party he had been invited to. Thinking he had found the house in which the social would take place, Yoshihiro knocked on the door. Not knowing that they had the wrong house Yoshihiro and his companion startled the proprietor. After having the front door shut in their face the two boys began walking back to Yoshihiro's car. Yoshihiro Hattori and his friend, Webb Haymaker, then turned back towards the house upon hearing the carport door open behind them. Instead of seeing the party's host, these two boys were greeted by a " 'Freeze' " and a
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
you can have the coolest gun out there, but waking up to a broken window and stolen stereo means theya re long gone.
my car has a factory alarm that's not the best, but even when some knucklehead sets it off and i wake up, run to the window i never see anything. i usually throw on my boots and run outside an am yet to catch someone. even if i am in deep sleep, my dog knows it's trouble and barks the instant the car alarm goes off. my point being that even if i had a gun ready to go, i would not have anyone to shoot. that is of course ignoring the legality of running into a city street with a gun shooting someone for stealing a crappy car stereo or a car with 170,000 miles on it.
also the post was about their mom..... if they don't live at home then them owning a gun won't help out mom.
x10.com has some DIY home security stuff. you can do things like have a motion detector trigger an alarm or turn on a light in the house. lots of people have motion detector floodlamps outside but if a motion detector triggers a lamp inside somewhere they might think it's an awake person in the house. they also have a fake dog barking device that can be triggered with motion detectors. they may sound fake right in front of them, but from outside it sounds like a dog, and it also will alert anyone home that something might require a peek. if you run the X10 software with the cameras you can also capture the images when the camera detects motion in the driveway. they are not the highest quality images, but the cameras are cheap and wireless. you can even have them posted to a website so you can check on her house for her.
we had motion detector set up so a lil 5 watt bulb came on inside when someone crossed onto our porch...... not security as much as knowing the mail/UPS/FedEx people were there leaving us treats.
"Deterrence not backed by force only work until smart crook see bug fly through middle of hologram."
If you aren't prepared to injure or capture them, if you can't acquire the assistance of anybody who is, if your alarm goes off and nobody cares, then you're fucked whichever way.
Crime is force. Only force stops crime.
This topic is a perfect place to talk about my self-made security system. It is not very high-tech, but it doesn't require any money. All it needs is a little thought and innovation -- only people like us can concoct something similar.
I've been living by myself in a big house for a while, and it is a little scary to think that my house will get broken into and/or that I will be killed during my sleep. If I am going to die, I want to see who my killer was, and how I die.
So, what do I have to protect myself? Well, I have some martial arts training, and I always have two 24 inch sticks near my bed-side. At night, in small areas, being able to use a stick effectively will give me a higher chance of survival even if the burglar has a gun. Now, you might ask how I am able to wake myself up when someone breaks in? Here is what I do:
First thing to remember is that the more deterent there exists, the less likely your house will be targetted. On the doors, place a chair at a angle and wedge the shoulder-rest of the chair against the door nob. The first reason to jam the door with a chair is to make it act as a deterent. The second reason is that it will make loud noises as the door as opened. As the door is forced to open, the chair starts skidding, and there will be a point where the chair completely falls to the ground. The sound has two functions, it is to scare off some burglars, and it serves to wake you up at night. When you are awake and you hear a loud sound coming from the front or back door, it is time to call police or you can hide and hit the burglar before he hits you.
There are many other ways to protect yourself. You just have to think about how to make intruders produce more sound to scare them off and wake you up.
Would someone please mod down this dupe-posting fucking karma whore?
You are not more likely to get shot with your own weapon (unless you count suicides) than to successfully defend your home. Statisically, the most likely outcome is that grandma never has to use the weapon in self-defense, dies peacefully in her sleep a couple of years later, and wills the shotgun to a grateful heir.
Motion sensing lights -- the only good suggestion in the bunch. An 802.11 webcam? WTF?While this is a good geek answer, a webcam is not good security. It is possible to set up good video surveillance with recording, but this is not the way to do so. Forget this. Get a real professionally installed monitored alarm system, with active+passive motion sensing and zoned sensors. If there are areas of the house which grandma never uses, she can enable not only the perimeter sensor, but also the motion sensor inside that zone.
Because it's all about keeping grandma safe and alive, not keeping her geek grandson busy spying on grandma with a Toshiba webcam.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Buy your Mom an in-ground sprinker system and convert it spray propane.
Don't forget to connect it to the motion detector.
Be -extremely- careful here. Encouraging any type of violent behavior in a companion animal is likely to get you in serious shit with your neighbors, family, friends- maybe even your town. People you know will simply stop coming if they find your dog too dangerous or threatening, especially if they have children. If neighbors complain, you could find the SPCA or local dog officer investigating you.
If your dog attacks anyone, fully expect a lawsuit, and fully expect to loose it. More and more dog attacks are occurring, and the public's pretty pissed off- if it ever went to a jury, you'd almost certainly loose everything you owned. In Boston, for example, we've had several -fatal- dog attacks over the last year or two, ranging from a 14 year old girl to a full grown woman whose dog attacked her throat and crushed it. Dogs are killing machines- NEVER forget that.
If -you- have any small children, you're pretty much guaranteeing an dog attack if the dog isn't very patient or you've encouraged any aggressive behavior; older dogs are VERY poor choices unless they're the super-friendly breeds and quiet; older dogs have little patience/tolerance for pain, and just like people can go bonkers- such as not recognizing family members anymore. Ask a trainer to evaluate a dog before you consider bringing it into your home, or learn how to do "the tests". PBS's "Uncle Matty" show is full of good information, and one of his shows is about evaluating puppies to make sure they're kid proof/friendly.
At the very least, select a breed which is faultlessly obedient (Airedales for example, while very friendly and loving, are almost cat-like in terms of obeying commands- they do it when it suits them) and go through obedience school with the dog. The dog should stop dead in its tracks and follow any command from any family member.
Please help metamoderate.
I tend to agree with you but how is a rifle which fires a more powerfull cartredge offer a greater opportunity not to kill?
Compared to a shotgun? It's the difference between one small hole and a saucer-sized circle of nine big ones (or one saucer-sized hole, depending on the shotgun load).
But it is hard to generalize, since rifles and their ammunition come in a wide variety of calibers, energies, and bullet expansion characteriesics. Just remember that the shotgun shoots more bullets at once, propelling them with more total powder, to get the general idea. One shotgun blast is like emptying the magazine of a rifle.
Downside to both rifles and shotguns: They're long (even the "short" ones). If the bad guy gets within arms-reach (which he can do from across the room in under a second) he can get behind the muzzle and you're toast. A pistol MIGHT be usable even while he's wrestling with you or knifing you.
That time issue, though, is why, as part of your training, you learn a two-sided coin:
Heads: You NEVER point a gun at anything you aren't willing to destroy.
Tails: If you are pointing a gun at the bad guy, you ALREADY DECIDED that you're justified if you use it and you're going to pull the trigger if he makes ONE MORE MOVE toward you.
Once the gun is pointed you don't have time to wrestle with your conscience if it turns out you have to use it. So get that over with (and the safety off) BEFORE you point it.
Don't try to wing him, either. Not only is it a bad idea self-defense wise (it's hard enough hitting him near the center of the torso in a stressful situation), it's also evidence that you didn't think deadly force was necessary (so why did you use it?) This can turn a justifiable homicide into assault with a deadly weapon once it gets to court.
Either you fear for life-and-limb (of yourself or someone properly under your protection, like a family member or guest) or you don't. If you do, you are justified in using deadly force - and the bad guy gets to take his chances (about one in four) of dying as a result of his criminal decisions. If you don't, you're not justified in shooting, or pointing, at all. (At least in most jurisdictions. Some, like Texas, let you defend your home, car, etc. Others still have a "fleeing felon" rule - or a judicial interpretation (Oregon) that you might fear the crook is running out to his car to get some firepower or reenforcements. Still others (like MA) require you to flee if you physically can, even at home, abandoning the baby and risking a shot in the back.)
For myself:
Home defense at the townhouse: 12 guage shotgun with #40 birdshot. Quite as effective as 00 buck at in-house distances, but passing through a copule layers of drywall will slow it down enough that it won't kill the neighbors.
Ditto at the country house: 12 guage w/00 buck. (Closest houses are over 1/10th mile away and the siding is wood over wood, shots where a good guy is behind the bad guy and an interior wall virtually impossible.)
Personal carry: 38 special airweight for cities, 45 ACP backup for country hikes (where I might have to deal with a coyote, mountain lion, bobcat, or bear). Will probably switch to 357 magnum now that NV alows more than two on the license, since slide-actions are more often problematic in a pinch. Both only where it's legal, of course. (I.e. in NV but not CA.)
And of course the personal carry pistol can be used for home defense if you happen to have it handy - like when you've just arrived, are unloading the luggage, and haven't pulled the shotgun out of the safe yet. A likely time for a bad guy to come at you, when things are open and you're distracted.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
i know you said you don't want to hurt anyone, but i figure if they're in your house, they have no rights (and luckily the state of colorado agrees with me). anyway, when i was little i saw one of the death wish movies on tv. one thing charles bronsen did was put a board with nails sticking out underneath the windows. i really like that idea and have done that by my basement windows which are the ones someone would use to break in. they're covered by some paper so you really can't see them. i'm sure jumping in the basement and landing on them would deter someone from continuing their planned robbery due to massive bleeding.
Build an electronic system of traps you control with a old genesis controler, like in Night Trap.
Don't have anything worth stealing.
My family was pretty cheap growing up. early in my life I learned never to throw anything away. I remember we had this horrible small television which I inherited when my parents bought one that actually worked. Every 5 minutes the picture would fuzz out, and require me to jump off from my bunkbed to slam it on top. I didn't complain because, hey, it was a tv and getting rid of it was out of the question.
So one day we get robbed, but the thieves didn't take the working larger television (too heavy to move easily), but they did take the POS. Sure it sucked to have our home invaded, but I was relieved to be rid of that crappy tv.
If I was really lucky the thief gave it to his significant other who would then think he/she was a total moron for paying for something that was defective.
You could extend this theory to all manner of products...bad cars are extremely inexpensive to purchase and every trip is an adventure (what will I find beneath it today? will I actually get to work? stay tuned!)...or purchase extremely old technology. What thief in their right mind would steal a sega master system? a betamax? a commodore 64?
As long as you don't care about having useful/enjoyable equipment this plan is perfect!
...You should have a home defence robot.
Didn't think so.
The best home defense I ever had was living in port moresby, as an expat in one of the most corrupt criminal cities of the world you begin to learn what protects you the best.
Probably the best defense is to plan your house before you build one, but since most people don't have the luxury...Thorny plants under windows. Steel reinforced doors and door frames, roller shutter security windows, not flaunting your techstuff so all can see, getting to know your neighbours, proper locks on reinforced windows, even security grills on windows, protecting access to any roofspace (easiest way to get into any house),a motion detecting lighting system, a good security contract and alarm system (short response time), a conveniently placed baseball bat, extensive home and contents insurance and last of all, a barking dog (not a pitbull or doberman etc. - which are just as dangerous as guns).
I mean really. All my guns (Browning BDA, H&K P2000, and Colt M4) are loaded and ready to go. My kids and wife are checked out and happen to be better shots than old astigmatic me. We go out and shoot at the range periodically.
I have taught them the same thing my father taught me - all guns are loaded! Never assume or think a gun is safe until you break it, remove the clip, or eject the round, etc. yourself. There are no unsafe guns, only unsafe users. (Insert computer reference here.)
So, again, what good is an unloaded, locked up gun when it comes to home defense?
...travels with multiple very large professional bodyguards. My guess is they are also armed most of the time. He's similar to those anti gun politicians who have carry permits and bodyguards, in short, a bit of a hypocrite.
He also only covered at best 2-3% of the 9-11 situation, BTW, in his movie.
Anyway, speaking as someone who has had need of armed response in the past, two points, 1-don't care-the world don't care I mean- how leet you are or think you are or where you live,inside or outside the USA, you *ain't psychic enough to know when bad stuff is gonna be in your face* and 2- better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it. Goes along with number 1.
Sorry, I was wrong earlier today, used up my allowance of 'wrong' so I'm just gonna have to be right on this one. I'm sure you understand.
Texas Penal Code Chapter 9 Subchapter D Subsection 9.42 says (and I'm quoting) : Aww hell, read it yourself. Scroll about 3/4 the way down, look for '9.42. Deadly force to protect property.'
Long story short, it's not a myth. Fun fact - it doesn't even have to be your property. Watch a purse snatcher take a random woman's purse, if she screams for your help you are legally authorized to shoot him to death and recover her purse. Check out PC 9.43, sub 2A (also in that link.)
You would be awed by the different circumstances under which you are legally allowed to kill a man in Texas. Your life is going to suck for a while if you do, and you may need to retain a lawyer - but when push comes to shove if you were acting in good faith, have a clean record, and were protecting yourself, your family, or your personal property you will get away with it.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Sad thing was, the police were pretty sure they knew who did it - they just didn't have the evidence. A several months later, the (suspected) same guy killed a shop clerk at a mini-mart, trying to rob the place. At least the second time around, they caught him, had witnesses, and he went to jail for 17 years. He should be out now - lets pray the prisons ministries got to him.
I wouldn't have minded if the dad had killed the burglar during round one. But some people think resistance is wrong.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
Then get some signs to the effect of beware of dog...
That way when the alarms go off, so will the dog.
( the shotgun is in case they get past the dog and into the house... just the sound of a 12 guage chambering is enough to send most criminals scurrying for safety.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Nowhere in your article did I see:
"Keep the gun in a location where it cannot be stolen and cannot be used by your 12 year old to shoot his best friend or himself in the face while playing with it". IE, in a gun safe, or with a trigger lock, etc.
I used to drive by a billboard every day that had about 12 pictures of kids, all who shot themselves or were shot by a friend, playing with a parent's gun.
Please help metamoderate.
Actually, I would like someone to come into my house "unannounced". Get to try out my shinken nihonto (a multiple part high quality steel samurai katana made by a registered Japanese sword smith for those of you not in the "know") on them. Been practicing kendo for so long, I would enjoy to see some punk fool act up in my house with a little knife.
Blood would get everywhere though and the wife just got done decorating the house with stuff from Europe. She may be unhappy with me afterwards.
Tails: If you are pointing a gun at the bad guy, you ALREADY DECIDED that you're justified if you use it and you're going to pull the trigger if he makes ONE MORE MOVE toward you
Aye. Good advice that.
I take issue with shooting to injure, though. If at all possible to disable without taking life, one should try. Though, there are few jurisdictions where you have the right to kill without a belief of an imminent threat to one's life. I always thought that was stupid because it forces one to use deadly force to save one's life, when near-lethal force might be sufficient.
Strategically, it is unwise to not shoot to kill, but it is a rare individual who would would actually be eager to do so.
You could've hired me.
Everyone's favorite defence robot: Having ED209 wandering the front yard.
The second one requires more serious effort. There are some excellent books available on the topic, including one by Home Mechanics on the topic of improving home security.
While it is true that motion detector lights do not always keep the nasties away, then perhaps better detector placement, or an actual alarm system would be worth investigating.
Under English law you are entitled to defend your person and your property with force, provided the force you use is reasonable given the circumstances. Tony Martin's jury didn't think shooting an escaping burglar in the back was reasonable.
Do you think the jury got it wrong, or do you think people should be entitled to use *unreasonable* force?
he set out to defend his business, which he has every right to do
This should be an inalienable right of anyone in society. The government exists to keep the peace, but every citizen should have the right to defend their lives and their livelihood.
Society is best served by those who seek their own self-interest (in a legal manner) - this from Adam Smith on his discussion of "the Invisible Hand". It was in the shop-keeper's (and the interest of society in general) that the criminals were shot. It keeps the peace and discourages further crime.
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Reminds me of a good 'ol quote:
reuben> somebody keeps jiggling the doorknob on my front door, then running away
reuben> i don't know if i should call the police, or hook up some electricity to the doorknob
cristobal> why don't you put ice on the stairs
cristobal> and heat up the door knob
cristobal> and swing paint buckets down from your two story foyer
cristobal> then a few years later, fade from the public eye.....
The classic example is the robber that enters, gets shot by the homeowner, and drags himself outside to die. If the guy dies in the house (or maybe just on the property) then it's clearly a case of defense. If he dies outside, it can be construed that he was fleeing. Big fat gray/grey area.
No, that is not the classic example. Where the intruder dies is irrelevant, where he was shot is relevant. The classic example contrasts the robber being shot in the house vs. being **shot outside**. The difference is not legal vs. illegal, it is the presumption of imminent threat. In many states in the US, an intruder who is a stranger and who has forced his way into a home is presumed, by legal statute, to be a theat unless there is evidence to the contrary. Outside no such legal presumption exists and there will be more explaining to do by the homeowner.
Put a sign in your window that says:
All intruders will be forced to intall Linux Slackware 1.0.... on a laptop.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...except that the originals poster's mom's car was broken into, so not only would you have given the criminals a gun registered in your name, you break the law by having a concealed (and probably loaded) weapon.
Whoops, criminals got a got illegally. Wow, never would have though that would have happened.
The simple fact that someone can break into my house or car and maybe steal a weapon is not a reason not to have a weapon. In fact, that is more of a reason to have a weapon since someone will break into your house.
I have a concealed gun permit and of course the pistol is loaded. A pistol isn't useful unless it is loaded.
They'll put more money into social programs, which will lower the deserpation and poverty of these thieves and then they can have some hope of a good job and rasing a family - instead of getting fucked up the ass by bush. Flame away bitches.
Sorry, accidentally posted anonymously.
Asnwer this then: 1/5th the gun deaths in Canada compared to the US.
One of many social factors: The US war on drugs. Many homicides are drug related, directly or indirectly.
Oh my god! he's coming right at me! [Toddler toddles ever closer...]
Dalai Lama? Is that you?
Well, if you are worreid mostly about the car being left alone, rig a device to electrify the outside of your car.
"It takes a very long time to count to 2 in binary." ~'Fourlegged'
If a person shoots a felon in his home, it's rather likely that even if the intruder flees evidence (e.g. lots of blood that can be typed to the dead intruder) will be found INSIDE the home, strongly suggesting that the intruder was shot indoors. That was a key fact when a relative of mine shot a man who broke into my relative's house brandishing a machete. The would-be burglar (or whatever) probably would have survived if he'd had someone call 911 right away, but he made his way 2 miles to his girlfriend's house and changed clothes before calling an ambulance. DOA at the hospital.
Oh my god! he's coming right at me! [Toddler toddles ever closer...]
:)
Are biting ankles and puking on you considered a clear threat to person?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Use the SS technique. Shotgun + shovel.
For a car, splice a cellphone into the car's electrical system so it doesn't need to be recharged. Make sure you pay the bill for service. If your car gets stolen, call the cell phone company and ask them to trace the phone with the built in GPS. -- stole idea from stalker guy.
For the house get a bunch of cameras. Lock your valuable in a safe, and keep a dummy safe. Make this safe somewhat visible. Let them take it.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
Kill them all?
Mounting a whacking-great directional search light on it so it can aquire the person and then shine on their face.
;)
Should blind them for an hour or so
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Come on guys, this is home defense, geek style. You have twenty seconds to comply.
Pansy.
The guy you pepper spray can get pissed off and come back and kill you tomorrow. (What's the worst you can do to him? Pepper spray him again?)
The intruder you shoot in your hallway won't be bothering anyone ever again.
Pepper spray is a useful weapon. It's an incomplete substitute for a gun though.
wow, part numbers and all. Silent, non-visible alarm system for under $50. Guess that isn't sexy enough for the slashdot crowd.
i can't find any such fbi report. since you made the claim, and the burden of evidence lies on the claimiant, you should provide a source.
...reading a short story called "The Ungoverned" (in "The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge") for a few "nuke-based" home defence tips.
It doesn't matter which ape activates the Monolith
You only need a dog that barks. Burglars don't want the noise, it attracts attention. Besides, if your dog bites the burglar you will probably be sued, successfully. Too often nowadays juries no longer display common sense in such matters.
Your home does not have to be burglarproof, but simply give the impression that another target is easier.
The cheapest and apparently quite effective solution is to put some "This house / car has an alarm" stickers all over the place. This is often enough to make the would be perps go to an easier target
AK-47's can be 'civilianized' down to semi-automatic. (and, apparently, can also be easily re-converted back to full auto once you purchase them). Even if you don't go the criminal route of converting it to full auto, your grandmother (or grandchild) can still do massive ammounts of damage with a semi-automatic AK-47.
Conversion Materials:
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
that's an easy one to answer, it's called using your head. Brains. IQ points. don't ignore the most obvious.
...well, pick an example, beirut in the civil war years, detroit after OPEC hit and the auto companies took a hit as people switched to japanese cars. Neighborhoods with six figure and up decent nice homes that turn into crack ghettoes or gang turf within a few years. Seen it happen.
The most effective method of self defense in a high crime area is....DON'T live there! Move! If the area is turning, it will most likely get worse, not better. For every model neighborhood out there there are a dozen that look like
Brains = don't hang around high crime areas, especially don't live there. Anything after that, sure, gadgets a plenty. Reinforced doors and jams. thick lexan windows instead of glass. Reinforced safe room inside the house, even a hardened closet with separate communication so you can lock yourself in and maybe call for help. Self defense tools, ie, firearms, as have been pointed out, and the skill and mindset to go with them.
That's the biggest, the miondset, too many people are professional victims in advance.
Tell ya a story. I worked part time as a smith in a gunstore for a spell. We didn't get a lot of women by themselves come in, but over a coupla years maybe between 100 and 200. Wanna know what for? Because they "didn't believe in guns" BEFORE the fact of getting robbed, raped, beat up by spouse or boyfriend, or their daughters or whatever had it happen to them. EVERY one that was coming in for a defensive firwearm was coming in AFTER the fact of needing one. See, they "didn't believe in". Heard story after story after story.
It's a cult like belief that some tool is going to bite you, it's what the elitists who have private security forces or personal government security forces want you to believe. Literally, a cult, the cult of the professional victim.
The geek way is the brains way, the brains way says reduce vulnerability, add layers of protection. It's just like hardening your server, it's a great analogy. Server goes in a secure building, room inside the building is extra secure. Server itself is designed to be secure, then has additional steps taken to make it more so. And the admin has the mindset that they are NOT gonna be a professional victim or be influenced by weenies who espouse being a potential victim in some cult like belief they are immune or something.
Get the mindset, the tech will follow, but first, haul the butt connected to the mind to a safer area.
4. Prepare a statement for when your 5 year old kid finds a new toy and shoots your wife with it as she tries to take it from him. Think about what you'll tell him when he's wondering what the bang was and why his mother isn't moving anymore.
How about an motion activated water cannon? Everyone is talking about gun laws this and cameras that - but no petty thief want to get wet. Sounds stupid but I bet nobody on slashdot has ever had their car broken into on a rainy day. The systems are available here. These systems have been around for a little while mostly for keeping away birds or deer - but I bet they'll work to keep petty crooks away quite nicely.
Well, I posted kinda late hope someone sees this - or at least some one else posts the idea.
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
Just hook up the positve and negative terminals of your battery to your cars body every night. By morning the battery should be sufficiently dead so that you can get into it and disconnect it. Plus, during the night when the battery isnt dead, then it' sure to discourage people from breaking into it.
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
If you're careful, no one has to find the body in your lifetime.
That law is disproportionally stupid if you ask me - if you can get into jail and get life when someone passes you AIDS, you are probably smart enough to go all the way and kill the bastard.
First side, get all the technical solutions possible like motion sensors, night vision cameras etc and pass on the info to the cops so they can arrest the fool...
Second side, big ass biker boyfriend in the 81, chapter the house and hold biker parties... not too many people will be stupid enough to break in...
Third side... A moat with a drawbridge at least 30 ft across and 20 ft deep, fill with sharks with freekin' lazerbeams...
flinging poop since 1969
The assault rate per 100,000 is higher in Canada.
Sexual Assault, 32.8 per 100k US to 77.5 Canada
Robbery higher in US, 144.9 to 88.0 but there is no mention if this includes use of a gun
Aggravated assault, Canada is higher with 761 to 323.
These are numbers for 2000...
Only problem aligning the two is definitions... I found that Aggravated Assualt in Canada is 3 categories but usually all clumped together.
What the numbers usually imply that if the criminal knows your not supposed to be armed you are an easier mark. This was proven a few times in Washington DC by comparing the times of day when certain crimes occured and how ofter. DC has very strict gun control laws...
Laws don't mean anything to most criminals. Access to guns is very easy and the better deterrent is to make yourself unattractive to would be assailants.
This can include..
1. Stay in very visible areas.
2. Living in a well lit area
3. House on the main street of a neighborhood
4. Front side apartments
5. Living where gun ownership is permitted (esp carry/concealed)
6. Having nosy neighbors
7. Keeping doors and windows locked and closed on ground levels.
8. Having a well lit backyard. (fences can work against you)
9. Dogs are nice.
10. Home security systems and signs to help "advertise it" - (will deter some)
There are many things to deter crime, don't for a minute think laws have much to do with it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Work too well for grass, that is.
Speaking as someone who until recently (racoons) had watch geese, all I can say is that they tend to make more of a mess of your yard than a dog will. A dog or two if untrained will dig holes and shit all over. A gaggle of geese, if left unchecked, will try to eat all available grass, while simultaneously shitting everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE.
We kept our gaggle of geese in a fenced-off area equal to about half of our backyard, which is perhaps a quarter of an acre. When we started, there was green grass growing in it. After several years, it resembled a desert.
Mini cameras are cheap and easy to hook up to an old computer. for under 500 bucks you can have a 360 degree in car camera system that delivers the video wirelessly to your home or apartment from the parking lot/street. Use a computer hooked up to a power converter all concealed in the spare tire compartment of your trunk.
If you have significant dough rolled into your car audio system, consider creating a massive short circuit to the components when your equipment is removed without authorization. This could simply be a battery hooked up in reverse triggered by a pressure switch on your speaker box or head unit. before the unit gets completely removed, the hidden battery sends a charge to the components rendering them uslessless. Trust me, thieves will completely destroy your car to get out the electronics. Its cheaper for you to allow them to easily removed completely useless stuff, than to make it so they have to pry your dash apart. AND THEY WILL PRY YOUR DASH APART IF THEY HAVE TOO.
I have seen thieves tear through the back seat when people have thier trunks bolted shut. I have also seen thieves completely destroy components they can remove in anger.
Regardless of what you do, the most import step you can do to safegaurd your investment is to INSURE it. You can get an extra rider on your home/auto insurance to protect expensive items. Insure thoroughly, it is just stuff, you can replace it.
The best insurance for your valuable data is daily off site back ups. If all else fails keep your data in a different safe than your finances. How many thieves expect 2 safes in a non-mansion?
Looks like it is time to replace your Personality Module. You are a bit to clingy, guess I better replace your fuser to
So, we asked our friend Cheryl "Cheryl, why do you need a gun?"
Cheryl replied "Because people broke into my house."
Really?", we reply, "What did they steal?"
"Our guns".
Three Squirrels
It is that simple
Killing someone because of trespassing? Someone that's almost surely unarmed!? That's the last solution I would've chosen, if at all.
"Because of tresspassing". Not even "because he tresspassed". Already your bending the language to avoid putting the responsibility where it belongs - on the person who chose to "tresspass", almost certainly as the first step of committing a more serious crime - like car theft, vandalism, rape, burglary, etc.
But you DON'T shoot somebody who's just tresspassing. You warn them off (or in some jusisdictions, if you have evidence of a lot more than tresspass, demand they stay put with their hands where you can see them until the police arrive to sort it all out.)
If you'd actually TAKEN the course recommended by the original poster, you'd know that.
As for "unarmed":
If you point a gun at somebody and demand that he leave, and he comes at you instead, either he's armed or plumb crazy and thinks he's strong enough to take you DESPITE the gun. Either way a "reasonable and prudent person" would believe that he's about to take "serious bodily harm" unless he does something.
THAT's the legal standard for firing.
But not for KILLING. You fire to STOP THE ATTACK. Maybe one in four he dies. His tough luck.
If you're a 120-pound skinny (or 250-pound fat) nerd and he's a 280-pound muscle-bound felon who spent two years pumping iron in stir until they let him out last week, he doesn't NEED a weapon to take you. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have one. Him coming at you after you point a gun at him and tell him to leave is a VERY strong hint.
Fortunately, most crooks are smart enough to realize that if you've got the gun pointed at them it's time to leave now. So you almost NEVER have to shoot.
But (like seatbelts, fire extinguishers, and armies) you have to be READY and WILLING to use them when they're needed or there's no point in having them in the first place. And some human predators are good enough at reading your resolve that they'll know if you're NOT willing to shoot - so you have to be willing.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I have a 110lb Rottweiler/Sheperd Mix. My brother has two 190lb English Mastiffs. To say it in his words, anyone who can hop over the fence, get in the house, pack up stuff, and make it out alive, deserves everything they got.
No, smartass, but a 13 year old that has just smashed the window of your car with a baseball bat is a threat to property (and may be a threat to person).
You could've hired me.
Make sure every door with outside access has a quality lock and deadbolt.
We don't have much crime in our community, but in the city to the north, the crime rate is rising.
Our real problem isn't what's in the houses, but what's in the barn and the shops. Someone did drive up one night years ago and load up a few rather expensive tools. We are pretty sure who did it, it is impossible to prove it. Fortunately, the thief has moved away from the area and isn't expected to return.
We are thinking about building a gate across the driveway leading to the house (about a half mile from the house) and locking it every night.
True, citizens would not do well against the "full might of the US Armed Forces." And, yes, having friends and relatives involved in the military is a good form of protection from tyranny. Those that would not take up arms against innocent citizens would go AWOL, and return to their families, thus eliminating the "full might of the US Armed Forces."
"...The only protection we have against the full might of the US Armed Forces is the fact that these Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends and neighbors, and would not wish to harm us. We certainly are not protected from the full might of the US Armed Forces by the fact that each of us can go out and buy as many long guns and as much rifle ammo as we want. No citizenry armed with small arms alone could ever hope to stand up to the full might of the US military."
The previous owners of my house had a security system, but I didn't feel like paying the monthly fee, so I had it removed. They did, however, leave behind a small signpost for the security company that I just stuck in the garden and displayed prominantly
It's worked so far. And no, I won't give you my address.
No, but shooting them dead will, PERMENANTLY!!!
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
Why don't you build yourself a vomit-inducing microwave gun? Or play a diarrhea-inducing infrasound mp3 using a motion-controlled mp3 server? There are loads of useful non-lethal options to explore, some of them may be illegal though.
There was the case of a farmer in England who was found guilty of murder after repeated break-ins to his home.
He had a rifle, and had told local residents that he intended to kill the next person that broke in.
Two young kids broke in and he scared them off with his rifle. Great. Robbers run, home and possessions in reasonably good order.
Unfortunately, he shot one of the fleeing boys in the back just because he wanted him dead (his home, person, and property had already been successfully defended - he just wanted to kill). So he went to prison.
What scares me is that even knowing that this was a man that wanted to kill people when there was no need, some national newspapers, and even more local papers supported him, and claim it is the right of individuals to *kill* in response to a nuisance (such as an unsuccessful break-in) if only it was scary - even if the danger has passed and they only want vengeance for the disrespect.
Rig the car so you can open it from the outside, but not from the inside, rig it so you can't roll down the windows, leave a set of keys in the ignition, but when they turn the ignition, have it set an alarm off, but not have the engine start.
:-D
OR....
If you DO want to injure him, leave the keys in the ignition, and rig it so as soon as the car hits 45MPH he gets a dose of peper spray in his face.
I've been advocating this for years. Pet skunks, once you remove that nasty gland. I know you are all thinking some kind of animal cruelty. Fact is, declawing cats is worse. Skunks make great pets. they are trainable and less annoying than ferrets. Local licenses and restrictions may apply, but you can always deny ownership. Most people who see a skunk will run.
http://www.stickdeath.com/2004auto.html
"Guns don't kill you - rappers do."
Geese are the alarm system of old. Those dudes make a hell of a fuss if anyone approaches. Not to mention that they're territorial and aggressive. And they're especially great if you're a fan of bird shit.
Do get the dog. Others posted that, I am just saying do it.
Get home security stickers. You know, the protected by ADT kind. Buying the system is optional however. Monitoring will let you know you have been hit, but the big deterrent is simply the idea that the system is there. Place them and the yard signs in obvious places.
Use outside lights that are on all the time. Lighting your home up costs a bit, but nothing says go away like a nice clean home that is well lit.
Make sure the place is clean and sharp.
Start or participate in a local neighborhood watch program. These things are pretty cool. You get to know the local folks. Everyone takes turns just keeping an eye out. We have regular people who will walk around the block every so often just to see what has changed.
Meet your neighbors. After you get to know one another you can better watch for changes or people that are not supposed to be there. Also it's nice to have somebody to tell when you are not going to be home for a while.
Along the clean and sharp line, step away from the house and look at the neighborhood. Whose house would you hit? Do those simple things that keep your house at the bottom of the list. Make sure there are no easy temptations. Sometimes it's a slippery slope with minor property crime. A couple of successful hits on a particular home will make the perp more comfortable. Do not encourage that.
Use house timers to vary the interior lighting in the evening. Again, this costs a bit, but does a lot to keep you at the bottom of the list. Change is bad for planning crime.
Put a little radio or television somewhere and leave it on where it can just be heard outside in the evening, but not annoying to your neighbors.
There is no real security. If somebody really wants to hit your place they are going to be able to do it. The key is making them consider another option.
Blogging because I can...
Surely the best thing is a bit of common sense? The post about talking to your neighbours is way the best thing to do. I used to live in an area where no one gave a monkeys about anyone else. Guess what, crime all over the place. Now I live in a "nice" area, where people want to make it better, so there's way less crime. All the talk about guns and stuff is just macho US bollocks. It takes the stance of "I can shoot better/more/quicker than you, therefore I will win". Your attacker thinks the same thing! The best defense is not to have a confrontation at all. The fight you're most likely to win in one you don't have. Being "nice" will most likely save getting shot or injured (draw any Iraq parallels you like on that). Besides that, take all the normal, sensible precautions. Get decent locks, perhaps toughened glass on doors and windows, maybe a house alarm, or internal cameras or whatever. The truth is, people that care around you are going to be far better than any technological solution. The analogy with open source/security is a good one.
" When you're sleeping, those aren't particularly effective. ;-)"
I had a crazy idea while listening to a tutor talk about what he is researching on.
He was talking about 'computer vision'. So basically a computer can look at something using 2 cameras and gauge its distance/etc relative to itself.
So I was thinking.. "Hey, how about if I mount that array onto a gun, and then mount the whole shebang onto a turret?"
That's be so cool!
And better yet, I'll have a small hole in the ground and put the whole turret inside, so that it is protected and only shows up when needed.
Of course, now that it is dormant, we need to wake it up. What then? And I imagined that if we use pressure sensors embedded around the house and in the garden, the coordinating targetting computers can immediately aim the turrets in the right direction so that when it comes out, it is ready to fire.
For added effect, add a million laser pointers. And put like 6 of these on every side of your house.
And there you go, a winner geek's home defense system =)
**If you are really paranoid, you might want to mount SAM/bazooka launchers onto those turrets too! Good for stopping an oppressive govt cold! What can they do? Nuke the whole nation?
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
About 95% of the posts are about guns, and people wanting others to know they have a clue or two about them. intresting..
The camera idea is good only to ID the perp, and is the solution I would suggest if using a gun is not an option for your mother.
I have an old SGI Indy which runs capture upon movement software (securitylite, its free at freeware.sgi.com). When it detects movement it will start to capture and page me via text msg. When I get the page, I can load a page hosted on my G5 which will allow me to view a real time qt stream from its camera. As this is happening, the Indy is sending frames to a remote ftp server (just in case it is stolen). The set up is simular to what I have been using since 1995, I'm sure there are several windows apps which will do the same and more.
it won't prevent anything from happening, but we'll have a better idea who to look for.
I agree completely with your reply. I should have added that owning an SP is a commitment, especially since they need more excercise than, say, the miniature or toy varieties.
.
Speaking of which, I'm going to take mine to the dog park
Proverbs 21:19
I just took the sounds of the weapons from Doom (the original) and set them up to motion and pressure sensors. Playback begins on a trip. Scars the crap outta crooks, and drunks.
Good programmers drink beer to relieve job stress.
Great programmers drink hard liquor and work best hungover.
As previous posters have pointed out, the man did not set out to kill anyone. He just took precautions against future crimes and waited until the armed robber clearly posed a threat to him.
I will never understand people like you, who are bothered by the average person having the right to defend themself when their life is clearly being threatened. Does it make you feel better if only the police can have means to protect anyone? You know, the police can't be everywhere, and they're not going to take responsibility for every crime that they could not prevent. Morally, I don't know how you could say that a person robbing someone else has more rights than the one being robbed. I'm not advocating vigilante justice, far from it. I'm saying that somebody should not be legally required to submit to the whims of armed thugs.
When you're sleeping, those aren't particularly effective. ;-)
But the NRA and CRPA bumper stickers (and the "I'd rather be hunting" license plate frame) on the car in the driveway IS. B-)
In particular, the burglars that were working their way down our street a few years back skipped two houses - the retired cop two doors up (whose son had similar stickers) and ours.
Current neighborhood has a couple gangs trying to move in. They've intimidated witnesses - with both minor and major vandalism - elsewhere on our block. They have NOT done that to OUR place. B-)
Closest they came is when their spokesthug came buy and asked the wife (an NRA-certified fireams / personal-protection instructor B-) who smokes on the front porch and watches neighborhood goings-on) whether she was worried about attacks or breakins. She said, no, she'd just shoot anybody who tried to attack her. But wasn't she worried about her guns being stolen while she was gone? No, because the firesafe weighs too much to steal without special equipment.
Been here over 5 years, no problems so far. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I bought a cheap-ass indash CD player for a cross-country trip. Two months later, my truck was broken into and the radio was stolen (Scottsdale, AZ has one of the highest auto-theft rates in the US.)
... I no longer keep expensive items in my truck. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
I put the old Delco radio back and haven't had any problems since.
Know what's funny?? The stereo cost $150. I had two $300 watches in the console that needed batteries, my checkbook in the glovebox, and $750 worth of golf equipment in the back.
Oh
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
This raises the question:
What happens when you subtract out areas of the USA that have gun control comparable to Europe/Canada? As these areas tend to be the highest crime, I imagine that it would tend to change the statistics if you removed Washington DC, New York, and Chicago.
I don't read AC A human right
My bully uses rotts for squeaky toys.
Only problem I've had is he isn't the smartest dog in the world so I haven't been able to teach him to bury the burglar's remains, keeps leaving the damn things out in the yard. Such a hassle to clean up.
Answer this - if you are so culturally similar, why are there more non-gun murders in the US than there are murders in Canada (murders per capita). I've done significant research on violent crime in the US and no one really knows why the murder rate is so high - but blaming it on guns is grossly oversimplified if not completely wrong.
Get a dog.
The turret is only responsible for rotational aiming, and a servo/pivot thing will flip the weapons towards the ENEMY. Rifle/chaingun/whatever is such that it points skywards when it is parked in the firehole.
Maybe if you make the turret pop up very fast, it can actually look even MORE COOL!
The only thing I'm pondering about is if it rains wouldn't all that gunk get into the barrels of your weapons?
Even better, why not make it a cooperative system. So suppose the ENEMY runs away, wouldn't your system lose him? Not if your computers alert your neighbours and wake theirs up too. You will see the turd run down the walkway with a trail of rockets exploding behind him, just like in Duke Nukem Forever! **Except here the ENEMY is fragged before he knows it =)
You'd obviously want to turn this thing off if your kids come home late though.. otherwise they'd innocently step onto the driveway and *boom*... the neighbourhood turns into a warzone.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
My high school physics teacher had problems every Halloween with kids blowing up his mailbox with fireworks. He finally took a laser home from school, set up some mirrors and ringed his mailbox with laser tripwires. This was hooked up to a freakin' loud alarm. You get the picture.
If you wanted to take it a step further, you could set up strobe lamps and a camera like the intersection ticket boxes. Multiple view angles would help in case the person has their back to the camera. That way, when the police came by you could hand them glossies and a DV tape of the guy.
if this were true, choas would insue. Many times different peoples lives and livelihoods come into conflict...
The number one rule of burglars must be to go for the low-hanging fruit. (Wow, same rule applies to performance tuning...)
I think burglars are smart enough to notice the burglar alarm sensors around the windows. Just the sight of these can make them choose another house instead of yours. I know someone whose neighbors have all been robbed, even during the afternoon with all sorts of people around, but his house has been spared all these years, thanks to the alarm system.
Get an alarm system with the monitoring through a reputable company.
Just get a motion sensor and when it's tripped... have something play the sound of a shotgun being cocked.
Have the sound come from behind them and it will make them shit their pants.
Usually shotguns aren't needed to defend oneself during a home invasion. The sound of the gun being cocked usually gets the invader out.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Your family is just "material goods"?!
So how much for your wife? I've got a decent car I don't need anymore.
for (int i = 0; i < nzones; i++)
// They just entered the zone...
// TODO: Detect co-ordinates of intruder
// and point and turn on machine gun.
{
Zone* z = zones[i];
z->read_sensors();
if (z->is_public_allowed)
continue;
if (!z->detected_movement)
{
z->state = STATE_VACANT;
continue;
}
bool allowed = false;
for (int j = 0; j < z->ndetected_rfids; j++)
if (is_authorised(z, z->detected_rfids[i],
CurrentTime))
{
allowed = true;
break;
}
if (allowed)
continue;
switch (z->state)
{
case STATE_VACANT:
z->speaker->PlayLoop("big_dog_bark.mp3");
&nbs p; z->state = STATE_DOG_PLAY;
z->state_start = CurrentTime;
break;
case STATE_DOG_PLAY:
if (CurrentTime - z->state_start < 20)
continue;
z->speaker->PlayLoop("death_threat.mp3");
&nbs p; z->state = STATE_THREAT_PLAY;
z->state_start = CurrentTime;
break;
case STATE_THREAT_PLAY:
if (CurrentTime - z->state_start < 10)
continue;
}
}
X-Has-Sig: yes
Maybe they shouldn't have ignored the "No Trespassing" signs posted on the property? Where's personal responsibility? Let me guess, you don't own any property, and dwell in a large city.
What would happen if all property goes on the market, and the 2% of people that control 90% of the wealth buy it all?
Market commodities are things that have been transformed into human values through human effort. Why should land be anything but a common property, then? Shouldn't the only private property be the houses and "stuff" put on the land?
That's not how Propertarians see it. If he buys an ocean front house, and a stranger walks across the beach he "owns", he has the "right" to shoot him.
http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com/CopyrightProo f.cfm
This prediction was made in late 2000, when bush just got elected probably.. so either that guy is a genius, or he is telling the truth
"...Civil war in the United States will begin in 2004 or 2005, as the result of increasingly oppressive police state tactics like warrantless searches and other violations of American civil liberties. It will become common for people to have their doors kicked in and homes violently invaded by police looking for evildoers. The Gestapo-style oppression of innocents by an increasingly oppressive and murderous government will be worst in the cities, so many people will seek refuge in the countryside, but police will soon enough seek them out there too. Civil war will emerge as a more or less continuous series of military sieges and confrontations resembling the Ruby Ridge and Waco police massacres of 1992 and 1993, and it will begin by 2004 or perhaps 2005 (it might not be obvious in the beginning what's actually happening). As time goes on the civil war will become more and more a continuous conflict between paranoid government forces headquartered in the cities, against perceived or imagined threats in the rural civilian population. The American government will wage war against its own citizens, winning most of the battles, but the battling will drag on for years. In the nuclear war of 2015 our cities will be primary targets, so the civil war will end then in favor of the rurals when the government and its domestic armies are destroyed. In this way the nuclear war will be regarded by the survivors as a good thing..."
You will need my home defense system detailed above =)
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
As a stereo installer i have put in quite a few alarms. the fact is that no alarm on earth can stop someone from breaking into your vehicle. if someone wants to throw a rock through the side window and run, they can. no alarm will stop that. But, there are things that you can do to make your vehicle less of a target. use a sunvisor on your windshield when you arent going to be using it and have the front roll ups tinted. this way these thugs cant easily see if there is anything of value in the car. on that note, leave any items of any value out of sight, even change in the ashtray or just close it. to a desperate person who hasnt eaten in days, the glass in your car isnt even an obstacle. people break into cars for the change on the seat. the glass didnt cost them anything. maybe add a perimeter sensor (radar)to the alarm. most can be added easily to existing alarms. this way if the thug is browsing or window shopping, the perimeter sensor will at least warn you before they have broken in while they are looking to see if you have anything of value. have the security light stay on all the time. given two vehicles one under constant light, and another only when a motion sensor has turned it on, the thugs go for the safer or easier car. thugs hate light. if there are some good vehicles to break into and your vehicle is obvious about the alarm, they may choose to hit yours last, once an alarm sound in a quiet neighborhood, thats it, thats the last car they can hit until the heat cools off. also, look into larger, industrial sirens for the car alarm. these are typically used for homes and business and with a dedicated installer, can be shoehorned under the hood, so that when your alarm goes off. you know that its YOUR alarm, and it wont just be you waking up to it, every neighbor is going to be roused and maybe someone just might get a glimpse or a liscense plate or the type of car they drive. they usually work in small teams. you have to make it as unattractive a target as possible. at least she may be able to call the pigs when it happens instead of later in the day when she notices it.
now, be do have our fair share of murders and stuff (Approx. 60 murders in a population of 4,5 million) but remarably few of them are done with guns. On the other hand, we hav A LOT of MP3s (sub machine gun, full auto), AG3s (Assault rifle, full auto) and Glocks in private homes due to the national guard. But I have never, ever heard of a case where someone has picked up thir rifle to scare the thief away. There are several reasons: If the thief is armed, there's a chance he'll assult you and not run awa since he thinks attack is the best defense. You might end up killing an unarmed person, that is murder unless you were defending yourseld. (note to texans: shooting a garden gnome thief in the back is not self defence). If you detect the thief, the odds of hum bolting away is a lot greater than him attacking you, since it will make him face potentially more problems.
you sleep at night? humm... well if you do how about lights and/or tvs on timers to make robbers think you are awake. make sure they are are random so some one can't case that place. cams are also a good thing if you want to take pic of who took your crap but I would talk to the police and find out if they recommend anything and what kinda rez they would need to get a match on a photo. my 2cents. -MIKE
In most US states if someone breaks into your home and you kill them, you can't really be held liable. By getting a garage, if someone should break into your car (assuming it's in said garage), you can safely kill them!
Now, how you get your garage home, is an exercise left for the reader.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
This is and endless debate, and I should probably know better than to try and change someone's mind, but here goes anyway.
Someone breaks into your house. He is armed, you are not. You lose some valuables.
Someone breaks into your house. You are armed, he is armed. You lose nothing, he loses his life.
Now tell me which is the greater evil.
something like http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?prid=6 50&scid=38
motion detector built in, emails on its own, snapshots or live video feed direct to your pc to record activity. I recall an outdoor version, but don't have the link anymore.
Thanks!
a miner can legaly use any means to defend a mineral clame, according to the staff at one of the nearby tourest attraction/mining locations.
Simon's Rock College
-1 armchair lawyer
Get the fuck out of here you tree hugging hippie!
Okay okay okay, too many comments about guns.
. html
Guns are not a reasonable solution for Yo Maing's problem. He/she specifically says "not looking for something that would get someone injured." Guns injure people. Besides, buying a gun and getting proper training just is not an interesting solution to the problem.
If you really want to do a security system on the cheap look into fish alarms like http://www.outdoorsweekly.com/ultrashackfishalarm
If you have one of those, you can set up a tripwire fence of barely visible fishing line around a piece of property so that when somebody or something trips it, a loud alarm goes off with flashing lights. You'll want to go with a non-nylon fishing line though because nylon stretches too much. My dad has used this system while camping in Alaska to ward off grizzlys and he's still alive too!
If $20 is still too much, you can make your own trip-wire circuit: http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/alarm1.htm
++ Eschew Obfuscation ++
This is like the two guys from the nature film crew, one cameraman and one soundman, filming the lions... one of the lions gets all menacing and starts to make a run towards them...
The sound guy kneels down and starts taking of his boots, the camera guy starts laughing and says "you won't outrun a lion like that."
The sound guy says "I'm not trying to, I'm only going to outrun you."
OK, same principle applies, and I'm being 100% serious here.
You do NOT need to make yourself 100% impregnable, you only need to make sure you aren't the most attractive to the thieves etc
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
1) 24-hour security guard. Make sure to provide coffee and a GameBoy lest this guard fall asleep on the job.
2) Take the radio out of the car and put a sign on the car window that says "no radio in car".
3) Get insurance and STFU. Seriously.
If your mom lives in a neighborhood that's so bad that people will walk up and break into a car that has an alarm and a security light just to see if something interesting might be inside, then there's not much you can do to stop them with force, short of a locking garage or a grumpy ape on a chain in the front yard.
Maybe you should make the car look like less of a valuable target. If you're worried about the windows being smashed, leave the doors unlocked (and maybe the windows rolled down a bit) but buy a Club and/or LoJack so that there's no damage done while the attacker figures out that this car is a P.O.S. that's not easy to steal.
Not those little Canadian geese, the ones with the three foot long necks (I can't remember what they're called. Damnit. Someone help me out here). I have a friend who lives in a... bad area, and trust me, NOONE messes with their three geese. Those suckers will A) Wake up the entire neighborhood B) Rip off a finger C) Crap on your shoe and D) Go for the gonads, all within ten seconds. They're kind of messy, but trust me, nobody is messing with them.
How about...
Someone breaks into your house. He is armed, you are not. You get killed, your wife/husband gets killed, you lose some valuables.
Someone breaks into your house. You are armed, he is armed. You lose nothing, he loses his life.
This is the scenario you need to be looking at. If someone comes in with a gun, they are more than willing to kill. They're not thinking, "Oh, I better defend myself."
If they really wanted not to have a confrontation with you, they would wait until you weren't home to break into your house.
The reason I know because this was the scenario where I used to live. My family has known two different families robbed and someone (in the family) killed or wounded, and one family who had a gun and chased the robbers off.
I do like the idea of the previous poster who talked about a rifle. Also, more imposing, more likely for the robber to GTFO when s/he sees that pointed at them.
Get a border collie!
They're big enough that they will make an intruder think twice, and they're smart enough that you can teach them to do some pretty amazing things - and sometimes you don't even *have* to teach them.
Then I looked down and saw he was coiled up front under the steering wheel just daring anyone to try and get in the car.
I went to the store one day, and left my border collie in the car.. while I'm in there, I hear someone honking their car horn - LOTS.. when I come out, there's some teenagers looking warily at my car, and my border collie inside, sitting in the driver's seat, hitting the horn whenever one got too close.
The kids weren't up to anything, but it kept them away.
Seriously, get a border collie - they're a lot of work (you have to take them running every day) but they're the best all-around dogs there are.
Make the punks in her neighborhood an offer they cannot refuse.
I would recommend video surveillance. It is very cost effective to do these days and you can even get digital recorders for added convenience and automation. Remote access and off site storage of video isn't even that hard or expensive either. I've constructed systems under $700.
Browse the Information Directory
You must live in Belgium.
If you won't defend yourself, how dare you expect other people to defend you?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
In Maryland, its in threat to person, or inside your house.
Mod point free since 2001
As much as I hate to admit it, booby traps are illegal, and for good reasons. As the article stated, firefighters or other emergency personnel who may have had a legitimate reason to enter the premises would have been at risk too. I do think that the judge's conduct was outrageous and I hope some sort of sanctions can be brought against him. People who go out of their way to stand up for the rights of criminals against their victims in cases like this are scum.
From GA Code 16-3-21:
(a) A person is justified in threatening or using force against another when and to the extent that he or she reasonably believes that such threat or force is necessary to defend himself or herself or a third person against such others imminent use of unlawful force; however, except as provided in Code Section 16-3-23, a person is justified in using force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury to himself or herself or a third person or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
---
Obviously, preventing death and great bodily injury doesn't include the protection of property, so we should at what a "forcible felony" is instead, so here we go!
---
Forcible Felony is defined in GA Code 16-11-131 subsection (e):
(e) As used in this Code section, the term 'forcible felony' means any felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any person and further includes, without limitation, murder; felony murder; burglary; robbery; armed robbery; kidnapping; hijacking of an aircraft or motor vehicle; aggravated stalking; rape; aggravated child molestation; aggravated sexual battery; arson in the first degree; the manufacturing, transporting, distribution, or possession of explosives with intent to kill, injure, or intimidate individuals or destroy a public building; terroristic threats; or acts of treason or insurrection.
---
A "forcible felony", as described in the Chapter 11 of Title 16, includes burglary, robbery, armed robbery, arson, threat of use of explosives, and hijacking of vehicles. So if you are present, then deadly force may be applied in those situations.
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
The first situation is the greater evil. He intended to harm me, and I was unable to prevent him.
In the second case, he intended to harm me, and I prevented him from doing so. I am completely within my rights. It's not like I went to HIS house in the middle of the night and threatened HIM...
Don't want to get shot? Don't break into my house.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
And $50 of damage constitutes a reason in the eyes of Texan law to fatally shoot a thirteen year old girl.
Fuck that. Fuck Texas, and everyone who's ever voted there.
I've always wondered how well those little self-contained motion sensor alarms you can find at Home Depot or Walmart would fair as an extremely budget car alarm, or at very least the foundation for one. They're not more then $30 in most places I've seen and I imagine you could hook a lot of stuff into it. About the only serious problem you would have would be disarming, though most are timer activated, so that wouldn't be too much of an issue; Just feed in the code before 30 seconds expire. If sensing movement outside the car is a problem, I imagine you could place it so it's detection radius is limited.
The creative geek could link so much into this small, cheap, portable package it's not even funny.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Someone breaks into your house. You are armed, he is armed. You lose nothing, he loses his life. Now tell me which is the greater evil.
It's a no brainer. The asshole who CHOSE to break into my house, knowing that I was home, clearly intended to harm me. My only choice was to kill him. Or, if it would make you feel better, I could give his family my stereo as a consolation prize. What you're ignoring here is the element of personal choice. The criminal chose to target me. I did not choose to be robbed. That is what makes the difference as to which is the greater evil.
I've got 12...
>American's are so funny. They haven't a clue how fucked up they are.
Well BB, I guess once a douche, always a douche... You just seem to get more douschey with time...
"It seems that we are at the age where life stops giving us things, and starts taking them away..." Indiana Jones
Why don't we just implement canings like in Singapore in addition to the regular punishments and fines? Nothing teaches people to respect authority like a giant wet bamboo pole across the back. I'm sure Michael Fay isn't ever going back there, and if he does, I'm sure he wouldn't be dumb enough to break the law again. They say there is no teacher like pain and in a lot of cases, this seems quite true. Yes, it sounds like cruel and unusual punishment, but maybe we should just think of it as a spanking for grown-ups. =) When in doubt, CANE!
Just confront an intruder once and there's one less intruder in the world.
No, I'm not kidding.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
Are you willing to bet your life on the goodwill of someone who has demonstrated that they have no goodwill towards you by breaking into your home?
Did you think about it before you posted that? Have you thought about the possibility before you concluded "which is the greater evil?"
I have. I will not leave to chance the disposition of someone who enters my home uninvited. It would be a failure of my responsibility to myself and my family if I did not exercise the means to eliminate a threat to them within my own home.
Where will those statistics be when that person is standing in the door of your bedroom at night?
Bill
Hmmm.
You could've hired me.
However, these able-bodied societal leeches that suck down money from those of us that are middle class can rot AFAIC. Lock them up and throw away the key.
You do know how expensive it is to imprison people, right? Especially since we have to make room for a hojillion non-violent weed smokers, and thus build new prisons?
It's cheaper to educate and train someone than it is to imprison them. But both cost money, both are social spending. It's just that the latter option doesn't even pretend to have a positive effect; it just tried to prevent future harm.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
n/t
and understand the criminal's need to victimize others. Sheesh, no wonder you posted AC. Dealing with conditions that lead to crime is a good thing, but it is not terribly relevant at the instant you are faced with an attack. Studies have repeatedly shown that people that resist are less likely to be injured than those that meekly submit. If you want cites, do your own homework; it's trivial nowadays. Search for Kleck, an anti-firearm ownership researcher that changed his views after gathering and analyzing the evidence.
I support the Salvation Army, other homeless shelters and food pantries, but that doesn't mean I'll choose to roll over the next time someone tries to break into my house.
My wife was burglarized while I was on an unaccompanied tour in Korea. A month later she heard someone trying to pry a window open about 2 AM. She chambered a round in her handgun and said she'd shoot if he(presumably) came through the window. She heard someone drop to the ground and run, and never had another problem. I too have used a firearm to defend myself. I didn't have to fire, but it helped convince two punks to leave me be.
You may choose to be victimized if you wish. Don't project your sheephood onto others, however.
Bother, said Pooh, as he called in an air strike.
Or he could be a frenchie. . .they don't believe in hurting people who try to take their property. Twice in the 20th century the US had to step up to the plate and kick german ass because they wanted french property. The ultimate answer to the removal of property has always been and will always be death. As sad as it may appear.
Phil
Why not deploy a booby trap or sentry gun that coats the intruder's legs with an expanding, air-hardening foam, and sprays phosphorescent mace into the eyes at the same time? Shouldn't be that hard with some DSP in your control circuits.
Guns. After my grandfather died, burglars broke in to the empty house, stole all the lovely guns (some of which I should have inherited). Fortunately, the clueless bozos wrapped them in a cheap rug, instead of the dozen-thousand-dollar antique.
Dogs. My aunt had a dog, very barky, too (at least he barked at me). She was burgled, too. Unless you like dogs, and like walking them, this seems like a poor idea. (Consider what else you could be doing with the dog whenever you are walking it.)
Jaguars. A neighbor of a friend kept one, told his girlfriend to feed it while he was on vacation, she skipped a few days, the cat almost took her head off before it was shot. (Guns ARE good for animal pests.)
Motion sensors are good. It might be interesting to use a black light, instead of a regular one, so that any people (usually wearing detergent-brightened clothes) will glow in the dark.
There's a sprinkler that is supposed to repel pests -- it detects motion, orients, and squirts some water in the direction of the motion. Might work on people, too; at least, it would get their attention.
Cameras are good; a hidden camera is good for keeping a record, but if there was an obvious lens-looking thing with a blinking red LED where someone was sure to see it, all the better. The obvious "camera" should trigger a loud alarm if someone messes with it.
We had a cat once, that like nothing better than to surprise you in the yard, in the dark, by climbing up your leg fast like it was a tree. Get a cat like that.
It's a shame that you cannot train a skunk. Certain parts of the world, a plastic snake on a string, plus a rattling noise, would do the job nicely.
I think "the guy" would be more intent on coming back and killing you for shooting a gun at him, whether you hit him or not.
...to the motion sensors??
:)
It would be effective and have serious "Aliens Special Edition" cool factor.
I recommend a LED counter for rounds that gets to zero when there are still a few thousand rounds left... so they only *think* its safe
>Someone breaks into your house. He is armed, you are not. You lose some valuables.
Someone breaks into your house. You are armed, he is armed. You lose nothing, he loses his life.
Now tell me which is the greater evil.
The greater evil is in being naieve enough that you think they will just take your stuff, and let you be in peace. Make it more realistic...
Some coked up armed criminal breaks into your house. Your wife gets raped, you get shot or stabbed, and your tow year old gets to witness it all when he wanders in because the ruckus woke him up.
Oh, I almost forgot... AND YOU LOOSE YOUR STUFF.
STUFF is replaceable. My family is not. You want my stuff that badly, then by all means take it. It is easy to get more. You threaten my family, then the gloves come off, and we throw down.
If they want stuff, they can easily watch to see when no one is home and come in to get the stuff. If they come when someone is home, they are either looking for more than stuff, high on something and not in a very stable state of mind, stupid or desperate. I do not want to meet a criminal in any of these conditions unable to DEFEND MY FAMILY.
"It seems that we are at the age where life stops giving us things, and starts taking them away..." Indiana Jones
I take issue with shooting to injure, though. If at all possible to disable without taking life, one should try.
Rule is "shoot to stop the attack". Once the attack stops you have to stop shooting. (Again: In most jurisdictions.)
Humans are very tough. Stopping an attack in progress will do serious damage. Can't be helped.
Aiming "to disable" is VERY HARD. Doing it when you're actually being attacked, and SUCCEEDING in hitting what you're aiming at, is virtually impossible. The "stop" targets are large and move almost in a straight line. The "disable" targets are small and rapidly moving in varying directions. You'll miss. Count on it. And if you miss you are very likely to be injured or killed, IF the guy was really attacking. So it's not someting you attempt when you're being attacked and really ARE in fear of life-or-limb. That's why shooting to disable is, in many places, considered evidence that the shoot was premeditated assault rather than self-defense.
"If you had the leisure and presence of mind to aim to disable, why were you shooting at all?" Shoot to disable and you'd better have a good answer for that question when it's asked, first by the police, then by the prosecuting attorney.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Buy a sign that says, "This is a gun-free home."
Then stick it right on your front door. Yeah, I'm sure the criminals will skip over your house then.
"Anyone have a holographic Yeti generator to scare away intruders? :)"
After years of attempting to develop a portable Holographic Yeti Generator (HYG), after all its no good to leave your HYG active when you move from one home to the next as frequently the new owners are somewhat... disturbed by the presence of virtual yeti.
So after contacting numerous Sherpa and after a few visits to Nepal I've learned that Holographic Yeti are no substitute for the real thing. While by no means being 'portable' in the strictest sense of the word a large station wagon to strap him to the top of works quite well.
What the parent poster is implying is that owning a gun is less important than it is for the criminal to think you do.
;-)
Therefore, I would suggest doing as follows:
Get a nice NRA bumpersticker and a Beware of Dog sign. Note you don't actually need to have a gun or a dog to make this effective... If you put the bumper stickers on your cars and the sign on your window, it might help a bit.
As a bit of a joke, she could get a toy poodle
I have used similar techniques when required to protect my environments. For example, once I had to go away for two weeks and was unable to lock my door in an area where breakins occur sometimes (though relatively infrequently).
I moved the computers to the back room and covered them, and placed a desk right across from the door. On the desk I placed such books as "The Satanic Witch" by Anton LeVey and an open printout of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" in the original Middle English open to a random page (assuming that a burgler wasn;t likely to recognize it, and to add to the air of scary ritual, etc). I also placed a clay chalace with a bit of dried dark liquid in the bottom and some other sinister-looking stuff.
It was a lot of fun. For better or worse, nothing came of it.... The idea was to make anyone who entered the apartment feel uneasy and encourage them to leave as fast as possible without taking anything. It should be noted that breakins in that area were usually drug-related (as in involving drug use just prior to the breakin) and such people might steal stuff, but did not generally steal valuables. For example, I knew of someone whose toothbrush was stolen....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
You hit the issue right on the money. Risk. And this is the major consideration in wether or not your area requires the use of lethal force. If children are educated from the time they are youngsters about the dangers of a firearm rather than just trying to keep them safely ignorant about this powerful weapon. There is a far lower chance they will play around with them. And in case they do decide they want to play with the firearm, that is why all firearms should be locked in a physical safe/enclosure. Those palm combination handgun safes work wonders, they are easily and quickly accessable when needed, plus provide a layer of physical security from the youngins. Givin that 35 gang members rushing your abode is not a very likely occurance, it is always possible a group of a few people could be targeting homes in an area, and IF they do decide to break into your home, I highly doubt that they will only be carrying a can of spray in case they encounter any resistance.... most likly the intruder(s) will have a firearm or a knife, both of which in a hallway would do more damage to you than your spray would to them.
Man, IT really has fallen in the shitter. We got the smartest people on earth talking about gangs in their neighborhoods....
Get a good job at a high tech company and be able to afford to move out of shithole neighborhoods like the one where your mom lives.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Six-foot fence. Three big dogs. Locked doors. And, yes guns. Residents who can shoot straight. No problems for seven years. MAKE your place (and you) be the least likely target(s). Nothing is 100% effective. Just like a condom. It doesn't always work, but it's much better than nothing. (Unless you want the baby and/or disease...)
Here are some suggestions that don't involve firearms.
1.) Locks. If you are like most of the US there is a Kwikset key in knob lock, and maby a deadbolt on your doors. These locks are equivalent to the old style Windows log on screens. You know, the ones that you could bypass with just the Esc key. Look into a Grade 2 or 1 knob or lever lock, and definately a grade 1 deadbolt for all of your exterior doors. Here is where you can actually let your inner geek play in the lock shop. You can get a wide variety of locks with really impressive mechanisms, mostly for pick resistance (this should not concern you as much as lock manufacturers claim, picking requires an incredible amount of skill and time, your average burglar will not possess this, or be willing to spend that much time crouched infront of your door.) and for security against key duplication. Abloy uses rotating discs, Medeco uses pins that need to be placed at the correct hight (like a standard pin tumbler lock) and a correct rotation and tilt. Mul-t-lock incorporates pin in pin construction, MIWA uses magnets.... there are a great many interesting options.
Besides just installing the locks, you should look into a Door wrap, a reinforced strike, and of course make sure your door frame is quite sound. Hollow core doors? Get rid of them.
Ground floor windows? There are many films that can be applied to the window, to make smashing a window a much more difficult task. Single pane windows, for example ones that open say into your basement, can be replaced with lexan.
Trim shrubs and trees so as to make your house visible from the road. Don't allow valuable, easily portable objects to be easily visible through windows. Ask the neighbors to form a simple Neighborhood watch program. If one house in the neighborhood was robbed, expect more to be... Another good, and often free service, is to ask your local police to perform a quick security survey of the property. You may also want to ask a locksmith what he/she thinks.
Dig a moat around your mom's property and fill it with salt water and put sharks in it with freaking laser beams strapped to their heads! Be sure to put up plenty of warning signs and drawbridge over the drive way.
"Warning Freaking Hungry Sharks with Laser Beams"
"Do not stare into laser beams"
"Do not pet the sharks"
"Do not feed the sharks"
"Do not taunt the sharks"
Seriously, get some cheap web cams and set them up around the house and out the window. Find some cheap IR motion detectors and have them take photos. Either put the pictures on memory cards individually per cameras or look for a more expensive security solution with better cameras, night vision, and a DVR like storage device. Put up a sign at the end of the driveway and near the doors that says premises under surveillance.
Get a medium to large dog. Try a hound dog they are a bit lethargic and can sit around sleeping most of the time but when an intruder comes by they bark and howl nicely. Most hound dogs are good hunters and excellent guard dogs. They are friendly and not hyper they have short hair (most breeds). Most hound dogs are really very protective of their territory and their masters. Coon hounds although not an official kennel club breed are strong and smart. They can be about the size of a German shepherd or a bit smaller. They've been bred to hunt raccoons and black bears. They are really quite tough animals.
Don't own anything worth stealing.
I agree with you, but if they are at your bedroom door, it is a little late.
*elevator music plays*
Motion detectors are nice, but instead of using lights (or concealed cameras) try a flash gun, or an 'in your face, bright I'm recording you blinking LED' on a video camera. Let them know that you have their picture.
A flash gun will scare the crap out of them and ruin their night vision, and is more likely to get your neighbours attention than a motion detector lights (every one has lights right).
Also sound effects by motion detector or security alarm like "Get him Cujo - Bark Bark" would challange the will of even the most hardened theif. Or maybe the sound of a police siren might so it. Or even just a dogs growl.
If all else fails, get a moat with crocodiles! (or sharks with frikin lasers on their heads).
An electric cow fence will do well as a non lethal perimeter defence system.
Oh well, what the hell...
Switzerland: Every citizen between 18 and 40 is required to have a gun in their house. Gun deaths are near nil.
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
Having read articles (I might even have one handy) about police who've emptied 9mm handgun clips into bad guys, only to be taken out with a single shot from a .22 pistol (the bad guy later bled out and died, but his blood pressure was high enough for him to return fire for at least 30 seconds), near-lethal force means you drop your attacker and hope he lives. If he's on his feet coming at you, you're still defending yourself.
Those same articles reccommend shooting for the pelvis instead of the chest. Still a wide target, but if you break the pelvic bone, your attacker's body will not support their weight and they will fall. A man with a lethal wound to the chest is not necessarily going to stop coming at you until he bleeds out.
Synergy is your friend
It's best to leave your doors and windows open. That way poeple will assume that you've just popped out to the shops and could be back at any moment.
Yes I am from a different world.....:-)
Previous posters have pointed out the poverty divide in America....exactly the same thing applies to foreign policy as well. A lot of voters are too stupid to see this. Those in power are rich and evil.
Any dog will intimidate a criminal. They tend to associate a dog as an attack dog. There is a stat floating around claiming that most people who end up in prison never had a dog.
It makes sense, since dog ownership usually implies home ownership and stability... something absent from the typical criminal's childhood. On the flipside, most felons have spent more time with a gun in their hands than your mother or the average geek -- it's always best to choose to fight where you have the advantage.
As poster stated, his mom had motion sensor light and an alarm that she didn't hear... small dogs tend to make the biggest fuss over intruders, particularily small males. Combine a male chihuihui with a voice activated lite and you could easily spook a dilligent thief into believing somebody has noticed them even if no one is home.
As far as attack dogs, the unusually quiet lhasa is the most feared among meter readers because they tend to sneak up on intruders and bite them like a pirranah.
I would never have a dog that was a fighter or would bite someone... It's like having a loaded gun lying around a day care. Better just to keep them out of your house.. blood is so hard to clean out of the carpet.
I prefer a large female dog for my protection dog. Large females are territorial and tend to stay home. My dog is a black/brown husky with one blue eye.
She would not bite anyone unless they were violent, but she is scarry when she wants to be and will run bears out of the yard. When I walk her down the street, people tend to cross the street to aviod her.
I agree with you. It's also why I prefer a shotgun. I just figured that someone was going to trot out the "a rifle is more accurate and easier to maim with, not kill" argument, and not dispute that, up front. "Easier", of course, is a relative term, and does not address the overall difficulty.
You could've hired me.
There is a case on record of a criminal continuing to advance despite warning shots fired from a full auto!
F*** you and your high powered rifle!
I don't read AC A human right
A desert of shit and dead grass might help keep the criminals away. I say skip the geese all together and just start going to the bathroom in the yard. For added effect, you could strip naked except for some suspenders and a bowtie while doing so. Scream obscenities and wave a cow head on a stick. I think you could obtain the head by slipping $20 to the right guy at the slaughterhouse. What country are you in? If you have poisonous snakes around, these could be stapled to the cow's ears. That way it would be a weapon as well. No one would come near your house. Trust me.
-
And even if you had a firearm AND was trained AND noticed the crime? You confront the burglar and hope he/she runs away? If they are armed as well - and in the US, that's a pretty small if - they might just turn on his mom. And since burglars have almost always less to loose, they are much more likely to fire first. And "win". You are probably better off screaming for help, since that will deter most thieves just great.
I don't think you're seeing how this plays out. It's not like "High Noon." If you have a gun in your hand and you see them with a clear shot, you fire before they see you. If you can't do that, don't pick up the gun, and make a different plan (like evacuation). But any self defense class will tell you you don't go up and challenge them to a duel. And screaming might not work well - you're not going to be audible outside your house, and you've just announced your location to a thief. Really dumb idea.
The problem with you americans is that you only can see violent ways out of every situation. Hasn't your president learned you anything? Violence begets violence.
Not saying I disagree with you on this with regard to Iraq, but overapplying that sentiment isn't a good idea. They said that in 1938-1941 here too. There is a time and a place for violence, and when you're being attacked or invaded, I think that may be an appropriate time. Do recall that the only reason you're not speaking German natively (assuming you aren't German) is thanks to the violent tendencies of Americans and our willingness to volunteer ourself for causes that don't necessarily have an immediate, homeland impact for us. I don't think the passiveness that pervades Europe these days is a 100% good thing. I don't see a problem with appropriate self defense, something France didn't even practice in WW II. Appeasement has to stop somewhere.
And no, I don't own a gun, in case that matters.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I'm a big fan of the sonic barrage.
Basic theory is, threshold of pain is about 120dB, so make your alarm louder.
There are certain limits you have to meet due to noise pollution laws, but by being creative with the number and position of audio transducers in and around your vehicle (the important ones being in the vehicle), you can make the sound painfully loud when someone sticks their head in your car, and still keep to legal limits on noise pollution outside the vehicle.
Hopefully the thief (because that's what they are by the time their head is inside your vehicle) will withdraw from the vehicle before they go deaf, otherwise you could be charged with malicious damage or assault.
Of course, if you don't have the money for a security system, you could just not leave valuables in the car, and trade the vehicle in for one that's not attractive to joyriders and spare parts dealers. I often leave the glove box and cigarette trays open just to show people that there's nothing in there worth taking. The tinted windows don't help though, and I've had a number of breakins because they thought there might be something worth taking.
Wish I hadn't just used up the last of my mod points. Possesions being more important than a human life is considered flamebait? While I think he could have phrased the bit about American's a little better, the fact that he was so quickly modded down somewhat validates his point.
Simple question:
Why do you think the robbers were armed?
Could it be because they set out to kill someone if necessary, so they could commit their crime? Seems to me, anyone should have a right to defend their life when it is threatened.
Anti-gun activists in Louisiana brayed that the streets would run red with blood if such a law were passed, and the law was passed, and, of course, blood hasn't run down the streets...
;-)
No, it's just running down the walls and the curtains and...
Seriously, I think the idea that they even had to pass a law saying you could defend yourself is pretty stupid.
I live in the city of Chicago where it's illegal to own a gun. Curiously enough, this didn't stop 2 different people from getting shot in my neighborhood within the last month.
What would be nice is if you could just trap the little buggers automatically without you even having to wake up - next morning you just call the cops and have them picked up. Of course if you happened to be away for a couple of weeks it would be too bad that they starved to death..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Uhh. I've been playing Tribes too much.
Get a dog.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Woohoo: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/12/gun.ban.ap/index. html
Oh well, what the hell...
I have sensor lights in the driveway but the crims just use them to see whats in your car they dont care because its 4am in the morning. What they dont know is my lights are for my 620line hi-res camera using supervision cam motion dection software HA just the other day I gave the police a nice color photo of a thief that was down my driveway. I can tell you they were most impressed! -Revenge tru Technologly
So now we have 'home defense.' That topic would seem to have a pretty tenuous relationship to the original and basic purpose of this site...this entire issue seems 'off-topic' to me. If those interested in 'home defense' issues and discussions there are far better forums and sites than slashdot to find information and to debate and discuss these issues. What's next? Users posting questions like "I live in [insert State of USA here] and I'm thinking of refinancing my home. Does anyone have any information about reliable lending sources and Real Estate agents?". Acceptance of items like this dilute the worth and purpose of the site.
I agree with the other people here, in that you really should buy a gun of some kind. Learn how to use it and practice at a firing range frequently.
As far as warning shots got, I've got a story about that. There's a farmer who lives just outside of my town (I know him) and he has two identical shotguns. He keeps one in a gun case in his house and the other under the cusions of his couch. If someone starts messing with his livestock or anything he takes the one from under the couch and fires it in the air. When the police show up about a discharge firearm he directs them to his shotgun in the gun case, which is of course not loaded and has not been fired. I'm not sure if the police actually know he has the other one, he may not have it legally. His strategy works though. He used to get vandalized a lot and have people tip his cows all the time. Now, no one ever goes out there.
What's always come to mind is that were I in possession of a firearm in a situation in which I was being threatened, I could easily fire the weapon with no intent to kill. Aim for shoulders, arms, or legs. Small target? Miss your mark? Fire again. Immobilize the aggressor. Yes, they could bleed to death, but is it really inconceivable to use a firearm in a nonlethal/non-deadly manner?
You know, I used to think that the high rate of gun ownership in the US was largely responsible for the incredibly high rate of murders, higher by far than any other similarly wealthy nation, and that effective gun control could reduce this tragedy.
But the above poster and other commenters are saying, it's better to kill someone than let them steal.
So the NRA and their followers are right: gun control will do little to help. Because it is clear that the reason the US has such a high murder rate, is that it is populated to a large degree by sociopaths.
Q. What's a Shih Tzu?
A. One that hasn't got any penguins!
Linda Smith, BBC Radio 4.
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...
Most people do not want to harm others, even if they are in harms way.
What's always come to mind is that were I in possession of a firearm in a situation in which I was being threatened, I could easily fire the weapon with no intent to kill.
This gets you on the wrong side of the law in many jurisdictions and it isn't so "easy". You probably won't get a second chance.
I agree that a non-lethal shot is preferable, from a moral perspective, but the situations in which this is legal, and more prudent, are extremely rare.
You could've hired me.
Guns are problematic. First, there's the obvious safety issue of having a gun in the house. Second, there's the fact that if you miss (or even if you don't), you could toss a bullet through a wall and kill your kid sleeping in the next room or the neighbor down the block.
Thats why you should buy hollowpoint ammo for a handgun -- much less likely to travel through things such as walls and people.
Though personally I would prefer a pump action shotgun for home defense. Not that you would even have to fire it in most cases -- I would think the trademark noise that it makes when loading one would be enough to scare most intruders away. And god forbid you actually have to use it -- you're much more likely to hit your target with a scatter gun than with a 9mm.
subject SAYS "NT"!
Interestingly, if you shoot them and kill them, you're within your rights (assuming of course your life was in danger and that it's fairly evident), but can be sued if you handicap them as a result (i.e. shoot them in the shin). No citations, I just heard this from a local cop.
If the person is going to shoot you, a warning shot is only going to give them more time to do it while you reload or re-aim your gun. If you're ballsy enough to have a gun at all, you better be prepared to use it because 99% of the time it's going to make the situation so tense that if you don't you will be killed.
All that aside, if you were ever forced with a home intruder there are a million ways to get out of the situation unharmed. No one really wants to shoot you no matter how crazy they are. Given the smallest choice, they'll choose NOT to. Shout, run away, quietly call 911, they 're all effective.
Personally, I think it's completely asinine to put such value in your personal possessions that you'd want a gun around to protect them. If you're so concerned, install a security camera and get the intruder on video. It'll be short trial.
Better yet, you can mount some ninjas in those turrets.
THAT would be cool.
we hav A LOT of MP3s (sub machine gun, full auto), AG3s (Assault rifle, full auto) and Glocks in private homes due to the national guard
I assume you mean mp5 not mp3 there, i've never considered using loud music to effectively scare away burgulars myself.
There have been many cases were some one has driven off attackers by brandishing a weapon but not using only to have the the attackers come back and beat or kill the homeowner.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Now plese post your address so we can come and peruse your possessions.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I find your attitude offensive. There are so many honest people in the world who have had desperate circumstances, unequal wealth, and bad situations - and who were good honest and even productive inspite of it all. In fact, the history if the United States is made of such people. You really slap these people in the face when you suggest that "well all we need is the right circumstances"
The best way of all to stop crime it to show people that they are destined by choices and not curcumstances. The second best way is to set a good example.
Taking money from one set of people just because they have more - is a great way to teach people why it's ok to steal and take things - just because you percieve you need it more than they do. Making social programs that center arround circumstance is a great way to teach people that it's not about their choices but their situations. It would seem to me that all of those would have the exact opposite effect as intended.
Not to mention that history has shown that the only effective way to reduce poverty and bad situations is to increase freedoms - especially economic freedoms, a progreesive tax does just the opposite. It's like that saying - if you can shit on one wealthy man - then you can shit on 10000 poor men.
Same idea as the guy with the ninja sword but a bit less time consuming.
Get some paper targets and shoot them, the people shaped ones work best. Get some that were shot up close so it looks like you can hit something. Noone will know the difference. Put the target on the outside of a door. This should be a good psychological deterrent for most people who would like to take your property.
If you don't own or don't want to own a gun you should be able to get used targets from someone you know or punch holes in one with a pencil, looks about the same.
I'd hire Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson to greet you unwelcome guests.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
, I could easily fire the weapon with no intent to kill.
Yes. That's what you're supposed to do. You shoot to stop a threat, not to kill.
Aim for shoulders, arms, or legs
Dear Lord, no, that's an absolutely horrible idea, and even if it works you just increased your likelihood of going to jail by quite a lot.
A handgun is not a weapon generally capable of precision fire in stressful situations. When you train to use a gun, you learn to aim at the target's center of mass, because this maximizes your chances of hitting at all. That 'aim for his leg' bullshit is exactly the sort of 'Hollywood portrayal that doesn't happen in real life' that you're griping about.
If you shoot that guy in the leg, then when you end up on the stand, the prosecutor is going to ask you why you shot him in the leg. It will be pointed out that if you honestly felt your life was in danger, you wouldn't have shot him in the leg, and that the fact that you did is evidence you weren't acting in legitimate self defense.
Bad, bad, horrible, awful, Hollywood-influenced idea. If you happen to own a gun, please go out and take a real self-defense course, instead of repeating what you see in movies.
Clearly someone who has not watched Kill Bill. :-)
You could've hired me.
I live in Baltimore city in a _very_ high crime neighborhood (albeit one that is rapidly gentrifying ). My neighhors and I have encountered all kinds of criminal activity.
Some suburban blowhards will say to get a gun first, but there are a number of things you can do that are more effective than having a gun. Simple preventative measures will go much farther than a loaded gun in the closet. If you have to have a gun, fine, but do the things below FIRST:
1) Keep an eye on things. Call the cops whenever something remotely suspicious is happening. Don't hesitate to call 911. The system can handle a tremendous number of calls and they know how to prioritize. Even if the police don't respond to the call, it is logged and stats are collected. In most urban areas, 911 call stats are used to allocate police resources. When calling 911 be accurate, specific and unemotional.
2) Don't leave _ANYTHING_ in your car and use a club. Larceny from auto is the hallmark of a drug addict criminal. They want easy targets. Even change on the dashboard is worth breaking a window to them. They don't think like normal people. Be discreet, don't show off wealth or new acquisitions.
3) Get to know your neighbors. Share information. Talk about what is happening in the neighborhood. The police in your area may offer "neighborhood watch" programs that educate folks about crime. This is usually done through their community relations department. Its a good way to learn about real crime prevention.
Please don't get a gun because some armchair libertarians on slashdot think its a good idea. If you have a gun, it is only useful if you confront the criminal. In the VAST majority of property crimes, you never even SEE the criminal. In those rare cases where you happen to catch the punk, you will discover something that is NOT what you expect: often a child, or a desparate drug addict who couldn't care less about risking his life and yours to get away. If you have a gun and display it, you have to be prepared to kill someone and face the permanent consequences of a potentially tragic mistake and the tremendous guilt that any normal person will feel even if they kill in self-defense.
Instead of a motion sensitive light, have a motion sensitive outdoor speaker system:
*bullpup cocking sound*
"Intruder Alert! To your posts!"
*bullpup cocking sounds all over your property*
It you!
Have you ever fired a pistol?
I do, weekly, and have taken instruction in its use. It is *not* easy to hit what you're aiming for, in the dark, between 7 and 15 yards, while your adrenaline is rushing and you're under duress, and fine motor skills have gone out the window.
If you miss while aiming at an extremity, where does the bullet go? Into your childs room? Into another apartment? Out a window towards the street and into a car or home? (Same issue as with firing a warning shot)
If you aim for center of mass, you have the greatest chance of STOPPING the threat. You aren't shooting to kill, you're shooting to stop the threat. The moment the threat ceases to be a threat, you stop shooting, and if *safe*, attempt to render aid after calling 911.
-- My Sig is a P228.
Someone tries to rape you.
A, you submit, and lose nothing but some dignity.
B, you fight back, and maybe someone gets injured.
Clearly, you should just allow yourself to be raped without protest.
This sort of logic is idiotic. There is a criminal and a victim involved. It's not a symmetrical array of simple net results. The criminal should suffer potentially larger penalties than the innocent.
This is and endless debate, and I should probably know better than to try and change someone's mind, but here goes anyway.
Someone breaks into your house. He is armed, you are not. You lose some valuables.
Someone breaks into your house. You are armed, he is armed. You lose nothing, he loses his life.
Now tell me which is the greater evil.
Are you serouisly trying to say that defending yourself from home invasion is wrong???
Put down the crack pipe and step away from the keyboard. So you would not care if some pointy haired mutant breaks into your house and and rapes your daughter and kills your entire family?
I hope you don;t live in America I would be embaresed to call you a countryman of mine. Tell you what all you people that are alwayse trying to ban gun ownership can put your names on a list and everytime someone some gets robbed,raped, or killed they can sue you.
Sound like a deal?
Jesus fucking Christ. If you live in an area where you have to catalog and strategize your weaponry choices, move somewhere else.
After considering statistics, I found that the solution is actually quite simple: guide your mom to become a criminal.
n Texas, an adult trespassing after dark can be shot. A child can be shot of they are a clear threat to person or property.
I hear this makes repo-work ... interesting.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
You are close, but I must again say that you are incorrect on this point. Trust me, if someone stole your ipod while you were down in the great state of Texas and to exact your revenge you hunted the thief down and killed him, you would indeed be rung up on 1st degree murder charges.
I think this may be my fault for not being entirely specific about the Texas statute, and for that I apologize. Let me try to be more explicit.....
The statute we're both talking about is sec. 9.42 of Title 2 of the Texas Code. It does in fact say that you can kill a person to defend property alone, however, if you read to the end of the statute [specifically 9.42(3)(b)], reprinted here:
(b)the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.
You will find that the use of deadly force to protected property is only allowed in those instances in which the protection of said property with deadly force is the only means available to prevent death or serious bodily injury to yourself or another. This is an extremely steep burden and although Texas does have that old wild west reputation, people are most certainly not allowed to kill simply for the fact that their property has been damaged or stolen.
Again I apologize for not being specific about this earlier, and it's possible that we were both right. I hope I cleared this up somewhat.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
I use 'motion' with a webcam:
:)
http://www.sourceforge.net/motion
It won't scare intruders away, but it will help get a good picture of them.
To scare them away I use 2 large German Shepherds.
I don't know about Geek style home defense, but I have my own system.
1. Own a gun of some sort. If someone is in your house at 3 AM and you don't know them, they are up to no good. Sorry, but they are dead. I respect all life, but the most precious ones are protected first, that is my wife and daughter.
2. Own a big dog of some sort. My dog of choice is a Labrador Retriever. You don't need a mean dog with a bad rep. From a distance and in a crisis situation nobody is going to know a Black Labrador from a Rotwieler. A Labrador is a great family pet, and Lab will be as mean in that sort of a situation, even meaner. I've had repairmen backed into a corner before because they made the wrong gesture to me, and it wasn't even threatening. However I would trust a Labrador with my family's life, she doesn't have a mean bone in her body twords us, but cross our family however, and watch it.
3. For home deterrent, use a automatic on/off light switch (or leave a light on) and a TV with an alarm. My TV comes on every day at 4pm and goes off at 2am. Most burglars are going to break into a house with no lights on, or a house that looks like nobody is home. Burglars are essentially lazy and just want the goods.
4. Move to a safer neighborhood or MAKE it safer. I know, probably not an option, however I won't live in a dangerous neighborhood. I'd rather drive 45min to a half hour. If the 'hood goes to crap, I pack and move. The 'hood I live in hasn't had a burglary in about 7 years. If you have to live in a risky neighborhood, organize a neighborhood watch.
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
Seriously. The problem doesn't sound like its going to be fixed by arming yourself to the teeth. If your neighbourhood has turned into a sewer, putting up sewerage barrackades is only a temporary solution.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
...no matter what forums I vist, the ratio of head-in-sand vs. don't-confuse-me-with-facts types remains fairly constant. Is it possible that that /. really is representative of a real cross section of real people?
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
For intrusion detection, it's hard to beat a good dog. Get a medium-sized
breed. Small yippie dogs like Chihuahuas bark at thin air all the time, and
so you learn to ignore them, like the boy who cried wolf too often. Oh, and
don't get purebred -- besides the extra cost, they have too many health issues.
Get a medium-sized mutt with some collie or setter or shepherd heritage, or
something. A shepherd/collie mix is good. Get it young, as soon as it's
weaned preferably; it'll be easier to train it that way.
Grated, a dog is a significant expense, but it's also a really cool thing to
have around, and has a lot more value than just intrusion detection. Really,
intrusion detection is just an *excuse* to get what you ought to have anyway.
As an added security bonus, the dog will scare off many small-time intruders,
especially kids. But the ones it won't scare off, it will detect usually,
so for added peace of mind combine it with a cellphone. (The police will be
a lot more likely to come if there's an intruder in your house when you call,
as opposed to there having been one there earlier.)
The real value of the pet though is peace of mind. Once you've had a burglar
get past an alarm system, you'll never really _trust_ an alarm system again.
You feel safer with a dog in the house.
Resist the urge to get a cat. Yeah, they eat less. But the effect is just
not the same. The dog may wimp out and hide from the burglar, but he's going
to make a lot of noise doing it; the cat will detect the burglar, but *you*
may not know it. With a dog, you will know.
I'm assuming here you're mainly worried about stuff happening when you're at
home (though as I said the dog will scare off many small-time intruders too).
If you're worried about protecting valuable assets, either keep them in a
more secure location or put them where they'll be overlooked as worthless.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
What about the skin and blood left on your floor? Wouldn't that constitute proof? :)
I cannot believe nobody has mentioned the linux solution for motion-detection scanning capabilities!! I've been using ZoneMinder for the last several months. It's never failed on me yet. It offers tons of features for motion sensing.
Be carefull who you are calling the sociopath.
To me there is one hell of a difference between the jerk who intends to rob or rape if there is no resistance, and the person who is intent on the prevention of that robbery or rape.
The label of sociopath applies to the robber or rapist. The rest of us have a quite reasonable expectation of a peacefull existance, and a right to protect that, which is an apparently ficticious scenario in the minds of those who would think that all of societies ills are nothing more than a lack of labels, so lets label this and see if it goes away in shame.
It often doesn't go away in anything but a body bag. But I'm not the sociopath. The jerk that put me in that situation against my will is the 'sociopath'.
Or as someone once said: I've got a shotgun and a shovel. Any questions?
Cheers, Gene
I learned this living in San Francisco for 5 years. I had a Jeep - over that period of time they broke into my vehicle over 100 times. That's no exaggeration, its actually a conservative estimate.
They would steal anything greater than or equal to the value of a matchbook.
They cut the windows, stole the battery, keyed the sides, pissed on it, cut a tire, broke the interior locks, and broke an egg onto it -- it was a brand new jeep. The city itself helped me out by writing $3000 in tickets.
The ultimate defense was to leave it with the doors unlocked, with all essentials locked into the trunk.
It would be nice to claim the high ground and say it was a turn the other cheek method, but actually it was just the path of least resistance, and incidentally the most effective.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Because if your gun is running Linux, you know you won't miss!
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
My anecdotal plug for labradors:
I have an 85 pound black lab mix, and he's great with my two daughters. Many neighbors and friends have concurred (from their own experience) that labs are generally great with kids.
My lab is scary as hell when he runs up to and barks at strangers - big basso barks. I know this because they tell me so. And yet he's never bitten anyone, even the UPS deliverymen dogs love to hate.
My lab always wants to make friends with other dogs. He backed down from a "Taco-bell" dog who was being agressive. But he's no wimp when it comes to our safety. He faced down a pair of 150 pound Rottweiler's when they came after me up the street, kept them at bay until I could get into the house.
All that for $50 at the dog pound, probably the best $50 I ever spent.
Vonnegut was right: Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been."
They say that new BMWs are unstealable (I know this is untrue, but for any normal thief it is) Go research.
The standard way for americans to respond to someone hanging around their car is to send in a helicopter gunship to blow up as many of them as possible. It also helps if at least one of the soon-to-be-dead guys is filming for a network news agency. That way you are guaranteed that the rest of the world will say "Hey, those americans are really nice guys. Let's help them in any way we can."
what about an alarm that plays the sound (ka-click) of a shotgun cocking and then firing?? that should send any burglars running :P
Can't believe it has not been mentioned. Use ZoneMinder. It's an open souce product available exclusively for Linux. I've been using it for the last 4 months running 8 webcams (not really webcams, cctv cameras actually) simultaneously for the last 4 months and it's pretty stable. Most of the webcam software that I deal with previously would crash every month or so, or wouldn't capture the right scenes of motion. This piece of software supports some of the multi-input cards on the market.
Car alarms are evil. Consider the city of San Francisco, where there are 16,000 people, and 8,000 cars - per square mile.* So each car alarm incident results in reduced quality of life for about 4,000 people who happen to live within earshot. That's not a necessary evil. It's just evil. "Out-Loud" Car alarms should be illegal, or at least disabled in densely populated areas. I've been tortured by them enough that I don't intend to report breakins of alarmed cars.
c at ion1.pdf
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msei/on-road/briefs/Publi
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Anti-gun activists in Louisiana brayed that the streets would run red with blood if such a law were passed, and the law was passed, and, of course, blood hasn't run down the streets...
Hey, in Louisiana it's cool to shoot kids in Halloween costumes. News story Who'd know the difference?
Geez, for a creative bunch, the most /. can come up with is "buy gun." Looks like the knuckle dragging crowd is out.
Uh, it takes a village. A good way to keep down crime, is to know your neighbor - neighbors who watch out for other neighbors make a heck of a difference. Neighborhood watches are a darn good idea. Have her talk to a couple of cops - I'll bet they can offer a lot of advice. Get the advice of two or three. There's probably a community relations number to call - they might have good advice.
Lights will scare away a good number of thieves - put a couple on a motion sensor, make sure the places where a crook can hide are well lit.
Get a panic button - ideally, something that when pressed will flip on all the lights in the house, perhaps blink 'em, and sound a very loud siren.
Get some good, quality locks, solid core doors, re-enforce the door frame. If need be, secure the basement windows. Maybe put a motion alarm in the basement...
When the person leaves, put a TV/radio on a timer - maybe a motion sensor as well.
Robbers are looking for the low investment, high payoff - the more she does to make a his life miserable, the likelier that the thug will go to the next house.
Big (16 inch or so) dog dish... with "fluffy" or "killer" written on the side... then change the amount of food in it each day (to simulate eating/filling of food.) And put all this where potential thieves will see it...
Or get a well trained large dog even it's barking is enough to tell them that someone is awake now and will be seeing them... with the motion light he'll be right where u can get a good look at him.
Best dogs are Lab's, and German Sheppards... big/but not too big, and can be well trained to defend people...
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
> use guns for protection from criminals more than 2.5 million times annually.
If you look at Kleck's numbers, they don't add up.
Kleck's survey reported that 8% of defensive gun uses involved the target being wounded or killed. With Kleck's estimate of 2,500,000 DGUs per year, that gives us 200,000 DGU-caused firearm deaths or injuries per year.
Studies have shown that approximately 23% of firearm injuries are fatal. Accordingly, Kleck's survey numbers imply that DGUs account for 46,000 killings by firearm per year.
However, the total number of non-suicide firearm deaths per year is only 20,000.
We're left with only a few possibilities:
1) DGU gunshot wounds are vastly less lethal than any other gunshot wound. Unlikely - bullets are bullets.
2) DGU-performing people are very good at hiding bodies. Unlikely.
3) Kleck's survey numbers are unreliable.
Occam's Razor points very strongly at that latter choice. Kleck's survey produces numbers that do not match reality; ergo, Kleck's survey is not reliable.
By contrast, the government's National Crime Victimization Survey suggests that about 100,000 DGUs occur each year. At an 8% hit rate and a 23% fatality rate, that would give 2,000 defensive firearm killings per year. That's still 10 times what the FBI cites the number as, but is quite close to Kleck's own estimates.
Why is Kleck's survey result so unreliable? Consider what is meant by "defensive gun usage": any time the presence of a gun - even if not shown - makes the owner believe a crime or attack was prevented, that's a defensive gun use.
The last time she had a bear nosing around her yard, my mother threw a rubber boot at it to scare it away. According to the methodology used to define defensive gun usages, this would count as a "defensive boot usage" against the bear.
Virtually anything would have worked to scare the bear off; had the boot not been available, there still would have been no bear attack. Self-reported "defensive gun usages" suffer from exactly the same bias and flaw - people report protecting themselves with a gun when either:
(a) there was in reality no protection needed, or
(b) any of a number of alternative techniques would have defended the person just as well.
For example, consider this "defensive gun usage" story from a similar survey:
`The police called. The alarm in my building went off so I went there to shut it off. Two men were outside my building, so from my car I shot at the ground near them.'
That's self-defense? Who's to say those two men hadn't just stopped for a smoke? Similarly,
A 58-year-old male is watching TV with a holster strapped on him. He tells us, `I was watching a movie, and he (an acquaintance) interrupted me. I yelled that I was going to shoot him, and he ran to his car.'
This is a defensive gun usage? This is the kind of "self-defense" story that gets multiplied by 10,000 by Kleck to estimate the number of DGUs per year? No wonder his numbers are off.
(source)
The logical flaw is similar to the famous anti-tiger stone ("this stone repels tigers from my lawn; I know it works because I haven't seen any tigers here in downtown Springfield in the last 10 years") - whether or not a gun has made them safer, participants in this
I have 2 pitbulls. IF someone comes near my yard I know of it very quickly. Then you get your gun. I would think that most people would be scared away by the sound of a 12 gague being chambered.
http://samtron.cjb.net
The shooter was found not guilty. So in Utah, at least. it's legal, or acceptable anyway, to shoot people in the back after they've left your property.
I live in Virginia now.
Best Slashdot Co
Unless you have thought about it fairly thoroughly don't even consider getting a dog. If you want a good dog it takes a lot of time, and a fair bit of money (want a well built healthy dog? better be prepared to pay for decent food), that a lot of people have not taken into consideration when buying the dog. If you want a nice family pet it needs to be socialised and at least have some training, add in vet bills and food and suddenly this brilliant idea doesnt become so brilliant after all. If you want a good family pet who is also protection trained (yes you CAN have both) you are looking at many many hours of training over months and months - I generally train my dog at LEAST half an hour every day plus walks plus formal training on weekends. Yes he is a wonderful family pet and also turning into a great protection dog, but I have put an enormous amount of time and energy into turning him into that as well as careful selection when he was a puppy. It doesnt just happen overnight and it wont happen ever unless you are prepared to put the time and effort in.
Suggesting to people to buy a dog without taking their circumstances or personality into consideration just leads to more unwanted dogs in the pounds as the idiots dont think it through before getting one.
Tibetan monk chanting works great to scare off bible-humpers.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It's a US website. They don't make anything in the US these days except guns, flags and movies. If you wanted technological advice you need to start reading Chinese or Japanese.
OK, if you feel that strongly about it, give away all your shit and move to China or Cuba or North Korea then.
Everybody in MY country (The USA) has a chance. You just have to be willing to work really hard for it. This country was built by people who, by and large, came here with nothing. Now we have the highest GDP in the world.
Your precious equilibrium was best described by Neal Stephenson in Snowcrash... It is a good standard of living if you happen to be a Pakistani bricklayer. (No offense to hardworking Pakistanis out there.) I want something better, for myself and my offspring.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
I know, its expensive. In the long run, its the most effective. The bad guys can't even see what you've got, and even if they know its there, its just not worth the trouble. Your car insurance bill should go down too.
It would be interesting to do a study on people who have killed other people in situations like that. I wonder how many of them get fucked in the head knowing that they killed somebody for tresspasing or stealing something or maybe for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
evil is as evil does
and carry my light saber. Nothing scares me anymore, except the voices.
Well, to be honest, its not very geek, but it goes in this order:
.45 auto on standby
2 Border Collies and 1 Husky make lots of noise.
1 shotgun, 1
But since that doesnt work well in cities (cops tend to frown on people with loaded weapons in crowded buldings/neighborhoods), I would really suggest a more sensible alternative... dont leave things in the car that you cant/dont want to replace.
Of course this doesnt work well with stereo equipment and such, but I never leave anything that is "unattached" to the car in the car. It is either locked in the trunk or taken with me.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
they are the bullets that break into fragments. you don't have to hit someone in a major organ to kill them, the spinning action of the disintigrated bullet will cut enough minor viens and arteries while spinning through the body that no doctor can stop the bleeding in time to save the person. which vien or artery of the 100's cut do you try and stich first?
i should not say this because some people might think i am sadistic. but i like watching those er or resident programs on tlc, and predicting who will live and who will die. it is like i am god. and it is a great drinking game. try it with your buds. (hint for newbies, almost any hemmoridge in the head will result in death. i saw one episode where a guy fell off a ladder, and had a hemmoridge in his head. the doctors cut a small opening to releave the pressure, but the brains oozed right out. scene ended with a doctor saying "hope we don't get sued for that", and the other doctor responding "that sure didn't turn out like we expected").
steel tipped bullets are also illegal in my state. they call them cop killers because they can penetrate the bullet proof vest.
but i don't think a rifle cut down, which takes nice long bullets with a narrow circumference are illegal. they can penetrate anything, including vests or steel car doors. i know one guy who was in the army (or at least he purports to have been) who has a m-16 in his closet. every now and then, he hugs his gun and proclaims "they'll never take her away from me". too much heston me thinkith. for all i know, the m-16 could be a fake. but the loaded .45 under his pillow is not. why he keeps it loaded i will never understand. one night while sleeping he is going to blow his own brains out. one homosexual laddened fairy land fantasy will end with one hell of a facial.
i think they should let anyone have anything they want, as long as they keep it on their own property. who cares if the guy down the street has a uzi as long as he never takes it outside the house. his possessions do not effect me at all. now if he was taking it to the supermarket i think i would care.
i personally don't want a gun. if i am mad enough to kill someone, i want to beat the crap out of them with my own hands- ray lewis "bitch slap" style. and if anyone breaks into my house, they better be prepared for the madhouse they selected. i am not beneth sending my over-amourous dogs after the motherfuckers while i prepare the eels. and a little homemade habanero laxitives while wraping the burglar in plastic is a family favorite for the unwanted guest. needless to say, the motherfucker who tries and breaks into my house is going to suffer.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Not the end all comment on pepper spray, though. I am an NRA Personal Protection Instructor, and I have a simple answer to the question of pepper spray. I have a can of it, and I use it on myself for demonstration purposes. Why? It has ZERO effect on some people. Pepper spray relies on a reaction from the body that some people will not produce. As such, you might as well pee in my face for all the good it would do you if I were your attacker. OC is tottaly different, BTW. Can you say Tear Gas? But, IMHO, that hasn't been civvy legal for a while. Too dangerous.
You know what would scare me away if I were breaking into a place?
Mirrors on the doors.
We used to have a huge mirror on a door in the hall. One night I got up to go get a drink, and for some reason someone had shut the door. I saw my reflection coming towards me in the dark after rounding the corner and nearly passed out from the shock!
~Ben
After reading some of the gun posts, I thought I would try to answer the question. 1. Is your Mom's house WELL lit? If you can't see it from space, then no. Get more lights. 2. Does your Mom's neighborhood have either a neighborhood watch or a citizen's patrol? If yes, get her involved (if she is a retiree, she can watch the houses of the working people in her neighbohood and they can watch hers at night). If not, then think about starting one. 3. Locks on doors. Dead bolts, 10 penny nails inserted like deadbolts between window casements. 4. A cell phone that never leaves your Mom's side and #1 is programmed with your number and #9 is set to call 911 automatically. Hope these help.
No one knows your situation, resources, background, and morals, like you do.
Pepper spray - good idea. Hurts like hell, good deterent without causing lasting harm. Ultrasonic pain field generators work also, and don't leave that chili smell in the carpet. If you don't want to drop the bucks for the ultrasonics (or can't locate one) a warbling high-decibel alarm works (coating the speaker cone with superglue stiffens it and makes it louder). Couple that with some strobelights and you've got a winner.
Dog - gotta be careful with this one. Some localities are passing laws against "vicious dogs". I speak from experience, my wife and I were attacked by a pit bull that got away from its drunken owner as their truck was driving by. I damn near killed both dog and owner (don't need gun, trained by VERY BAD people VERY LONG TIME and weigh over 200 lbs muscle). Best dogs I've seen were Great Pyrenese (Think Cujo) and neutered female Chow (looks like fuzzy teddybear, will eat a pitbull for snack, smarter than most crackheads).
Cameras and alarms - good luck. Cameras can help after the fact, if they're hidden, but then they aren't a deterent. I've known thieves that set off car alarms with rubber superballs until the owner got tired of "false alarms" and shut it off. Then they just broke in like normal. One guy used a sledgehammer on a rope to smash the windows out. Got a surprise when he hit a paranoid old womans car. Bullet resistant glass. He almost ate that hammerhead.
Martial arts - Hate to say it, cause I love 'em, but they are overrated for 'most' folks. People take a few classes and think they are Bruce Lee. Takes years to get very good, but when your ass is on the line, it may save you. Friend of mine was a brown belt, had a gun stuck in his face at a nice restaurant! He killed the guy before he knew what happened. Sat in prison for a year waiting to have a judge dismiss the case as self-defense (37 eye witnesses).
Last one. Guns. Serious weapon. Better get serious minded and trained if you get one. Your determination needs to be equal to that needed to learn knife-fighting or swordsmanship. If you do, learn practical marksmanship, not just the 25 ft bullseye shooting. Practice in dim and low-light conditions, practice moving targets, moving to cover or escape while shooting, and speed reloading (tip: coat the last rounds in the clip with phosphorescent paint - when you see them it's time to reload!)
If you can get a concealed carry permit in your area, get it, and carry! When the concealed carry law went into effect in Florida, the rate of violent crime dropped into the basement. Now the major victim of violent crime in Florida is out-of-state visitors, because they don't have concealed guns. The rental agencies had to stop putting their stickers on the cars because people were getting car-jacked befor they ever got out of the airport!
The bottom line is: how serious is this problem to you? How much effort, energy, and resources, are you willing to devote to it?
Good-bye, Karma points. It was nice having you.
When you want something built, come see me. If you want correct grammar and spelling, get a F*ing liberal arts student.
Gee .. you have a nice little pact of understanding with your own criminals.
...
It reminds me of a mafia infested neiberhood where there is a certain understanding that if you don't interfere with "their work" and pay your share for "protection" you will be left alone
Surely, they do understand the point of escalation.
Pethetic way to live a life but hey , each to its own.
You don't have a daughter or a wife. You've also never been shot at before.
Just own crap nobody wants.
Your story is the reason I carry a 6"bbl 357 Magnum loaded with 125 grain JHPs. It's a tad unwieldy, but the longer barrel allows for maximum muzzle energy - 4" and shorter just makes more noise than a 38Spl. I don't care how crazy psycho jacked-up my attacker is, if he's not wearing armor and I put two of those suckers into his chest at 25 yards, he is *not* getting back up - the expansion and massive shock inside the chest cavity is going to turn his heart and lungs into ground beef...instant bleedout. Marshall and Sanow are debatable, but just for reference, they cite a 98% single-shot-stop rate for that round.
9mm JHPs should have at least some of the same effect, but police can't load them, which causes the problems you mention - bunch of small holes, but the internal organs are by and large intact.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
As a previous poster said - "But a gun" I you don't think you can deal with the responsibility of a gun then get a dog to protect you. My personal favorites are Filas. http://www.fila.org/ But any well tempered dog will work. Labs love everbody until someone threatens one of their owners! Mastiff type dogs like Filas are easier to deal with, though. They lay around most of the day. They do not require that you take them running every day (like a Collie) They are wonderful with kids. They generally don't bark - if you weigh 200 pounds and can kill almost anything that comes across your path then why do you need to bark???
Chomp said:
Someone breaks into your house. He is armed, you are not. You lose some valuables.
Someone breaks into your house. You are armed, he is armed. You lose nothing, he loses his life.
Hey Chomp: Where do you live?
Sounds like I can pretty much take whatever I want from your house.
I hope we're neighbors, because I can really use some new stuff.
:)
is a name plate that says Tony Martin.
Wanted : A Signature.
In the extremely unlikely situation that someone breaks into your house while you're there, follow these steps:
1. Yell "I have called 911 and the police are on their way." There are very few people that aren't going to turn and run.
2. If they aren't scared away try to escape and call police from a neighbour's house.
There are so few home invasions to start with and so few that are with intent to physically harm, the miniscule amount left over could be discounted as freak occurrences. People have a way of seizing on the worst case outcome no matter how rare and using that as a justification. Realistically, neither the event, nor the overblown countermeasure will ever be tested.
Like I said in the parent post, install a security camera or get a dog. Both are social deterrents that in time will dissuade thieves from trying anything as risky as home invasion
Well, I didn't see this mentioned by anybody: Rubber balls out of a shotgun. Somebody said rock salt earlier and got modded 5: Funny. WTF is that?
Here's a webpage that sells a number of 12 gauge rounds: http://www.ammoman.com/webstore_12GA.htm
Shipping with him is great, and the prices (at least on the other stuff -- I don't buy enough 12 gauge loads to know) is very well priced.
You've got plenty of suggestions on how to DETER people away from the residence. Motion sensor lights, dogs, stickers, etc.
Once they're in your house it's a whole nother matter. It's nice and quaint that you don't want them to be injured. Bust into the area where I'M sleeping for the night (this goes for when I'm on the road) and odds are injury will be the least of your worries.
I'm sure every gun hating hoplophobe on Slashdot is going to call me friggen Rambo for this setup, but here's what I run:
Remington 870 (cheap, and with the synthetic stocks and rubber recoil pad very managable) -- if you can find one get a smooth bore barrel in 18-20". Odds are the off-the-shelf stuff is going to be 20". Stick with that. I load with 4 rounds (pretty limited mag) of 000 Buck. I do NOT keep one in the chamber myself BUT if that was my primary HD (Home Defense gun) I sure as heck would.
On top of that I keep a good pistol at the bedside. I actually tend to change this out now and again with various models as it depends on what I'm practicing with most at the time. However, that's kept "Condition 1" -- one round in the chamber and safety on.
Explanation:
Shotgun is there in the event that I get some kind of advanced warning of an intruder. My door is solid steel and the deadbolt is pretty danged solid. Odds are I'll hear you banging on it a bit. In that event, shotgun comes off the floor and a round goes into the chamber. Time provided the spare round goes into the tube and I hunker down behind my bed for cover and line 'er up on the door. Oh, yes, I live alone. Whole situation changes when you've got kids, but since you're writing and your mother lives alone I presume you're all moved out.
If you get in instantly (window crashes, or door takes one solid whack) I'm just rolling off the bed and grabbing my pistol.
Now, if I wanted to take a "feel good and don't hurt anybody" approach I'd do the following:
870 stocked with 2 shells of the rubber shot stuff. One IN THE FRIGGEN CHAMBER! Here's why: Presuming you have a house of reasonable size it will NOT be immediately apparent which room is your mother's bedroom. Racking that shotgun, while it MAY scare them off, will only cause them to draw their pistols and proceed accordingly. No need to give them a head's up. Behind those two rounds of rubber balls keep some 000 buck shot. If they're still advancing after 2 rounds of rubber balls (presuming they DIDN't shoot you mother while she wasted valuable time with a less-than-lethal-hope-this-works method) then hopefully the 000 buck'll do the job and make them STOP!
You don't shoot to kill. I don't train for that. You shoot to STOP. Maybe the rubber balls will work. We KNOW the 000 Buck works (or 00 Buck, suit to your tastes)
Ammoman offers a variety of them. When you see "Tactical Law Enforcement" next to the names dont' be afraid. That that really means is "docile, won't rip your shoulder off loads only good for maybe 25 yards against human targets" -- which is EXACTLY what you want when arming a woman.
20 gauge is suitable also -- but I'd stick with a pump for reliability.
I'm a geek, but there's no way in HELL I'd be able to sleep at night if I told my mom that I thought her best bet was to sit there with a media player hooked up to a computer and motion sensor that'd play the sound of a shotgun racking if she died. No thank you.
A lot in life boils down to what you would REGRET MORE later on the down the road. I wouldn't want to be the guy at my mom's funeral thinking "Man, I thought that
Somebody pushed a hot-button?
Come and live off any beaten tracks and 50km outside Albany, Western Australia. The local crims are too lazy to visit, but connectivity is a bit of a pig.
If a crim hurts themselves on a farm in a "locked paddock" (means you left it with a sealed fence-line and locks on each gate, even if they're piddly little tokens), they're going to have a tough time drawing out any sympathy.
"So you walked into a harrow? Well, we do leave these things standing around in paddocks you know. It's a farm. The paddock was locked, after all. You walked into it seventeen times, despite prompt assistance from the farmer? Dang, that was careless of you. Next."
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Use an Airsoft rife/shotgun/handgun, or even Semi-autos and Machine guns. I Found out about this extreamly realistic BB guns while on a trip to the Wis Dells. One of their shops had an MP5 with just about all the acc on it. I have it now and it would make someone look twice before invading my home, but mostly i use it for paintball target parctice (they make 6mm BB's and 6mm paint balls for it) Its only a cheap model but a little baint on the barrel and its like the real thing, it even has a laser sight for extra effect. Back to topic, They have metal versions of shotguns that sound likt the real thing. you wouldn't have to worrie about getting in trouble or going through the permits of the real thing, only check your local laws reguarding them, The Wis Dells has stores that sell them, just you can't use them in public there. If the shotgun doesn't scare them, a P90 would make them look twice. They do make Machine Guns (like the SAW look at it here: http://www.pbase.com/stan/saw and if you want buy it here: http://www.madaboutairsoft.com/Scripts/prodView.as p?idproduct=158 ). Most Airsoft can be found here: http://www.airsoftextreme.com/store.html or http://www.madaboutairsoft.com/ . look cool can be used in Paint ball fights and at worst if you shoot them, they loose an eye and find out your gun is a big fake. Still there is no one good way to defend your home and belongings.
Pepperspray's fine for nonlethal situations, but if there's any chance my life is in danger I'm going for the gun.
- His car, a Holden HZ sedan, with the door open; and
- His steering column partially disassembled; and
- Traces of blood and hair on assorted knobs and corners under the dash and on the door; and
- No car thief.
You see, 105dB at 3m in free space equals 117dB at about 40cm, which was the approximate distance between the screamers and the thief's ears as he lay in the footwell jiggering the ignition switch on the steering column.This is in a mostly-enclosed hard-walled space, which has to be worth at least another 12dB. And there were two of them, so add another 3dB as icing on the cake, draw a line, 132dB.
The threshold of pain, for reference, is 120dB.
If you're going to bother building a car alarm, get it right. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
My (non-lethal advice) based off of deterants/defense for the comon burgalur, rapist, serial killer: Deterants: 1. Beware of Dog and/or guns on premisis in clear view from the curve (someone also mentioned the NRA based bumper stickers, which also work well) 2. Get one of those ADT home security lawn signs. The signs work better than the actual security 3. Make sure your front door has a peep hole 4. Get GOOD dead bolt locks or use one of those NY style bar locks (not even the police will be able to ram it down) for at least your front door. Defense: 1. 12g or 20g shotgun w/salt shot. Go to any gun shop and ask for a home defense shot gun and make sure it can take salt shot. The barrel will typically be shorter and some will fire up to 8 rounds. Make sure you get a pump action. Something about hearing that *click* *click* will have most thieves running for an exit. The salt wont kill, but it will burn so bad your intruder will wish he was dead. 2. Air Taser. Expensive, but very effective. The only bad part is that they only have a max range of 15 feet. But they will allow you to give your intruder a proper texas style ass whooping (or for you folks from Mississippi, a good "squeel like a pig!") while he jiggles around on the floor in a fetal position. 3. BB gun. The Daisy air rifle I have will imbed into wood, which should easily imbed into skin and beyond (be sure to let intruder know that). After its fired, it makes an effective clubbing device. Aim for the crotch. 4. Baseball bat, brass knuckles, k-bar knife. The bigger the knife, the better. "You call that a knife? *fling* Now this is a knife!" 5. Get a butterfly knife and learn how to flick it around like in movies. While your intruder is mezmorized by your ninja like skills, have your wife sneak up behind with a good iron frying pan.
Seriously - get a 12-gauge shotgun and load it with beanbags or rubber buckshot/slugs. Anybody's who's seen Jackass: The Movie should remember the scene where Knoxville takes a beanbag in the gut and drops like a rock; that kind of reaction should suit the "non-injury" clause of the article just fine, while virtually guaranteeing stoppage of the intruder. If you want to be really sure, back up 3 or 4 beanbags with a round of 00 buck. (But then you have to train and be prepared for a lethal-force situation.)
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
which was the first item on the list. Any such course will cover safe and appropriate methods of storage, if they're even halfway decent.You apparently missed
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
"Someone breaks into your house. He is armed, you are not. You lose some valuables.
Someone breaks into your house. You are armed, he is armed. You lose nothing, he loses his life.
Now tell me which is the greater evil."
You have perfectly repeated the line of thinking that allowed 19 unarmed people to take over 4 airplanes (and no, boxcutters are no more weapons than a fist or a boot). The logic in place, as reinforced by policy, was "don't try to resist; giving in to whatever hijackers want is the lesser evil compared to the plane going down."
Guess we know better now.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
My 2
I'm Canadian and live in what is considered a reasonably sized town here, about 50,000 people.
In my life (35 years) I've never seen a gun, never heard a gun go off, have no need for a gun, never heard of anyone on the news here killed by a gun accidentally or otherwise.
I'm not anti-gun, I just don't need one.
Buy any one of those high power integrated power sprayers/motion detectors. Saw them at the local garden center. They're meant to give the neighborhood rabbits a shocking blast of cold water, but I had an idea to combine the water with high-concentrate fox urine, sold at the same store. The rabbits around here need therapy now.
spoken like a true blue storm trooper. Guys like this are the reason I learned to shoot in the first place.
don't mod this funny or mod down...
this really works!
Print out a doctor's report but with larger than normal lettering.
Have it say, "AIDS positive". Place a condom with hand lotion in it on the floor [to make it look used]. I will gauranty that it will work, it sounds gross I know. But I assure you if a criminal sees it they will run - quickly. A hypodermic needle thrown in wouldn't hurt.
Kind of an opposite, but similar approach - I have heard of people highlighting the 8th commandment and leaving their Bibles open in the passenger seat.
Then there's always this approach.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
BTW, speaking as a dog trainer and having worked in kennels for many years the very BEST guard dog in the world is a Chesapeak Bay Retriever. They are gentle and loyal with the elderly and children but make the best, most intelligent guard dogs there is. A Chessie is NOT afraid to knock a perp over and stand on them snarling in there face and only bite if necessarly till help arrives without any training in protection work.
.sig). They can be crazy
Also, they love to "be tough" without actually being mean.
Couldn't agree with you more (see my
and they can be high energy but they can also be chill and sweet.
The only problem with Chessies is that they are not suited to everybody. As I'm sure you know, they can also be food-protective and their wariness of strangers can lead to problems. A dog that attacks burglars is good but I've also had mine charge at neighbors who are walking down the sidewalk. You have to assert your dominance if you're going to own a chessie.
As for dogs, I am not a dog person, not even a dog lover, but it is better than a shotgun. The best solution, as mentionned previously, is to have good neighbours and not expose your belongings.
I assume you mean mp5 not mp3 there, i've never considered using loud music to effectively scare away burgulars myself.
You clearyly never have had to endure an eminem concert.
>The first situation is the greater evil. He intended to harm me, and I was unable to prevent him. In the second case, he intended to harm me, and I prevented him from doing so. I am completely within my rights. It's not like I went to HIS house in the middle of the night and threatened HIM...
You pro-gun morons crack me up. The reality is more like this:
First situation: he didn't intend to harm you at all (if he was planning to steal), he's just using the gun to prevent you from stopping him. You don't have a gun, he has one. It's a crappy situation, but you survive (assuming you don't play Hero(tm) and try to stop him).
Second situation: you both have guns, in 1/10 of a second, one of you is going to die (or at least be severely injured). And we won't even talk about "lost bullets" which could end up in the neighbor's house.
Letting citizens easy access to guns is what's the problem in the first place: ANYONE can become a criminal, very easily.
But now that your wife+dog have guns, you're all screwed. Enjoy your stupidity.
Naw, what you really want is a trunk monkey. According to the car commercials, it will even dispose of the body :)
Anyone in central Ohio will know the reference. Still can't believe they used it in advertising...
You bring up something that's a good point. I'm totally anti-gun, and hate the things, but I find I could get behind other people having guns if I knew they could use them. Perhaps mandatory training, or at least safety classes or something for gun owners? I don't see many NRA types willing to make that sort of compromise.
||:|::
Eom
Execution is cheaper...
No, it's not. The legal costs of executing someone (which are to attempt to make sure we don't execute innocent people, since it's kinda irreversible---and we still execute innocent people) exceed the costs of imprisoning them for life.
Come right out and argue from your own bloodthirsty desire for revenge. Don't pretend you're doing this out of fiscal responsibility.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I took the not lethal approach. I live in a decent neighborhood, but unfortunatley the f*ck next door got divorced and started up his own meth-lab. I won't get into the specifics, but there were several nights I stayed awake every night at the dinner table with a 10mm S&W, just ready for the f*ck to walk through my door. I digress.
0 .a sps p?nu mber=PC170IR&variation=&aitem=4&mitem= 11
:)
What I did was went out an purchased a cheap computer and bought a Geovision G600 card, and purchased three IR cameras. The total cost was around $1500 - $2000, but was completely worth it.
Here are some links to the system and cameras I purchased:
http://www.geovision.com.tw/002/en/product-gv60
http://www.supercircuits.com/STORE/prodinfo.a
I don't think the camera link is exactly what I purchased, but it is very close. I'd love to post a link to my system to let everyone view it, but there is no way I would survive a slashdotting.
Believe me when I say that this has been very successful, not only in getting this person arrested, but also in providing me with some very hilarious footage.
The Club devices for your steering wheel and driving apparatus are a joke to defeat. People forget that while the club may be made of steel, the steering wheel is not, and a hacksaw can remove a club in a matter of seconds (cut steering wheel, pull club through, hotwire and drive). They are only a visual deterrent for total amateurs. A silent fuel cut or starter cut alarm will be a good way to keep the car in your driveway, even if they break in. ("wtf? why won't it start?")
You have already demonstrated hostile intent by breaking in. I am not going to take the time, and put my family at risk, to find out the limit of your hostile intent. I will put an end to that intent as fast and as permenantly as possible.
If someone is killed breaking into someone else's house, I would not shed one single tear. And why should I? Do we cry when a rapist is killed in the act? Do we bemoan the great loss to humanity when some one is killed in the act of murder? You may, but I don't. As far as me losing nothing and him losing his life, that's the idea. But, if you want to be the victim of some criminal breaking into your home to do who knows what, you go right ahead. I'm sure someone will tell your family and loved ones that you thought it was okay for him to do you in so that you didn't have to do him in.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
No no no. A gun would work in the 80s. Now criminals have stinger missiles and humvee mounted machine guns. You'll never outgun them.
Just get a giant wobbling sculptured cock at your front step. Any criminal walking by will be reminded of Clockwork Orange, and they'll say "Cool" and walk away.
What's always come to mind is that were I in possession of a firearm in a situation in which I was being threatened, I could easily fire the weapon with no intent to kill. Aim for shoulders, arms, or legs. Small target? Miss your mark? Fire again. Immobilize the aggressor. Yes, they could bleed to death, but is it really inconceivable to use a firearm in a nonlethal/non-deadly manner?
If you think this is a good idea, spend some time reflecting on this: If it's such a good idea, why are policemen trained to shoot center mass?
I mean, policemen are more likely than anyone else to get in this sort of situation, and they're the recipients of a great deal of specialized training with the intent to enable them to stop criminals with the minimal amount of force required. It's bad for the individual, the department and the government as a whole when a policeman kills a suspect -- particularly if that suspect later turns out to be unarmed. Wouldn't it be a lot better for everyone if the suspect were just injured?
But policemen are trained to shoot center mass, and they're trained that way quite deliberately by people who have the benefit of generations of institutional knowledge, developed in the fire of reality.
Why would that be? Why is it that policemen are taught one simple procedure -- double-tap into center mass, pause to see if the aggressor has stopped, repeat as necessary -- and practice it until it's reflexive?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Most people (esp. many anti-gun people) don't realize that the police have no legal requirement to come to your aid (at least in the US; probably elsewhere too).
Warren v. District of Columbia is one of the leading cases of this type. Two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third woman, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate's screams had stopped, they assumed the police had finally arrived.
When the two women went downstairs they saw that in fact the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers."
The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.'s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." [Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981).]
Take the gun out with the kid and explain that it is not a toy its a dangerous weapon. Then shoot his stuffed bunny into a thousand pieces. He will never want to touch the gun.
New York has a "odd" law regarding self-defense.
1) Shooting someone for breaking into your house is a no no.
2) The only legitimate use of force is "comparable" force. Which means if he puts up his dukes and attempts to punch you.. you need to punch back. If he produces a knife... you may stab him. If he produces a gun... you may shoot him. This rule also applies if you see him threatening someone else.
Now, this poses a problem if I ever find myself in this situation. Since I must wait for whoever broke in or whatever to produce some kind of weapon before I can respond. If I where to point my gun at him and say "GET OUT". I've escalated the dispute and now he's legally allowed to shoot me. So long story short.
Having a firearm does me no good if he doesn't have a clearly have a gun. Not to say I will never buy one but I think self-defense isn't going to be high on my list of reasons to own one.
-- Who brings a knife to a gun fight? In NY, a smart man.
I'm glad I live in Australia. You know that our rate of murder (per capita) is less than a quarter of the USA's? You know why that is? It is because we don't have this screwed up attitude that says because someone entered our home we have the right to end their life. It is because we don't have this screwed up idea that "defendin' mah family" means killing a fellow human being.
It makes me sad that those people can't see how such an attitude diminishes themselves as a person, and diminishes society along with them.
One more thing before I'm done. Many people use the "murderer in the night" as a justification for their beliefs. This is know as a fallacy of false vividness, where a colourful description is used to avoid confronting facts. Firstly, non-violent burglaries outweigh violent ones by about a bazillion to one, so if someone has broken into your house, a non-lethal response is most likely to be appropriate. Secondly, most people are murdered by people they know, not strangers in the night. And of that group, a fair proportion are family members.
So go ahead, buy a gun and shoot the stranger at the door if it makes you happy. Just ask the people who accidentally shot their son/daughter sneaking home after a late date if it was all worthwhile.
If someone breaks into my home I have no idea what their intentions are. Are they trying to steal my personal belongings, or are they threatening my family? Just the fact that they have broken in already shows a complete disregard for the law or any vestage of respct for anyone other than themselves. Am I supposed to ask them "Pardon me Mr. Thug, are you just going to take some stuff or are you hear to hurt someone?" Oh wait, they'd probably lie, if they answer me verbally at all. And yet >I am the sociopath because I don't want to see someone in my family hurt or killed.
As the saying goes, if you "Don't start no trouble, there won't BE no trouble". I didn't ask for the clown who snatched my wife's purse (with her asthma inhaler in it) to come take from us. We were too broke at the time to replace that inhaler. Had I been carrying a gun I would have shot him. Had my children not been between me and him I would have killed him with my bare hands, I don't need no stinking gun.
Yet all you "gun grabbers" can do is whine about guns when I can kill someone wiht a pencil. I notice that gun control didn't prevent the 9/11 hijackers from taking over multiple air craft and murduring thousands of people who had done nothing to them. I also notice they didn't use guns. Do you get the picture yet or are you still determined to try to force the facts to fit your world view rather than adjusting your world view to fit the facts?
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
Sorry to hurt your fun, but that's a quote from Andromeda, not his personal insanity.
d es /ep_207.html
http://www.laurabertram.net/eldoradodrift/episo
...don't own anything worth stealing that isn't strapped to your back.
// Dumps core here
Your comments regarding glare are spot on.
The lights make sense for me combined with the watch program. Maybe it makes less sense in other situations --to each their own.
They were ideas afterall. Ones that have kept my home crime free for a long time in an area that is known for it..
Peace
Blogging because I can...
Deny them to your own people, but make sure you sell them to the Saddam Hussein.
Don't forget to ban Muslim children from wearing head scarves while you're at it.
1. Call for a pizza. Give your address in a loud voice, and ask that they get there as soon as possible. Say everything else quietly.
2. If the intruder isn't spooked off by you talking into the telephone, giving your address and requesting someone to arrive in a hurry, you're SOL. Now is time to call 911 and request, in this order, an ambulance and the police.
If the intruder left, calm down by enjoying your pizza.
If he didn't leave when you called for the pizza, he wouldn't have left when you called the cops, either. He probably understands better than you do that if Cop Number One shows up while the intruder is still in the house, Cop Number One is going to call for backup and sit tight until it gets there. Meanwhile, you get to enjoy whatever the intruder thinks is the appropriate way to handle a witness.
Chances are, the pizza arrived first. If you're exceptionally lucky, the intruder has finished with you, grabbed the DVD player and the PS2 and left. If you're not lucky, the intruder intended to injure you in the first place, and he's grabbed the PS2 just for spite. Now you've got someone who may perform first aid on you, or may break down and blubber. You've also a pizza, but you are lacking teeth. Or blood.
The ambulance will probably arrive next. The paramedics will enjoy the pizza while they work on you.
When the cops arrive, they'll either take a statement from you, or draw a chalk outline around you. They'll enjoy the pizza, too.
Now, all of the previous was fairly facetious, but here's the stunning fact for all of you: the police don't have to do anything about a crime in progress. They might or might not, their call. They do have to take a statement afterwards from any surviving witnesses, collect evidence, and all the other after-the-fact tasks. You, or your inheritors, have absolutely no recourse if the police are busy elsewhere, take their time in arriving, or just sit tight waiting for various amounts of back-up to arrive.
This is assuming that your 911 call got through in the first place. In some cities, such as Los Angeles, in normal circumstances, it can take 15 minutes for an operator to answer. (As I have read; I don't live in LA.) Then the request to passed to the dispatcher, who may have just sent all the cops in the area to the bank robbery on the other side of town. There are a number of reputable and scholarly (and some that are less so) publications about the folly of depending on 911 when you life is at stake. I refer you to this page from the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership for only one example. Searching Google for "call 911 die" will bring up many more.
Your 911 call is a request for aid, not a demand that must be satisfied. You still have to defend yourself; nobody else is going to. If you can't handle the responsiblity of gun ownership, or you haven't the physical ability and training to defend yourself unarmed, get some chemical defense foam with the strongest ju-ju available. If you haven't that, use some wasp-and-hornet insect killer right in his face... the nerve agent in the bug killer will slow him down a bit.
To sum up: you must be willing, able and properly equipped to defend yourself when trouble has come looking for you. YOU are your own responsibility.
We have a 65 pound, lean, black dog.
Wouldn't bite the mailman if he asked for it (which a mailman did one day, literally).
But when solicitors and service people come to our house, they're very, very wary of our dog.
You just have to make the thugs move along to a less intimidating target. A big dog does the job, and provides faithful companionship as well.
Get a .22 long rifle with a good scope. Load it with CB's (very light .22 loads, like a BB gun, but just a bit better). Sleep on your roof and wait for the crook to come. When they pry your door open, shoot their knees. With the long barrel on the rifle, the shot is almost silent. Like a BB gun. As long as you shoot once, they won't know where it came from. They will go away without taking anything....limping.
Then the next day when your neighbor comes out limping you will know who's been steeling from you.
OR
You can go the sissy route and setup motion capture video and alarm systems.
The above is not worth reading.
So.... let's say that someone breaks into your home and sees you pull out said imitation firearm. Let's say that they're packing heat as well, and so decide to return fire. Who's going to win?
If the situation truly calls for lethal force, then playing with toys is a stupid idea. And if the situation *doesn't* call for lethal force, whipping out an imitation gun is very likely to land *you* in jail.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Yet another case for you -
"Law enforcement agencies and personnel have no duty to protect individuals from the criminal acts of others; instead their duty is to preserve the peace and arrest law breakers for the protection of the general public."
~ Lynch v. NC Department of Justice
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
My voice is my password.
Verify me.
/sig
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
That's right, electrify the body of the car. Much like an electric fence, but with more serious of a kick. With any luck, you'll kill the bastard. :)
This sig intentionally left blank.
Phalanx Close-In Weapons System
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?
Now you know what REAL educated people know.
I'm glad I live in Australia.
Me, too. What was your address again?
It's very simple.
You don't have a right to be in my house uninvited.
I have a right to defend my house.
It's very, very easy to avoid getting shot by me: Don't come into my house uninvited. I have no desire whatsoever to shoot anybody, but I have even less desire to try to ascertain the intentions of somebody prowling around my living room.
I will challenge an intruder. If they do anything other than "FREEZE!" I'm gonna plug 'em.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Just ask the people who accidentally shot their son/daughter sneaking home after a late date if it was all worthwhile.
Now that is something that rarely happens. About every 3 years or so, in a country with over 200 million people, someone accidentally shoots a person that they mistake for an intruder. I don't know if international media makes this sound like a daily phenomenon in the U.S, but it is extremely rare. The high murder rate that you have heard so much about is absolutely NOT caused by well intentioned homeowners who have weapons for defense. It is primarily a result of drug and other gang related crime. Armed robberies probably account for a good portion of it too. Contrary to your belief, Americans are not a bunch of vigilates. Most of us would not choose to attack someone just because they stole something. Defense of the family is different. And if someone comes in your home, knowing that you are home, they are almost certainly not interested in a non violent burglary. Funny how you attacked Americans for making broad assumptions based on occaisional occurrences and then proceeded to do the exact same thing yourself.
In litigation-happy US society, this is entirely true. Though I don't have the references handy, I've read several accounts of injured intruders bringing civil suit against the persons they wronged and winning.
Do an open source CWIS setup.
One on each corner of the house. Autofire at 500 yards. I know, kinda close in, but,,,...
emt 377 emt 4
Oh what a surprise-Americans wanting to use guns, you peolpe never learn do you. I hope you all do the world a favour and shoot each other.Wankers.
If the worst they do is smoke weed in their spare time, I'd say we don't really have a problem.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Actually, the advice is from Lazarus Long, the very long lived character from "Time Enough For Love", his advice?
Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect.
Really, in my post I was talking mostly about the moral side, not about the legal side and yours is a great addition to the discussion. ... as anyone who's taken a concealed handgun course will tell you.
;-) ), and if I would I'd make sure to learn the laws of the state I live in.
As you can tell, I have not taken that particular course and I do not actually own a gun (moreover, however well I shot BB gun when I was 9 did not help me at all to shoot AK45 and handgun when I had a chance to do that, must be my declinign eyes...
Thanks again!
Paul B.
I see you've watched "Bowling for Columbine". So tell us, what do they do in your country when someone is posing an imminent threat to another person? And yes, I do consider someone who forcibly entered my house while I'm home to be posing an imminent threat.
Let's adjust the first situation a bit: Psycho breaks in, looking to steal your stuff AND kill or seriously injure whomever they find in the house as a bonus.
Now what? It's not an implausable scenario. How do you know the person who breaks in is a "normal" theif and not a psycho? The intruder has a gun and has demonstrated that they have no respect for you or your rights. What do you do? Just cower and pray that the intruder just wants your stuff and doesn't get his jollies by hurting people? Much love for policemen who'll put their lives on the line to stop this kind of thing, but there simply cannot be everywhere.
I'd definitely rather be armed in a break-in situation, but I really want to know what you would suggest.
You know, really doubt being poor is easy. I also doubt being in prison trying not to get raped every six hours is easy. And I would hesitate to label people in those situations as "lazy leeches", despite the alliterative allure of the phrase.
My point is that it's better to educate and train people before they turn into criminals than it is to endlessly lock up criminals and throw up our hands, crying that, man, a lot of people just seem to be born as Lazy Leeches.
And in what reality does imprisoning people have a positive effect? And in what reality does education and training not have a positive effect?
Admit it---you just have a deep-grained fear and loathing of poor people, or at least the image you have of them.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You're confusing the Assault Weapons Ban with previous gun control. Fully-automatic weapons still won't be legal without the proper permits.
As of tomorrow, about the only difference is that you'll be able to have a gun with (a) a detachable magazine, (b) a bayonet lug, and (c) a flash suppressor. Oh, and high-capacity magazines will get a little less expensive(*).
Supposedly, somehow having a detachable magazine and a bayonet lug was alright, having a detachable magazine with a flash suppressor was alright, but having *both* a flash suppressor and a bayonet lug made the gun evil.
One of my person favorite provisions is that included in the list of items that you're allowed to have two of is "grenade launcher". Somehow, the ban assumes that a semiautomatic rifle with a grenade launcher and a detachable magazine is just fine, but if you were to have a pistol grip on that same gun, then you've crossed the line.
The Assault Weapons Ban really did nothing but make it more expensive to get ugly guns. If you're of the opinion that more gun laws will do anything to reduce crime, that's fine - but the AWB itself sure hasn't (and won't).
(*) High-cap magazines aren't in any short supply, they're just more expensive. And despite laws to the contrary, there is still a very real influx into the country of hi-cap mags (I've seen some myself). It's a shame that we can't get those criminals to obey the laws, isn't it?
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Educated Beyond Your Intelligence
If the thug doesn't want to get his brains splattered across the wall maybe he shouldn't, you know, break the law? It's his decision. Obey the law and live in peace. Break the law, harass someone, steal his stuff, and face the risk of getting shot. If he desices to break the law, that's his decision, and he must be willing to accept the concequences.
I for one think that if someone knowingly wipes his ass with the Law, he does not deserve the protection that law gives him. If he doesn't respect the law, why should the law respect him? And besides, my rights to own and manage my own property are infinitely bigger than some thugs rights to steal my stuff.
Speaking as a Finn, and speaking as a concerned citizen.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I have a dog that barks, but my neighbors dont mind. They like the deterence. I did go to them and talk about it when we moved in, and I talk to them from time to time to see if they have moved on the issue. Sounds like your nieghbor isnt as thoughtfull about the subject, but why make the dog pay? Talk to the neighbor. Call animal control. Call the police. Dont kill the dog.
emt 377 emt 4
http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?sid=119041&nid=5
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
War on Drugs and gun control. That's it.
The War on Drugs inflates drug prices, which means selling drugs is a really profitable business. This finances gangs and provides incentive for them to kill each other in turf wars.
Gun control prevents individual citizens from owning guns and defending themselves against criminals.
Of course both of these effects vary greatly depending on location - this is why places with a bad gang problem and lots of gun control - NYC, Chicago and DX for example - have crime the worst.
live(free) || die;
If the kids didn't want to get shot, meybe they shouldn't have broken the law? It was their decision.
There was a similar case in Finland just now. Guy broke in to another mans garage. The owner of the garage caught him red-handed. The burglar ran away, but the owner had a rifle with him. He told him to stop, or he will shoot. The burlars response? "You don't have the guts! And I have friends waiting in the car!". So the guy fired a warning-shot. Right in to the burglars leg. Then he called the police.
He did go to prison, although the sentence wasn't that long. And politicians still wonder why the justice-system ranks at the bottom when the citizens are asked which institututions they respect the most (Military and the police take the top-sopts IIRC).
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Alright. Make all the intruders wear neon-pink thongs. Easily detected, very repulsive.
I see all this discussion for and against guns.... How about just getting a dog?
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
Are there any wireless motion triggered cameras out there suitable for vehicles? I don't yet own a mobile phone, but I'd love to hide a little camera in my vehicle and when there is motion inside my vehicle have it phone me and show me a video feed of what is going on. In the unlikely case somebody is actually breaking in I'll call 911 and tell them there is a robbery in progress in my car. Or maybe trigger a 130db alarm. :)
At the very least I'll have a video of the crook. Hopefully it'll be useful to convict him.
I mean if stalkers can hide GPS systems in ex's cars why can't we do something like this?
3 pages (so far) of responses and 95% of what I've seen is regarding guns.
Amazing. The original poster asked for geek ideas folks.
THINK!!
(I'm sorry, I can't think of any right now)
Damn, you people are watching WAAYYY too many movies! I like to shoot a gun every now than then for fun, but I don't delude myself into thinking that I might actually get the chance to use one in self defense. I certainly don't see myself exchanging fire with a burglar. The Wild West is over! I've been victim to several crimes in my life and there is not ONE of those cases where a gun would have been of much use. By the time you lock the gun up and make it safe, what good is it for self defense?
"Hold on Mr. bad guy, let me go get my gun and we can have this out like men. Damn, I can't find the key. Hold on a minute..."
There are SOO many more effective ways to avoid getting into such situations in the first place that the idea of getting a gun for self defense is all but ridiculous. If you want the gun, thats fine. That is your right, but damn, don't delude youself into thinking it is going to be particular ly useful beyond giving you a (potentially false) sense of security.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I don't understand.
Why is it okay to shoot someone for stealing and taunting? Their life (or in this case, the use of their leg) is more important than your stuff? Your pride? This is the impression I'm getting.
Stuff can be reacquired. There is insurance as well. Criminals occasionally even get caught by the police. But people don't get better after being shot to death. Splintered knee caps don't magically repair themselves.
The only case where it seems justifiable to maim or kill someone, is when not doing so presents the high likelihood of worse happening. Even then, it is all too easy to make a mistake in judgement, and one can't make amends for mistakes like that. To think that wounded pride and a car is worth someone's life just boggles my imagination. Seriously, you think that's ok?
My brother and I both had one, and they would not stop barking if a cop or park ranger tried to talk to us.
They can sense the "copness" - the implied threat.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
If someone stole your iPod, and you saw them do it, you can kill them.
If you didn't see it but you tracked them down you can't kill them... unless the you confront them and it gets ugly... but that is a separate issue of self defense, not related to the iPod.
You seem to think that "serious bodily injury" is a high standard in Texas. Think again.
That phrase is a term of art... it is the difference between misdemeanor and felony assault. An adult male is easily able to inflict "serious bodily injury" with his bare hands.
The law does not require specific or even implicit threats from the person who needs to be killed. You only need to show that without deadly force you faced a RISK of "serious bodily injury."
If some guy is willing to break into your car then its pretty safe to assume that he is willing to beat your ass if you try to stop him.
....that I set my t.v. timer for odd times (such as on at 6:43pm and off at 1:12am) so it doesn't seem so... automated.
-Valiss
I hope the little punk decided that his had was worth more than a stolen radio.
Hey, he might not be the Yeti, or Chewbacca, but Mr. Red Monkey might scare away your urban dweller problem:
http://www.theredmonkey.com
I'd imagine he'd be especially apt at scaring away any female intruders.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
It's rather hard, John Edward notwithstanding, to come back for revenge after being fatally shot.
Wow, lots of people advocating violence. My favourite anti-intrusion system is totally passive, and based on fog.
http://www.fogsecurity.com/area_denial2.php
For use in a home, you would have to place the fog generators carefully. For a two-story home with sleeping areas on the second floor, you could just place them on the first floor.
This would work well in a car, too. It's pretty hard to drive a car that is filled with fog. It would be damned difficult to even steal the stereo.
If only a grue was a real thing! Just think, you could keep it in a dark place, like under your car seat =)
i live in a house where we had six cases of arson in two years. This stopped after i installed webcams in the central lobby and at the backdoor.
I have a 50 line Perl-Script to archive those images for 24 hours and delete them afterwards. In cases something happened, i convert one hour of images (~7.000) to a short movie using OpenSource-tools.
I informed and got an endorsement from every appartment owner in the house and posted a note to the doors.
Since then: nothing ever again happened.
Downside: Some neighbours asking me for images to proof another neighbours did this or that (usually putting a bike in front of a door).
Regards, Martin
Simple: my right to own and manage my own property are infinitely bigger than the criminals right to acquire my property through burglary.
And besides, had the man let the burglar feeel, how could you tell that he and his friends hadn't paid him another visit? This time with weapons?
For me, my property is more important to me than the life of some low-life scum. If that low-life scum doesn't want to get harmed, he only has to make one simple decision: "I will not break the law, I will not try to steal that mans property for my own selfish reasons". The man who shot the burglar in the leg did not choose to be a victim (quite the contrary), but the burglar did choose to break in to his garage. Nothing would have happened, if the burglar had decided not to break the law. It really is as simple as that.
Most crimes are committed by people who have broken the law in the past. If you shoot them death, they will not commit crimes in the future.
For me, my car is worth hell of alot more than life of some scumbag who wants to steal it. Instead of complaining when people defend their homes, family and/or property, why don't you complain when some idiots think they have the right to break in to people's homes, threaten their family and/or steal their stuff?
Why should the criminals have more rights than the victims do? Seriously?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Shotguns often have two barrels. Load the first one up with something non-lethal and the second with Regular.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
By the use of his humor, it sounds like he wants to keep it at a "less than lethal" level. If that's the route he wants to take; I'm sure that a few of you out there (like me) have tampered w/ weapons and geekdom and have been able to come up with your own "Phalanx" type weapons system also, it's not that difficult to cook up once you know how they work. Or just contact the guy in New Zealand with a cruise missile for sale and protect your home from afar. The guy doesn't really seem to want that.
.454 Casule but the person using it is a blue hair, she definitely will not use it or if she did it would shatter every last bone in her body. Now is the person using the weapon says "I like this small 9mm" and has had plenty of training by a REAL firearms instructor and is willing to take someone's life if need be. Then it's a wonderful last resort (deadly force should always be a last resort). The only problems with a firearm are 1) Collateral damage, what if you miss/ the round over-penetrates - you can kill/injure innocent people now becoming a criminal yourself. 2) Failure to use, either caught off guard or unable/willing to use - the weapon can be used against you and now you've armed/fortified the thug. 3) Lack of training - a firearm in the hands of an untrained person is much more dangerous than a 4yr old behind the wheel of a car. 4) The laws, they vary from place to place, situation to situation - just because you think you are right does not mean that you are, the only time you are always justified no matter what state you are in (in the US) to use deadly force is when you life or the life of others are threatened.
Some people mentioned dogs as a deterrent, yes they are wonderful deterrents, especially German Shephards, they are fiercely loyal, maternal, have a frightening bark and easily trainable, that's why so many police and military units use them. Any K-9 handler out there will gladly tell you the same.
A few people mentioned cameras, yes they make for great after the fact evidence for the police and the courts and should be employed also. A few other options are to have proximity alarms, yes they seems to have failed you according to your message, but were they deployed and setup correctly? Was the sensitivity accurate for the situation.
Another thought, which works wonders, is to cover unused entrances using proximity alarms rigged to paint packets. For example: If you have a basement entrance that you rarely or never use that there is little or no reason for anyone to use, you could set it up with a proximity alarm w/ paint packets, it will cover the "bad guy" with paint and or other foul smelling substances. Trust me, these help to identify the culprit.
I'm a gun advocate, no doubt about it, I'm in the US military in one of those "special" units that plays with all kinds of weapons often. We also sometimes deploy using "less than lethal" weapons. Anyone who has ever been hit by a sand bag gun can attest to the "Holy crap" feeling that happens when you see the large muzzle weapon pointing at you, the sound it makes and when the bag hits you. Mace/pepper/OC sprays and stun guns are great backups once the person is down so assist to subdue the person if you really feel so bold. Incapacitating the bad guy, identifying, scaring with a K-9, photographing and probably making him wet himself (a priceless moment) all without the potential of accidentally injuring/killing a family member.
Now is you are going the route of a gun, please choose one that the person defending the property feels comfortable with and has had many safety and training classes on. If you feel comfortable with a
BTW: Warning shots are a bad idea; 1) it could justify the thug to use deadly force as you now definitely threatened his life 2) the round you just fired has to hit something eventually, it may be your next door neighbors little kid Sally riding her tricycle in the driveway (could you live with that?) 3) Warning shots are illegal just about everywhere in the US. 4) The
I meant excluding fatal shots.
A few years ago, my mother's neighbor was out of town on a bus trip. She got home, a creepy guy started following her around the bus station, she went out, got in her car, and drove home. She got home, and noticed that the guy had followed her. She went in and locked the door. Her husband loaded up the shotgun. The bad guy came up to the door, and broke it down to get to the woman. He promptly got a chest full of buckshot. The police showed up, took the shotgun as a matter of policy. The judge quickly determined that it was self-defense, he got the gun back, the story ended happily.
I'm sure that he never thought he'd use the gun in self-defense. Especially not like that. And chances are that I'll never have to use a gun in self-defence. But I know people who have had to, and they'll universally tell you that they were glad they had the gun around.
They're not gun nuts. They're not people who watch too many movies. They're not people who go "a-packin'". They're just people who happened to have a gun around when they needed it, and they were awfully glad that they did.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Or try this:
Someone breaks into your house. He is armed, your are not. He rapes your wife and kills you, then takes all your stuff.
The thing is, when someone breaks into your house, you have no idea what they are planning to do. If he is armed, then by the time you've determined that in a dark house and in a state of fear, you'll probably be shot already. If I detect someone creeping around my place, then the moment I determine that they're not supposed to be here, (not a friend or relative or something) I'm shooting them until they (a) turn and run away or (b) fall down.
And even in your naive example, the greater evil is breaking into someone's house and stealing stuff. Defending yourself, your loved ones, and your property is not evil at all. Someone who breaks into a house should realize that he's risking being shot and killed.
Maybe we were not so pastoral before firearms, but we are quite pastoral since they became illegal in the whole of Europe.
An other point is that there is a much higher risk at death from firearms compared to clubs, or knives.
You reason from an asumption that the intention to kill is there first and then the tool comes in to play, I think you are very wrong on that, very often the intentions are to hurt someone out of wrangled emotions, self defense, etc. hitting someone with a club or knife will not result in death in most cases, hitting someone with a gun will! now the easy availebilety of guns in the US comes into play...
Suicide rates are a whole diferent issue, and are highest in countries with very high social presure, like overpopulated Japan, and cold and depressing Scandinavian countries.
of course the pistol is loaded. A pistol isn't useful unless it is loaded
I will explain to my Legions of Terror that guns are ranged weapons and swords are not. Anyone who attempts to throw a sword at the hero or club him with a gun will be summarily executed.</Evil Overlord>
That's f'ing brilliant! I feel so much safer now. :p
*sigh*
Really, what good are cops nowadays anyway? I was backed into by some moron in a pickup a month ago, and the CHP wouldn't take a report because it happened on private property (shopping center), and the Sherrif's Dept didn't want anything to do with it because it was technically not a crime. In the meantime, I have a car with $1800 worth of damages, and an insurance company that's going to deny my claim because the guy that hit me is avoiding them (he has a DUI and a suspended license). My only option is to sue him, but I have no police report to demonstrate liability.
First, point out a place on this earth that isn't fucked up. Next, prove every person at that location knows things are fucked up. As a LEGAL gun toting Texan (And my wife packs heat as well), I can say human life is important. I'm not going to shoot someone stealing the stereo out of my car, it's not worth it - That is what insurance is for. But if someone breaks in my house despite the alarm system and my large dog, you can bet your ass I'm worried more about the welfare of my four year old in the room next door than some thug who broke in - He's dead, end of story. And before some hippie chimes in about guns and kids (1) My child has been taught to respect weapons and has had their destructive capability demonstrated to him. (2) They are not accessible to him.
Oh, no, much more fun and appealing is to be a metrosexual AND have a gun. After all, if you have to actually physically scuffle with some jerk, it could get your clothes dirty or something. ;-)
Besides, the look on people's faces is probably quite entertaining when they look around and see scented candles...ruffled satin sheets...artistic nature photographs...stylish laptop...new-age relaxation music...and assorted firearms.
(Luckily I already knew of my fiance's fascination with firearms before I wandered into his bedroom and saw that combination... I still raised my eyebrows a bit the first time just because a shotgun is simply not what one's mind expects to notice near a bottle of Herbal Essence shampoo, though.)
So you are a redneck and between you, your wife, and your child combined, you still have a lower IQ than a dog...
'Anyone have a holographic Yeti generator to scare away intruders? :)"'
Okay, relax, it was just a joke!
Jeez, no sense of humor!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
You think Norway is bad? Try Malaysia, where i live. Here, discharging a firearm in the commission of a scheduled offence (i.e robbery) carries the MANDATORY DEATH sentance, regardless of if anyone was actualy hit. Being an accomplice to the guy who discharges the firearm (i.e gang robbery, or the supplier of said gun etc.) carries the same sentance.
Also, at the discretion of the judge, you can get hung for the mere possession of illegal firearms.
So the most the regular thief will have is a big knife. If the robbers carry guns, they are after big loot (banks, goldsmiths, very rich people etc) and they know that if the cops show up, they either get away or die trying, as being arrested means ending up with a date with the hangman.
And we don't plea bargian in this country.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
> Killing someone because of trespassing? Someone that's almost surely unarmed!? That's the last solution I would've chosen, if at all.
True, you cold always buy one of the "less-lethal" weapons: Google search.
They're definately available to the police, so I'm assuming the public would be allowed them? I'm not a US citizen though, so I could be wrong...
I'm thinking along the lines of the scene in the Jackass movie, where Knoxville gets hit in the stomach with a gel round and stops moving for about 10 minutes - and survives.
Maco
xxxx
The difference between a black and brown belt? The black belt wouldn't have killed the guy. (I speak from experience, the brown belts were fast and strong, but were shit at pulling, that is controlling, their punches)
The middle mind speaks!
Don't get a dog, rather get an Aibo then?
(What a fearsome creature!) -shiver-
You can have as many static firearms with trap mechanisms as you want.
But if one of them actually SHOOTS somebody, you can expect to spend time in prison for negligent homicide (if the setup worked well), plus have the victim('s estate) sue you for everything you're worth.
paintball
Well, as for:
/
"Not looking for anything that would get someone injured, but more in the area of detection and repulsion"
How about this robotic security guard.
http://robots.engadget.com/entry/8143838848436927
I've also heared of high volume smoke and fog machines being used as a part of built-in alarms. I imagine it would be kinda freaky if you broke into a place and it started quickly filling with smoke! I'd want to get out of there quickly - especially if it was accompanied by a computerised voice saying something freaky like toxic gas had been deployed...
Unexpect the expected!
In my case, I moved to a safer neighborhood. It took me two years to effect the move to one of the two neighborhoods I had in mind, but the wait was worth it. My neighborhood is now safer and cleaner, and yet I didn't have to sacrifice on the amount of rent I was paying, nor did I sacrifice on the amount of time I was spending on the commute. It took a while, but my patience paid off.
Now, I don't know the age of your mother, but assuming she's getting older. Do you think her neighborhood is going to improve, or get worse? And as she does become older, do you think it will get easier for her to move, or not? It's never easy to move and it's never a good time to move, but it's usually one of the best and healthiest solutions.
you need to go to where the mayor lives and cause all sorts of mayhem.
...whichever stereotypical organized crime group closest fits your racial profiling. It helps if they owe you a few favours or this the day of their daughter's wedding is not to far away.
On less realistic note, you can try X10 shit. I've been able to make a couple pretty impressive security systems for warehouses, small shops and methlabs for under a hundred bucks.
Fer shizzle.
Movie News - "Entertainment news, bitch!"
You just stay in your bed until the guy's gone, and you let insurance take care of the rest...
And well, just breaking in to kill people, you probably won't believe me, but those things don't happen over here, unless you were already having bad friends...
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
Stake the car to ground and the body to a low current high voltage source.
A simple fence charger would do but I prefer 300,000 volts of social reorientation.
Want to know the best bit? If you were armed when you broke into my place, and you even look like you're about to pull a gun on the police, you will be shot. Immediately, and right in the head. Our armed police don't miss.
Get a dog!
The house I live in was robbed 3 times in the first 3 months I was here. I got a dog and have not been hit in 7 years.
1. Solder a small scheme, install it toghether with car alarm. If not switched off, it should burn all the fuses in 2 minutes. Small timer, relay and couple other parts. Cost me $5. Saved my car in one cold night - i've found it in a snow 2 blocks away.
h iny-LEDs-auto-mp3-player.v ored-fighterjet.
2. Solder a small scheme, install it. it can stop engine when RPM's are more then value. It'll be possible to start engine, but impossible to drive away. It's a strange behavior, so a sucker will lose time.
3. add a gps recever and gprs modem to your custom-handmade-of-pentium1-Linux-and-couple-of-s
add ability to log into it. add relay board to control ignition, engine, brakes and your custom-bought-on-eBay-ejection-chair-from-your-fa
We have a lot more niggers and illegal aliens than any other country with the exception of Africa. Niggers have a strong sense of entitlement and zero respect for the law or any type of publicly accepted morality. Therefore, your shit is their shit, they just haven't taken it back yet. Take a look at the crime stats in cities full of niggers vs. cities with very few niggers. You'll see a staggering difference in gun crimes, gang activity, drug activity, homicides, you name it.
With the incredible influx of illegals, the nigger community is becoming worse than ever. All of the jobs which previously were reserved for uneducated and poor niggers are now going to illegals. The big difference is that illegals are at least motivated to work and take care of their families instead of committing hit and run pregnancies while working as little as possible.
Notice please that there is a giant difference between niggers and black people. Just as there is white trash there are niggers, and most black people hate niggers as much as the rest of us do.
So is a knife. And it is used more frequently to kill people in disputes.
Have you ever tried cutting a steak with a gun?
paintball
Also I assume this is cool but apocryphal - how would the builder test it without getting lynched by his neighbors?
This way you won't see the intrudor and will have no cause for alarm.
Interesting read - the full text is online here.
Two things to note:
1) The Frasier Institute (which released the study) is well-known in Canada for being a right-wing think tank. That by no means invalidates the findings of the study, but is important context to consider while reading it.
2) The main theme of the report is simply "violent crime in the US is falling faster than in Canada, so Canada's gun control laws are a failure". As the report completely fails to take into account the massive increases in incarceration and other justice-system oversight that have occurred in the US in recent years, it's worth asking whether the report is correct in its findings. It is entirely possible, as some appear to argue that America's drop in crime has been in large part due to this massive surge in its prison population.
Mauser's study is interesting, but fails to examine its assumptions nearly enough to establish the kind of causal relationship between gun laws and crime that it's claiming.
I'm sure there is all kinds of off the shelf crap to do similar things. You don't have to film every second if you only film by event. You can even have it notify you as it happens (if you care)
One example: http://sentinelvision.com/
I assume there are others.
yeah so, get a laptop and carry it with you, oh and buy a cheap bike not a car, no one will steal it. and if your smart you'll put your money and cards in your socks to stop them from being stollen, oh and use other peopls wireless access points so you don't have to worry about anyone stealing yours.
You should have used ordinary thin sharpened iron sheets around the stereos. They could also have some seemingly functional purpose.
Only if they're trying to repo a stereo or television from the rental place by breaking in your front door.
Trespassing is defined by entering into the domicile in question by forceable means or without prior consent of the owner or occupant. Even if you leave all of your doors unlocked, if someone steps through that door and you weren't expecting them, you have the right to shoot. This was all made possible by what's also known as the "Make My Day" law, a nod to Dirty Harry. Many southern states with dense cities and high transient populations enacted this law awhile back.
Personally I see nothing wrong with it. If someone breaks down my front door at any time, and doesn't shout POLICE WE'RE COMING IN, then they're catching a slug somewhere in their person. Anyone who is willing to commit such an entry surely knows the risks they face, particularly in states like Texas where gun ownership is high.
Is killing another person for breaking into your home extreme? Well, that depends on how much you value your own and your family's life. I'm no gun nut, and don't like guns persay, but I feel that the law gives me the right to defend myself and my wife, and if a criminal will most likely be armed, I have no choice but to arm myself in kind. Not arming myself would be a failure of duty, a total lack of self preserving responsibility. I couldn't bear to think of myself or my wife getting shot in our home without having a chance to fight back or win.
Yes, even the delusions are well-armed in NASCAR 'Murrica.
I've been "deterred" by a goose. They have this unfortunately capability to extend their snapper an astonishingly long ways out. And that at the end of their long strong necks which most inconveniently arrives right at crotch level.
I think the female intruders might have more luck. The men are gonna be hopping out of there.
What does that do? Not much, at first but then they know who you are and some will also get to know their neighbors better. Some may even become better friends.
I've done that in many places and in other places my neighbors have beat me to it. One street still has an annual block party to this day.
Millions of car alarms go off so often for no reason that it's no deterrent. However, you will act different when someone you know sees a problem with your car or other liabilities if they know you or vice versa.
Second, if your mom lives in a neighborhood with too high a yuppie content, then it may be easier to move than to retrain them. They're not community builders, but instead they rather let it fall apart.
I'm sure your mom can handle these thing, but they take a few months to a couple of years to kick in.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Parent poster is right - it's not like guns were easily available at Kmart before Port Arthur. Lots of types of guns were already illegal.
More and more guns are becoming illegal too - a family friend in Sydney has just had to hand in another of his rifles, because it is about to become illegal to own it. He doesn't like having to do it, but nothing can be done about it.
It should be noted that in some parts of Australia, you do not have the right to defend yourself with force in your home. I had a friend at uni who is about a finish a 4 year jail sentence for hitting an intruder once with a snooker cue (this happened in Bentley in Perth at 2am). This could have been avoided if the WA government would let people put bars on their windows.
See http://www.zoneminder.com for more details. It supports multiple input cards and hasn't stopped recording video for me yet. I've got 8 cameras on my home security system. Dunno why nobody has mentioned this yet.
Because bullets cost money?
Because even if they kill an innocent man on purpose/mistake, they'll get off scott free?
Because, like it or not, often times the police are just as bad, if not worse, than the people they've killed? Hang around cops sometime and you'll get to see abuse of power like you wouldn't believe.
There are good cops out there. There just aren't enough of them.
Here are some tips and tricks for Theft and Loss Protection of *Linux* Laptops, Notebooks and PDAs.
Actually, I live in Portugal, one of the safest places on Earth.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
Leon,
I will weep for you when people *do* start turning robberies into robbery-homicides in your area, and you lie there in bed and let them kill you. Then I will take a trip to the gun range to keep my skills sharp. I value human life, but I value my family's lives more than a criminal's. If that is immoral, so be it.
Out of sight out of mind: He closed in his carport so you couldn't see his car
Inconvenience potential burglars: a pet fence around the back yard (with the gate locked), storm windows and storm doors extra locks on widows and doors.
A thorny defense: All the windows had holly bushes growing under and around them.
looking like you have nothing to steal: The house wasn't the best in the neighborhood or the worst and all the improvements were either invisible to the casual observer or common place.
In summary the house was the least attractive target on the whole block with many inconveniences visible from the street, where presumably the potential burglars case the property.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
That's a fucking mith. The US were prompted to enter the fray both in the 1st World War and in the 2nd, and sat on their asses, until they were too afraid Soviet states would dominate Europe. Both wars were won by the Soviets (or the Russian winter, if you prefer).
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
Wow, that's a lot of firepower. Have you ever been attacked or even confronted by someone you thought was dangerous enough to warrant shooting?
That's alot of fear, why are you so afraid someone will attack you? I mean I've never even been in a fight, let alone a situation that serious. I've gotta say I don't think that attitude makes for a very civil society. Doesn't carrying all those guns alter the way you treat people, even in your mind and make you more afraid? What if I was a bit lost out walking and happened to wander down the drive of your country house to ask for directions, just as you were "unloading the luggage", a likely time for a bad guy to come at you as you say (has a "bad guy" ever done this to you?). I'm not for a second saying you'd shoot me, I just wonder if you would be thinking "who is this guy", checking to make sure your shooter is handy. I wouldn't like to think like that myself.
Not flaming, just interested...
Who's with me?! I SAID... WHO'S WITH ME!!??
Absolutely correct. That's why I keep my guns loaded and ready to go, and make sure that at least one of them is within easy reach at all times (and no, I don't have any young children at home).
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
I recall hearing that in Japan, they have cars which can set off a lethal gas, killing a would-be carjacker. Personally, I think that would be great to have in the U.S.
Site slashdotted? Look here for mirrors, or even better: o
I'm smarter than 99% of the population. Tell me how the numbers correlate to non-idiots and their non-idiotic families.
My family's home was broken into three times when I was young, so we learnt the following the hard way: - Gravel, gravel and more gravel. Cover the entire front garden down to the pavement/sidewalk right up to the sidegate/house windows with gravel. It can be dusty and gets into everything, but it's also noisy. If it's impossible to get to your front door without stepping on gravel, most theives will just walk away. - Personalise. I had a friend who bought a really REALLY old VW Beetle and she really went to town on it. She painted the words "Hi there" up on the roof, had each door a slightly different colour and left the inches of rust around the lights and handels. Years later when it was time for her to upgrade to a decent car, she left the beetle in the WORST area of town to see if her customising really was a deterrant. Three months later, it's still there untouched. Same goes for bikes and motorcycles. If you make them your own, theives will have a much harder time concealing/hawking them. - Automatic lights/motion sensors. 'nuff said. - LOCK ALL DOORS AND WINDOWS - get decent double glazing in. - Fake alarm/cameras on both front/side and rear of house. - Never be afraid to annoy the local police, it's their job to provide security if you've taken all other reasonable procautions. Get used to the phrase: "Ok so you're not going to investigate the prowler outside? Ok, I'm off to make a video diary of his movements / me shooting him / your inability to help. I'm sure the newspapers will be REAL interested. How do you spell your name again?" - Get a big dog. Call it Tison, Zeus, Thor, Mars, etc. - Have automatic timers for tvs and washing machines and lamps. Make sure to use them. - Cut up all your cardboard boxes into tiny pieces. Dont advertise that you have a new PC/TV/DVD player/ monitor etc. - Nothing looks quite so mean as a host of venus flytraps as your border plants. No kidding here, those things would deter King Kong.
That is, at best, woefully delinquent reading of the links you cite.
For a truthful comparison of firearm killings between Canada and the US, look here. In particular, check out this summary:
Firearm homicide rates in the United States are 8.1 times higher than in Canada.
> I've done all the hard math...
Maybe, but Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Some other things to help:
1) Get good locks for your doors, meaning sturdy ones that can take a few hits. They aren't much more expensive. If you have a place with only 1 or two doors like a condo, consider getting Medeco high security locks. Nearly impossible to pick and can take a hell of a beating.
2) Along those lines make sure your doors are up to snuff. Metal is the best but solid wood is fine too. If it's something flimsy enough you think you can kick it in, well then a theif certianly can. A good lock doesn't do much on a shitty door.
3) If you've got windows that are large and low enough to get through, look at getting some good glass and coating for them. A single 1/8" pane is pretty easy to break, a good double pane storm window with a security/reflection coating is fairly hard. As an added benefit, they have much lower thermal conductance and so save on energy bills.
4) Consider an alarm system. The dog functions as this to an extent, but an electronic alarm will go off even if the dog is incapacitated or something. Also neighbours will probably ignore your dog, since they bark all the time, but pay attention to your alarm.
5) If you are really concerned about someone breaking in while you are present (fairly unlikely) and concerned for your life and safety, a shotgun is probably the way to go. Your alarm will warn you someone is breaking in, your dog will try to stop them, but a shotgun will drop them dead in their tracks. However don't just get a gun, given that you need to be awake for it to do any good, you need something like an alarm or dog (or both) that will alert you to danger. Also, take a gun safety course and do some practice with it. They are dangerous precisely because they are so effective.
6) If you have valuables that are easy to carry off that you are worried about, get a safe. Not a little document safe, which are more for fires and keeping kids out, but a big safe like a gun safe. Something in the 200-500 pound range. Thieves will NOT be dragging that out and the chances that they are safecrackers is virtually nil.
It scares me that people truly believe that.
It scares me also that the original question was seeking methods of detection and repulsion and specifically rejected anything that causes injury, yet so far we've had guns, flames throwers, and a car alarm which accidently caused injury.
Nobody has the right to take away another's life, that you think you do has taken the kick out of my Monday caffeine rush.
"A goldfish was his muse, eternally amused"
I completely disagree. Someone who makes a conscious decision to break into someone else's property forfeits any civil liberties or rights as a human being that they had.
Sure, 99 times out of a 100 they might get away with it, but one time they'll be facing someone with a gun, who's very nervous and frightened, and who will pull the trigger if he so much as twitches.
When he gets shot and cries about it, can he really expect sympathy? Of course, after all, he was *just* breaking into someone's house to steal their treasured possetions. It's not material value that counts (and can be replaced by insurance) it's things that carry huge sentimental value.
To draw an analogy - what do you think happens in the wild if one animal tries to steal the food of another? They fight.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
well, not those that break into your car at night, but those that try to rob you from it while driving around. Those are burned. Alive. with this cool device: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/232777.stm
in a word....YES.
What gives anyone the right to cause someone else to constantly live in fear. The shopkeeper has a right to attend his business without the fear that he will be looking down the barrel of some assholes gun, again. just as I have the right to keep what I have worked hard for, if some parasite whats to try and take it from me, I will not hesitate to use whatever force I see fit.
when it is a question of whos rights should be upheld, the person who decided to live outside of the rules of society has no right to expect those rules to help them, no matter how fucked-up or dead they get.
Why don't the headlines ever read 'Psychic wins lottery'
I hope you remember that when you're accused of something you didn't do.
(and no, it won't be of being an asshole)
"A goldfish was his muse, eternally amused"
While I completely agree that a gun isn't the first thing you should do for security (I'd call it one of the last things, after you've shored up the other problems) or even necessary, you have a line of logic I've never understood:
"face the permanent consequences of a potentially tragic mistake and the tremendous guilt that any normal person will feel even if they kill in self-defense."
Ok, now killing in self defense impiles (by the legal definition of self defense) that you are in immediate danger of serious bodily harm and/or death. How then, would the emotional trauma be worse? I'm sure killing someone is an event that shakes you to your core, but it is certianly preferable to being dead.
I've never got the "armchair liberal" (since we are throwing around labels) attitude that it would be worse to kill someone that to die yourself. Well, no, it wouldn't. Guilt, depression, etc are things that can be worked through. Death is not, it's final.
So while I'm certianly not going to advocate a gun as a first line of defense, I don't see that it is a bad idea as a complete part of defense. If the person is, as you say, desperate and willing to kill you, better that you are able to defend yourself.
The problem isn't the gun use, or even the idea of using violence in defense of one's home. It's that so many people are expressly talking about killing people. Killing.
.45 instead of a .32 specifically so that you can be assured of the kill, well that sickens some of us.
If you want to shoot a burglar in the leg, fine, but when you go for the head shot, or by a
"A goldfish was his muse, eternally amused"
I must be mistaken because nobody else seems to recall it, but I could have sworn the French helped out during the precious American War of Indepencence. You know, the one fought against the British, your new best buddies.
"A goldfish was his muse, eternally amused"
> while the homicide rate for Canada has been increasing.
A moment with Google and a quick look at the actual homicide statistics in Canada shows that the parent poster is completely wrong. The summary of Canada's homicide trend in the last several years is:
The national homicide rate fell 7% last year [2003] to its lowest level in over 35 years.
> John Lott has an article discussing the abysmal failure of Canada's gun control program here.
If you're getting your information from John Lott, that helps explain why you have no idea what the truth is. Lott is a known liar whose research has come under increasing fire as poorly supported and possibly entirely fabricated.
If you want a pro-gun researcher to tout, check out Kleck. His studies have some serious methodological problems, too, but at least he seems honest.
Yup, don't knock on a door in Florida to ask for directions, as some deceased British tourists did. A few years back killing tourists (british and german) was their state sport.
Full ACK, where do you all live, in the Ghetto?!
Hope your house never has a fire then and you never get sick. After all, not allowing an amulance or fire engine on the property could be inconvenient at times.
How about this? Don't put anything valuable in plain view in your car.
The problem is yours. The US glamourises violence and gun use. Every other film coming out of the states features guy shooting each other. Your head of state poses aboard warships. You're OBSESSED with guns, with violence, with killing.
I think it was Shaw who said the US is the only country to have gone from Barbarism to Decadence without experiencing Civilisation.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
Except that banning widespread gun usage doesn't correlate well with low violence or even gun violence. Switzerland and Canada have higher gun ownership rates than the US but lower crime and lower gun violence rates. Mexico has basically banned guns, but has among the world's highest crime rates.
I know the guns are a very visible thing to blame, but the obsessive focus on eliminating guns doesn't actually help much with the problems of crime or violence. Other aspects of a culture have a much larger impact on crime rates than gun ownership (hint: the US drug war and the criminal population that can develop with such a huge black market to fund it).
So you can get down off your high horse about your "civilized" country now. Must be nice to be able to sit there and criticize from the sideline like that. Not that I don't appreciate Portugal, cause I really really like the '97 port vintages... mmm... port...
Regards,
Ross
Now go buy a shot gun. The folks who are breaking into homes have decided to hurt you, if necessary to avoid arrests or witnesses. If detection and repulsion were sufficient your previously installed devises would've worked. Lucky for you assault weapons ban expired today. Your Mom could go more Rambo than just a shot gun. Finally, the smartest move is to move to a safer neighbor. More of the same dectection and repulsion stuff is already a proven loser do not reinforce those efforts.
After doing a little digging, it turns out that Mauser is on record as saying that Canada's violent crime rate has undergone a "horrifying increase" in the last decade, despite the fact that violent crime has actually decreased 11% in that time period.
If Mauser is willing to deceive people by claiming that violent crime has increased when the readily-available facts show that violent crime has decreased, the worth of any study he is responsible for is called seriously into question. Evidence suggests "The Failed Experiment" is little more than a biased opinion piece. Too bad - I'd hoped for much more.
"The rate of property crime and violent crime other than homicides remained at a 30-year low in 2003, the Justice Department said."
i me .html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/national/13cr
A good alarm system, strong windows and good Mediterranean steal bars are all you need. The alarm should give you time to react and time for the thief to wise up and run.
Stop worrying about bullshit and start enjoying life. Take reasonable precautions to protect your valuables, but don't follow the advice of all the gun-nuts.
Factually, guns in home kill family members a hell of a lot more often than burglars. Of course, those that have nothing to offer but fear will disregard the facts and tell you "What will you do with some big bad guy guys into your house intent on killing you and your loved ones?"
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
Uh-huh. If I catch someone breaking the window of my car, opening the locks and taking the stereos, I think I can safely assume that he's an asshole bent on stealing my property, and not some concerned citizen on his way to water my flowers.
And no, I don't think I'm being an asshole. I just think that my rights as a law-abiding citizen are bigger and more improtant than some law-breakers rights are, espesially when it comes to my property. In simple terms: if I catch a burglar in my home, I have alot more rights in that situation than the burglar does. the burglar gave up his rights the moment he decided to break in to my home.
I'm getting sick and tired of people who are concerned about the rights of the criminals, instead of the rights of the victims. If the criminal doesn't want to be in a situation where he wouldn't want to be, he should simply follow one simple rule: _OBEY THE LAW_. He wouldn't get in to that kind of problems if he just lived by the rules the rest of the society lives by.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I will anyway.
A society which puts Consumption and Competition on such high pedestals, deserves all the crime it gets.
If you have something I want, then the best way to get it is to blow your head off and take it. That's competition baby! What? Don't like that? Think there ought to be government controls in place to stop me? What are you? A Communist?
I was talking with a fellow I know who has been studying social and political science for the last five years at his university, and he was telling me about Australia. .
All the criminals were shipped down under, right? Big penal colony. But because the land was so big, everybody who wanted, could have a stretch of their own. During this period where virtually everybody had property, theft was apparently virtually non-existent. Correlation. . ?
On the same time scale, it appeared that only when the evenly-spread wealth began to 'clump' and sneak into the hands of manipulative money-grower types, and some people got rich and other people were left out on the street with nadda, did crime start to rise again. Now ain't that interesting?
This is not to say that there aren't people who are naturally stupid and likely to screw up their holdings and end up in the street by following the pale lights of their own dim wits. But that's a different thing from actively pressing an undue and huge portion of otherwise good and able people into the gutter through the unnecessary promotion of such axioms as, "Greed is Good" and "Winning is Everything".
All those Losers are going to feel pretty awful, and violence and disrespect for others is a great way to express feeling awful. Crime is a direct result of societal structure.
Or I suppose you could live in a walled community and give lots of money to security companies and live with a nice back-ground buzz of perma-fear in your gut. I wonder what that does to voting trends and foreign policy. . ?
But as is also said. . , "Water Seeks its Own Level". Service to Self will always lead to complications and misery, and the U.S. is today the capitol of Self-Service on the planet. --Which is why it's goin' down as hard and fast as it is; I'd get the heck out before it's too late, (which it almost is), but then I don't live there.
Although, on a purely techno-clever basis, I do like the Fog Trap and Crunchy Gravel ideas for preventing property theft.
-FL
My experience albeit somewhat poorly written, I wrote it shortly after someone robbed me of a toner cartridge for a Laserjet 4 while I was armed with a 9mm handgun. (the retard walked away if you don't want to read the whole thing, I didn't even draw)
I think it is rather hard to judge - and too easy to generalize - if you haven't been involved. Most of the people involved in these situations don't have much time to think about the possible consequences, and I think you will find most stories in the media somewhat lacking in detail.
I digress. . . the guy wasn't going to attack me over the toner cartridge, but I didn't know he wasn't untll he started running.
Hindsight, of course, is 20/20.
There are many cases where it would be pretty damn stupid to shoot someone over property - such as the stupid toner cartridge - but there are other situations where the distinction is not so clear.
Then again, there are situations where mensa masters try to rob gun (or regular stores, it is just so much more amusing when they try to rob gun stores and somehow can act surprised when they get gunned down) stores with no mask. Most people can put 2 and 2 together and "no mask" tends to mean "I'm not going to leave witnesses."
I think that you would agree that someone wearing a mask walking around your house in the middle of the night is usually NotAGoodThing{tm}. I'm not quite sure how I would react, but my reaction would be different than if it was any place besides my home.
On a side note, the racking of a shotgun slide tends to send all but the most dedicated burglar running and / or pissing his pants. Sometimes just the threat is enough.
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The reason people have to defend their homes in the first place is because they, themselves have conspired to create a culture of screw thy neighbor.
When people vote for policies that widen the gap between the rich and poor they had better expect to live with violence and property theft. What you reap is what you sow.
It's cheaper by a factor of five, according to a detailed study by Rand Corp.
They're hardly a bleeding-heart liberal group, either - they fully support California's "Three Strikes" law as a way to reduce crime. They simply looked objectively at additional methods for crime reduction and found that education incentives are by far the most cost-efficient.
Moreover, these cost/benefit analyses don't even take into account the added economic benefit of having a someone be a contributing member of society (paying taxes) rather than being a pure drain (prison).
Education is much more cost-effective than prison. Unless you like throwing people in jail and paying for the privilege, everyone should be hugely in favour of educating as many people as possible.
Why? Why should I care about some asshole ho doesn't make any kind of positive contribution to the greater community? Why should I care about someone who obviosuly doesn't give a flying fuck about me or my property? Why should I care for someone who think that my property is there for his taking as he sees fit? Seriously: why should I care about him? If he wants to earn my sympathy, the first steps would be pretty simple: obey the law! Treat others with respect!
If someone steals or vandalizes my stuff, he obviously doesn't respect me or my property. Why should I respect him?
Are you as concerned when it comes to my rights to own and manage my property? When it comes to my rights to live in peace in my own home? my rights to not be assaulted and mugged when walking down the street? the criminals don't respect my rights, so IMO they also give up their rights as well.
I will respect them and their rights as long as they respect my rights. And that means (among other things): You do not steal my stuff! You do not force your way in to my home! You do not attack me! You do not threaten my loved-ones! Any action I would take against them would merely be a reaction to their act of lawlessness. Seriously: it really is up to them! If they obey the law, then they would not face acts that they would find.... undesireable.
I don't wish to harm anyone. But I will defend myself, my loved ones and my property if needed. Instead of whining on how I dare to defend myself, maybe you should whine to criminals and plead them not to break the law? The ball is in their court.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
A cluster of them. Linux, of course.
There you are, staring at me again.
He had a crossbow!
It should be noted that "Beware of dog" signs on your property are a serious legal liability in the United States should you happen to own a dog and it ever attack someone. Lawyers say you're actually better off without having the signs if you actually do have a dog, because having such a sign implies that you are aware of the possibility that the dog may pose a danger and you can be charged with criminal negligence in many states because of it.
What I used to have were a few window stickers on my car that I got from police friends. Things that suggest an affiliation or friendliness with the local police departments or other law enforcement agencies. Mine were for supporters of Colorado State Troopers and the NRA.
Personally I think the law enforcement ones are a little more effective, because I've had a few friends with just the NRA stickers on their cars have their cars broken into on several occassions. I suspect maybe the criminals are hoping to find firearms to steal.
Best of that type, if you could get any, might be to try and find some kind of federal law enforcement stickers. FBI or U.S. Martial Service would probably be the best deterent of that type.
Keith D.
geese & peakocks are good choices (peakocks are really noisy through the day). goats can be territorial and convincing and ostrich ... they'll rip off your face with their foot if you screw with their territory.
catus. lots and lots of mean cactus.
Firefox &
I will never understand people like you, who are bothered by the average person having the right to defend themself when their life is clearly being threatened.
yet we elected one of these people to President.
Bush and cronies do NOT want you armed.
an unarmed public is easier to control.
How about a bunch of halogen lights hooked up to a motion sensor?
If that's not enough, set them to strobe at about 10-30 Hz. Causes the human nervous system to wildly malfunction, inducing what is essentially an epileptic seizure in anyone.
Blind them with *science* !
P.S. For those who feel they must use a firearm to defend their homes: Sellier and Bellot make a variety of "less-lethal" shotshells. Now you can use the same rubber bullets the riot cops do!
That's a common misconception. The militaries of today have changed very little from the militaries of a thousand years ago except in terms of their reliance upon high technology. During the Gulf War we stopped using million dollar missiles to destroy anti-aircraft and other high tech weapons and replaced those attacks with snipers firing $6 bullets.
The achilles heal of all high tech weapons is that they need not be obliterated to be rendered useless. They only need to be broken. Once this takes place, the military battleground takes on most of the same characteristics and strategies of ages past. It becomes a numbers and strategy game. Granted there would still be untold bloodshed, but that's been a fact of war since the dawn of time.
Keith D.
I find your disregard for human life disturbing.
You seem to rate the shopkeeper's cash as more important than the robber's life.
And YOU talk about getting priorities straight.
Maybe. Maybe he did. After all, he's breaking into a house, and he's carrying a gun, so maybe he intended to use that gun. You think it's wrong for the homeowner to use a gun to defend himself, but you seem to have no problem with the a-hole that carried a gun while committing other crimes.
And maybe the guy that broke in planned to rape someone.
There is no way to know. But there *is* a way to make sure that you aren't simply at his mercy. You, of course, believe that the innocent homeowner should be at the criminals mercy.
seriously, you dont think theres a chance this guy who is robbing people may one day kill someone for a tv to save his own ass from going to jail?
seriously, you think i *care* if that guy stays alive when theres a chance he could not just rob, but even potentially kill someone quite innocent?
yeah, if he breaks into the house of a gunowner i dont care if he gets shot. if you dont want a gun, and if you see a guy robbing you and want to say "oh i forgive you" thats ok.
i dont want to say i forgive you, i want to point a gun at him and tell him tohave a seat while the police get a donut and come over. and if he wants to attack me, i want him dead. because after me theres my wife and 2 infant children in my home and i wont have them feel threatened because i thought id say "i forgive you, have another chance" to some prick who though he could come into *MY* house and do what he wants.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
Heh, now I get where Michael Moore was getting at in Bowling for Columbine.
There is a tool out there called ZoneMinder, that seems to be promising. Assuming your mother has a PC. As for getting into the whole shooting the burglar. I'll add two penn'orth. Surely the person who has broken the rules of the society they live in has decided to opt out of the protection it gives. I know that this is potential flamebait, but people are trying to blame everybody else for the sh*t that they bring on themselves.
I'm surprised that nobody seemed to talk about good technical security starting at the production plant of the car... Instead of buying guns, start with buying a car that has a decent anti-theft system.
My VW Golf has a very simple and cheap protective measure that is called a 'tranponder'. Basically it is an RFID chip embedded in the car key. If the original car key is not available, the car won't start. Combine this with the fact that the ignition wires are all black, and randomly changed from one car to another. This means that even if a burglar tries to tamper with the ignition, he will have very little information to decide which wires to connect, and even if he does connect wires, the chances of actually getting the engine to start are small. If he finds the correct wires to connect on one Golf, another Golf probably won't. Combining the wrong wires is noticed by the onboard computer and renders the car unstartable.
The transponder is certified by my insurance as a anti-theft device. Even thought the car has no alarm, theft will be covered by my insurance.
Inside your car: leave NOTHING (not even small chance) in plain sight. Get a radio with a code or detachable front, and nobody will break into it. And if they still steal the car itself or the radio, the insurance will pay. You get a new car or radio, so who cares? Don't be a fool and resort to force. Goods are not worth it...
You can buy life size predator replicas made from the films casts on ebay, that should do the trick behind the door
I live in a small town, Switzerland. My car (I share it with a dozen friends) is always open and the key is in the letter box. But there is nothing inside, people can open the car and look inside, they wont find anything, the only thing the burglars could take is the radio (which is old) and the car itself.
Same with my house, the door is always open. And burglars couldn't make much of what they'll find inside. I have an old 1970's TV and a heavy and not so recent computer. The rest is just made of old things without much value (except sentimental value, of course). The only thing for which I would be angry is if burglars steal my coffee machine, I would do anything to take it back!
Anyway, my insurance will still pay for my stuff if the door is not closed, so I just don't mind and have in fact never been stolen anything.
Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect another? - Bertold Brecht
A fairly simple solution would be to simply get a small nuclear device(1-2 MegaTon). Install it on the cars alarm system to go off if someone attempts to steal your car. Then if someone attempts to steal your car they are dead, your cars gone, and you and your family are also vaporized and won't have to worry anymore.
Let me ask one simple question:
Is it _rational_ to be afraid of these home invasions you speak of? do they happen very often where you live?
I have a hunch that the risk is significantly less than the risk from having even a responsibly handled gun.
Take a cue from Bruce Schneier and make rational tradeoffs where security is concerned. (Curiously, I've never seen him write anything either for or against personal handguns)
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Chain some gimps up around your gargen. Although this may also stop you getting post and leave you with no friends
I always thought the female-voice self-destuct countdown timer sequence was the scariest thing available. Wire that to your motion detectors (doesn't even have to wake the neighbors), some flashing red lights, and I bet any burglars would get out - quickly.
Check out This page
for instructions on how to build your own vehicle immobiliser. It features a warning LED, kill switch, and magnetic pickup to deactivate the system.
Did anyone of you ever played CS guys??? Knives beat guns period!!!
I live in Texas, our "nerdy" home protection is that we lock and load. Not too high tech, but an AR15 tends to keep the nasties at bay.
I've built a simple system with a couple of cameras that are hooked up to a dedicated PC near the entrance. Each camera is running (simple) computer vision algorithms to detect movement while isolating possible false positives (cats, dogs, leaves, etc). I activate the system before heading to bed, and it works in parallel with my commercial (motion sensor-based) system.
Should the system be triggered, it remains silent until:
a) It has saved a few stills of the target
b) It has saved a 20-sec video of the target
c) It has uploaded the pics/video as an attachment to one of my email addresses
d) It has faxed a still along with a pre-drafted cover letter to the local police department (who were kind enough to provide their fax#)
e) It has sent an SMS to my mobile, in case I'm not around.
It then runs through a pre-recorded message on the home cinema's loudspeakers to the tune of: "You have been caught on camera. Your picture is in the hands of the police and on the Internet. Leave now, and you might escape."
The measures taken above ensure that even if the burglar finds and busts the computer, the information will not be lost.
Of course, any techie solution such as what I described above (which, actually, has been useful once - a burglar broke in, the alarms tripped, and he left without me ever seeing him. My patio door was broken into, though) will only work in conjunction with two things: A commercial alarm system with well-tuned motion detectors and GOOD LIGHTING.
The latter is so obvious, yet many people ignore it. Good lighting is not just to give the cameras a better mugshot, people. Burglars despise well-lit areas. Make sure your house and all accesses to it are well-lit.
P.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
You're OBSESSED with guns, with violence, with killing.
oh why YES I am! all us Yanks dream about killing people.
I think your BULLSHIT detector is going off because of you.
There are MANY MANY gun clubs in Great Britian, hell the shooting ranges and clubs there are great and more modern compared to most here in the States.
Dont try and give me the "in GB we are better and certianly more civilized" bullshit. Please let me remind you as to WHY the I.R.A. still blows up civillian targets in GB...
Last time I checked, Great Britian had hands that are as bloody as the United State's Hands.
Let me know when you have no murders or assults with Knives and your society is a utiopia of civility... Then you will have a right to piss on us Yanks.
Until then you're simply a pompous wanker that gives all other people who live in Great Britian a bad name.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
do you think...
I do agree that Hollywood glamourises violence and guns in movies but please don't put all Americans in that statement. I, for one, do not watch those types of movies/television shows and I am strictly against owning guns.
...solutions was wishful thinking, I guess.
Rapidly scanning through tons of well-worn, common sense rehashes of testosterone laden home defense stuff is really disappointing.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................
Anyway, it's your own country, with your own culture. Vigilantism seems to me a pretty bad principle, much as 'preventive war'. Let's see where you're heading. For now, I'm glad we've reached the quality of life we have now here.
Grab yourself a dozen '94 bottles. Don't open them, it's still recommended to hold them. I can't imagine how good that wine must be in 10-15 years time ('94 was rated the best wine year of the century).If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
Anyone who talks about deliberately shooting someone in the leg in a combat situation obviously hasn't been trained with firearms at all. When using a firearm you shoot for the center of mass. Again, the headshot is a bad idea for someone attempting to defend themselves. Unless of course that is the only thing you can see. That is the caviat about center of mass, you aim for the center of what you can see. If all you can see is the head, go for it. But mind your backdrop.
Point #2, I have little or no sympathy for someone who is trying to violate someone else. And just incase you've never been on the receiving end of a crime, I assure you it is a serious violation of one's personhood.
Point #3, survey's have been done in prisons to try and determine what the best deterant to crime is. And guess what the thing the criminal fears above all else is? You got it, an armed "victim". The point here is simple, attempting to violate someone else's personhood (be it rape, B&E, simple purse snatching or worse) should be risky. Is the criminal concerned that they might cause physical harm to someone when they (the criminal) forcabley takes whatever it is they're after? No, not in the slightest. When someone behaves in that fashion they have removed themselves from the rules of civilized society, why should they be permitted to hide behind the selfsame rules they have scorned (including your pity/revulsion at their richly deserved fate) when they run afoul of someone who can and will defend themselves?
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
It is arguable that the Soviets won the Second World War. It is NOT arguable that they surrendered in the First World War.
Read more history. The Germans WON the Eastern Front in WW1. Big time. They forced a really shameful surrender on the Soviets (who were the guys in charge when it came time to surrender). Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, as I recall.
The Germans lost WW1 because they stopped doing what they had done so successfully for four years, and attacked the French/British/Americans in 1918. Bad judgement on their part, but nothing to do with Russia.
I'll leave WW2 for another discussion. However, check out Lend-Lease. It's quite informative.
It fascinates me how many people think that it was wrong for the USA to stay out of a European War, but assert confidently that we had little to do with the victory after we joined in. If we had so little to do with the final victory, why does it matter a whit that we didn't dive in earlier?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Previous to the law being passed, you could shoot someone entering your home, be arrested, tried, then acquitted. Noone was ever convicted for doing so. Usually, you weren't even prosecuted, but some DA's used to harass people that way.
So they wrote that into law, just to minimize the inconvenience to the homeowners who might have to defend themselves.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Kleck's survey reported that 8% of defensive gun uses involved the target being wounded or killed. With Kleck's estimate of 2,500,000 DGUs per year, that gives us 200,000 DGU-caused firearm deaths or injuries per year. Studies have shown that approximately 23% of firearm injuries are fatal. Accordingly, Kleck's survey numbers imply that DGUs account for 46,000 killings by firearm per year.
:-)
You've got a problem with your comparison here - Kleck was comparing defensive usage *only*, whereas the UoP study didn't make any distinctions between how the injuries were sustained, so comparing the percentages is comparing apples to oranges as it's possible that at least some of the Pittsburgh injuries/fatalities were the result of gang violence or other non-defensive activities. As you note later in your post, "defensive usage" can be something as simple as "accidentally" letting your concealed pistol print when someone suspicious approaches you, and as such doesn't even require the weapon to be drawn. It's still a valid defensive use of the weapon. I've not actually read the Kleck study, but I've heard it referred to often - I need to get cracking on my reading.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Post signs saying you property is protected by a security system. Having one isn't as usefull as posting you have one. The basic prinicple is to appear to either be to much trouble, or to not worth the effort. James
Pepper spray is NOT a stand-off weapon - it's not a magic bullet you fire from across the room which causes someone to run away yowling while crashing into your furniture. It won't drop someone, it'll only distract them with pain and blindness for a short while. Yes, this is useful, no this is empathically NOT a single solution to all your problems. If you want to go with pepper spray, you better learn hand-to-hand skills as well, because chances are, you'll be clinching/fighting with this guy before or after you use it (and praying he doesn't carry a knife or gun himself.) I've had law-enforcement grade pepper spray blasted in my face during a combative training program, and I still managed to fight back pretty good. Not because I'm a tough guy, but because adrenaline can (temprorarily) make you ignore the feeling of your eyeballs melting and your nose exploding. Really, it can. No burglar is going to just stand there, take your blast of pepper spray, and plead for mercy until the cops show up. If you think pepper spray is a good home defense tool, you're not carrying a weapon - you're carrying a talisman.
Someone breaks into your house. He is armed, you are not. You lose some valuables
Interesting, I guess for a mind reader such as yourself this works well. Unfortunately I can't read minds and when someone is in my home I must assume he could do more than take a few things.
There are MANY MANY gun clubs in Great Britian, hell the shooting ranges and clubs there are great and more modern compared to most here in the States.
Maybe, but how many of those are in large urban areas? How many guns are held within large cities? Not many. Country folk may use guns, for target practice and blood sports.
Now how many of your American guns are owned by city dwellers? Cities where the only target practice or blood sports are shooting people!
Dont try and give me the "in GB we are better and certianly more civilized" bullshit. Please let me remind you as to WHY the I.R.A. still blows up civillian targets in GB...
Huh? When was the last IRA bombing. I would consider Great Britain a much more utopian place than America.
Let me know when you have no murders or assults [sic] with Knives and your society is a utiopia of civility... Then you will have a right to piss on us Yanks.
I would much prefer an assault with a knife than an assault with a gun.
American needs to stop having an internal arms race. It didn't work when they were in an arms race with the USSR. When one side of society have guns (eg homeowners), the otherside want them (eg criminals).
Having said all that, let's just leave the crazy yanks to it. If they want an internal arms race let them, they'll only shoot each other.
Dogs are something all theives hate.And let it roam your outside your house in the compund.That thing can scare a tiger away! Im sure getting your balls bitten off might appear scary to most people. :-)
Lord of the Binges.
As a general rule, mantraps are illegal and expose you to civil liability as well. As I recall the landmark case was a property owner who set up a shotgun to kneecap anyone who triggered the trap.
Here in South Carolina the word from the top prosecutor in the state is, if someone breaks into your home then shoot them dead. You will not be prosecuted.
A Local, long time, hobby/game/comic store owner caught someone breaking into his neighbor's home one day (a common occurance at the time) and sliced his butt open with a katana as the thief's rear was hanging out a window. The police took the attitude that the guy had it coming. That was the last time anyone tried to steal from the old lady next door. I guess the story of the crazed, katana wielding, half naked hippie was enough to keep everyone away after that.
He must be a socialist.
Cirle of something else.
Put your hands in your pants and close your eyes, and all the bad men will go away.
Riiiigggghhhhtttt.
When I lived in New Orleans, I just took skater-punk stickers that looked like voodou symbols and put them all around the windows. Nobody ever messed with my car after that. Of course, you have to live in a superstitious neighborhood for that to be effective.
--
Sign I saw in Texas: "Tresspassers will be hexed."
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
What has "Belgium" to do with this? Do you think Belgians won't defend themself?
Errr, this is nonsensical. Per capita I'd wager that more Canadians live in urban areas than in the US.
You're probably right... the percentage of Canadians living in the US is probably smaller than the percentage of Canadians living in Urban areas.
The latter...Any dirtbag, regardless of his/here reasons, who violates my personal residence deserves to die.
They have the balls to break in...do they have the balls (or PCP rage) to rape and kill my wife and I? To burn my house down? To download the latest windows patch to my machine? Who knows...
Dead scum hurt nobody and pay a few - coroners, cops, paper manufactures (alot of paperwork for a dead John Doe), grave diggers....
I advocate vilgiante justice - no one is more responsible to protect their families / crap than the owner! Shit, we owe it to the economy to help create jobs....its a win-win!!
I'll second the parents comments about Labs. I have a chocolate lab that has a ferocious bark. Strangers don't think "friendly lab" when she comes at them barking and with the hair on her back standing up. She looks plenty mean enough to make anyone think twice about approaching the house. Of course this is all a charade as she is actually quite friendly. She is everybodys' best friend after 5 minutes of barking. Still, I can't imagine an intruder hanging around long enough to make friends with her.
I'm sure Canada is a great place and all (I've never been there), but low-tax it ain't!
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Because, like it or not, often times the police are just as bad, if not worse, than the people they've killed? Hang around cops sometime and you'll get to see abuse of power like you wouldn't believe.
None of which addresses the question I asked, which is: Why do the police forces train the way they do? Individual cops are sometimes bad and often enjoy their authority way too much (frankly, the power is what attracts most of them into the profession; it's not the pay or the social status), but the departments and academies are in a very different position. They're much more vulnerable to criticism. If they thought it made sense to train cops to shoot to injure, they would, because it would save them grief.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
We share a border with Mexico.
You don't.
OK, for a start the IRA are an Irish group. Ireland is not part of GB. I won't start stereotyping about American's knowledge of geography though... Secondly the IRA have (officially at least) had a ceasefire for, oh just the ten years now. They're not still blowing up civilian targets.
Yes there are gun clubs in this country. And a great tradition of shooting - mostly still goes on in Scotland for the benefit of tourists. But there are also strict laws as to where you can keep the guns and ammunition (eg locked cases etc)
My main comment was against the US media - in the main as watched by the people in the US. It is one that is absolutely obsessed with aggression and violence. Even your message had an underlying aggression. It's worrying, it really is.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
.... and leave it unlocked. A minister I knew worked in East St. Louis for a spell, and he found that leaving his Dodge Dart unlocked prevented anyone from breaking out the windows, because they figured there was nothing in the car to steal.
There were, however, far fewer people sleeping in cars in those days.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Bullshit. In Britain we have incredibly few gun related crimes. It's big news, really big news if someone is killed by the bullet in this country. It's not an everyday occurance...
You are clearly not living in the same Britain as me. In Birmingham there is gun related crime reported on the local news virtually every day.
"Feel the force, mother fucker." (Shaft Windu)
I have an idea that most career criminals don't have the faintest clue as to who Kubrick is...
He must have been hung over or doing drugs y'r honour, it's just a car alarm (this after replacing the screamers with 80dB jobbies).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
For those that don't know the answer, it's because a firearm is used to inflict deadly force.
The goal is to wait as long as possible before shooting. Try to resolve the situation by ANY OTHER MEANS. Only when that has clearly failed, and there is a grave, immediate threat, do you fire upon another person. If you have enough time to make a leg shot, or are not determined to kill the person, you have no right to pull the trigger. The goal is to immediately neutralize the threat. If the person falls to the ground and the threat ceases, only then do you have the ability to summon medical help to determine if the person has a chance to live.
The goal of training in the use of deadly force is to allow someone the confidence and composure to avoid using it.
Automatic weapons....thieves come in droves in lagos nigeria.
All straight things must come to a bend
So what would you recommend other than guns for personal protection? I have a physical disability that would prevent me from holding a gun steady, much less squeezing the trigger and dealing with recoil. Tasers have similar problems (they're heavy and they require more finger strength than I have, etc). That same disability makes me worry that I'm an easy target for a mugger.
... it's always a concern.
I'm thinking one of those "screecher"-type panic buttons and some pepper spray (idea being, at least it works on *some* people), but is there anything more effective? I tend not to go out at night except in a group, but
See your local arms merchant in the morning. They should be able to sell you something pretty good.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Canada sounds great.
And I'm strongly interested in deserting the USA.
The only problem is: I don't think you people will let me in, eh?
Seriously: if you're a (ahem) "seasoned" IT pro, in a weak market, without a couple of million $$ to bring along, then what are your chances of being able to emigrate?
"Wimpy" handguns have plenty of stopping power if you don't try to shoot someone in the head, which is one of the hardest shots to make if the head isn't stationary. So your gun control had better be in the top 1 percent or that .45 will kill your neighbor. This fundamental flaw in the logic of 'gun advocacy' is going to get all of us stripped of our rights.
.45 - ask any trauma doctor), where as the 'trying to splatter his ^%(@^ head all over the wall' defense will almost guarantee a date with a judge.
.45 is more expensive to practice with, loud, heavy, harder to control and carries fewer rounds. It's great if you can hit your target in the dark, when your scared and don't have to fire twice - because you can bet your ass when the hand cannon your holding goes off in the dark and you feel the thunder and see the lightning your next shot is going wild.
Small caliber hand guns are meant to be fired at the body, not the head. A 9mm bullet will ricochet off (and BREAK) bones, shred tissue and cause a great deal of blunt force damage, even if the hole is small. 1 round in the gut or chest cavity can bring anyone down as most of their core muscles will seize when the damage happens. Anecdotal evidence of the guy who was shot 10 times and walked away on PCP is just that - anecdotal. People have been shot by high powered rifles (.762 even) at close range, in the head, even multiple times and walked away. No one has ever had their heart cut in half by a 9mm bullet and walked away. It's not how many times you've been shot, it's where you've been shot. The head is notoriously thick and hard to penetrate.
Having shot your intruder in the gut also has the benefit of making your defense of 'defending myself' seem plausible (and a 9mm wound will cause more serious injuries than a
For home defense, if you think you must have a firearm, get a short barrel shotgun. You don't have to be as accurate, it does plenty of damage at short range but is highly unlikely to kill your neighbor. And the sound has been known to scare the crap, literally, out of an intruder.
An untrained person with a firearm is as dangerous to himself as his assailant. A person who has learned how to pull the trigger but hasn't figured out why there are different kinds of guns and calibers isn't any less dangerous, he's just a better shot. 9mm's will hold more rounds, are easier to control, have faster action and are light weight. For most home defense uses this is exactly what people are looking for. The
Dogs that bite often do it from a fear reflex. A dog that is sufficiently abused will bite at strangers, and will look impressive snarling on your chain, and will make you feel like a big man walking your beast around. But a sibling of that dog, raised in a caring environment by good owners, will be a sweet and hefty lapdog.
Some breeds are made for fighting. Changes are made to the breed to make the dog harder to damage (more muscular necks, etc), but the personality needed to fight is usually brought about by abusing the puppies. A pit bull raised as a family dog usually behaves as a loving member of the family.
For more information on the innate nature of Pit Bulls, see http://www.badrap.org/rescue/myths.cfm. (In a recent study of 122 dog breeds by the American Temperament Testing Society (ATT), pit bulls achieved a passing rate of 83.9%. That's as good or better than beagles ... 78.2%, and golden retrievers ... 83.2%.)
For information on links between animal abuse and spousal/family abuse, see here.
While a bit pricey, they generally are rugged, can be left outdoors for long periods of time and are intended for just this sort of thing.
Cause it does make a difference sometimes. I don't support overtaxing(beyond whats necessary to keep the wheels of society turning) the rich to help the undeserving who aren't willing to get off their ass. However I'm mindful of the fact that in a lot of cases if you're coloured you have to work 3 times as hard to get noticed or given your chance at the same table. I don't begrudge anyone for their success and I don't believe in affirmative action (at least not in the way its structured), but the reality is when you're educated and you don't get a fair chance it hurts and your nephews and nieces see that and sometimes get the impression that whats the point and the circle you as a person were trying to break away from gets perpetuated.
All straight things must come to a bend
You should know that pepper spray is not 100% effective. 1 in 20 people are not affected by it and persons with mental illnesses or high on certain drugs can shrug off its effect. I worked in a Max prison and as part of our training we were sprayed to better understand its use. One of the other officers was totally unaffected.
The spray is actually a micro pulverized powder in a liguid and the powder persists after the liquid evaporates. If you end up struggling with the intruder you will end up gassing yourself. Pepper spray should only be used as part of an escalating level of force. If pepper spray is all you got, you are in a lot of trouble.
You are much better off to have a 12gauge pump action shot gun loaded with #4 buck. Its what the prisons use. The most stopping power/spread ratio. You aim for the center of the torso. You shoot to stop.
Mike
If you fear for your life
As a self-professed criminal, isn't the fact that Mr. Mathers is there performing proof itself that, in fact, loud music doesn't scare said criminals away? ;)
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
This isn't a blanket endorsement of old locks, just an interesting observation.
Ask the Wehrmacht.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Welcome to Friend status :)
(I just wanted to say a little more than "Damn straight!" or "Me too!" or something similarly lame.)
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
You and I have different definitions of "civilized". To my mind, "civilization" requires each individual's right to defend themselves, their family, and their property to be encoded in the highest law of the land.
What do you think about "uncivilized" countries like Switzerland? How does that fit into your world view?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
You buy the .45 because of its "stopping power". That means it helps to assure that the attacker stops attacking, but nothing short of a very high powered rifle "assures" a kill. When a rapist is coming at you with a knife, you could put a 32 in his arm and he'll still come and cut you up.
The fact that "stopping power" also increases the chances of death is simply not worth worrying about. Why? Because a criminal can reduce his chance of death to zero by not breaking in or attacking in the first place. THEY are the ones violating others. It is the victim's responsibility to ensure their own life and liberty. See http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/cowards.html for an more complete argument. Some of that essay is a bit inflammitory, but most is well-reasoned.
Also, how do you know the intruder or attacker is there to just rob you? You don't. Only a fool would rely on an assumption other than that the attacker will seriously hurt or kill you or somebody you care about. If you need to worry about others, think about the other innocent and kind people that will be terrorized, hurt, and possibly killed by the person violating you. Protect them, not the monster.
Just to be clear, it is perfectly legal to own guns, just *not handguns* in Chicago. And you have to register them with the city, officially.
I live in Chicago, too, and my little ol' [legally owned] combat shotgun is ready and waiting for any intruders who wish to test if I "really would" launch a handful of OO in their general direction.
Remember, with a shotgun you don't aim, you point. The shot takes care of the aiming for you.
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
When you declare that all gun owners are rednecks, you're supposed to accuse them of ethnic bigotry explicitly rather than just hoping that everybody'll infer the accusation from the word "redneck".
You've already demonstrated that you've got heaping helping of ethnic bigotry of your own, without saying anything meaningful about the other guy at all. And that's fine as far as it goes, but it's good form to leave no stone unturned in your quest to prove that you're a narrow-minded, ignorant cretin, so dumb you can't even notice that you're projecting your own idiocy onto somebody else in your mindless drive to hate everybody who's not precisely like you.
This is why the modern Left is a hopeless case: Once you embrace bigotry, where do you stop? You've already abandoned rationality. Intellectually, you're fucked. The only thing left is mindless hatred of essentially random targets. There was a time when the left generally had more sense than the Ku Klux Klan, but now they're racing the Klan to the bottom. Well, so it goes.
To understand, read http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/cowards.html
It's not about the CD player. It's about one's personal liberties and freedom.
Since you brought up whether a car is worth the life of a criminal: I've heard of numerous carjacking victims killed by carjackers who obviously think the car is worth the life of somebody who worked hard to get it. You saying it's not worth the life of the scum trying to steal it? And yeah, if GOD himself could promise that all they would do is take the car, I'd let them take it and deal with insurance. The thing is, many victims of robbery also become victims of kidnapping, rape, or murder, and you don't know what's going to happen to you until it happens. To assume that anything less than the worst is about to happen, and to not defend yourself accordingly, is to make your own precious human life worth no more than a VCR and a quick thrill. And what if the criminal then goes on hurt others when you could have stopped him? Their pain stains your soul.
The guy was an armchair tactician, at least in terms of the sort of situation he's talking about here. His professional experience was as the fire-control officer for one of the main batteries on a battleship. I don't think the battle of Jutland, for example, is altogether analagous to the shootout at the OK Corral.
This isn't some anti-Heinlein thing. I might not say Heinlein was a first-class literary "great writer" like Nabokov, but he wrote a truckload of wonderful books and his views formed more of my value system than I'd care to admit anywhere but Slashdot... I love the guy to pieces. However. He didn't know shit from personal experience about personal defense with firearms. Wyatt Earp did. The fact that Heinlein's remarks "sound good" to you and me is kind of irrelevant; we haven't shot our way out of an ambush any more than he did. For all his "get the facts" rhetoric, he did tend to talk out his ass sometimes (in a fiction writer, that's not a flaw; you've got to have some intellectual balls to do that job as well as he did it).
yes, clean out the garage and put the car inside the garage and then lock the garage door. Does wonders for protecting your car. I'm always amazed when people buy a house and fill the garage with junk they never use and they have both cars outside.
"Please let me remind you as to WHY the I.R.A. still blows up civillian targets in GB..."
Because the americans pay them to?
That makes you clever or something, I guess.
Bigotry always seems to make people smarter, at least in their own estimation.
But I suppose you've all got to do something with your time, seeing as how you spend your whole life on the dole... (oooh, look how easy bigotry is! I can do it too! Does that make me as smart as you are? No, it doesn't, because I know it's bullshit, which makes me a barbarian... or something...)
Can't speak for the original poster, but I like weapons. There's something simple and elegant about a good piece, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with hurting or killing someone at all.
Personally, though, I don't care for loud bangy things that leave the hand, and I'm old enough to have trained in nearly every hand-to-hand weapon there is, so I have lots of swords, spears, knives, axes, etc. about.
There's a poleaxe, a long spear and a short partisan in the front hallway. Is that because I live in fear? Because I'm looking to chop intruders? Nah, it's because they are too hard to manuever anywhere else in the house.
I find most gun owners like the sound, the smell, the kick of the weapon the same way I like the feel of a good axe sinking into seasoned oak. It's in the genes. They aren't living in fear, and they aren't afraid of anyone, and they aren't all looking to pop somebody... they just want an excuse to own and train with guns.
I have 2 large dogs and a 4 foot chainlink fence. The dogs live inside but we let them out often enough that everyone knows they are around. The low fence is the biggest deterrant. My dogs could jump the fence in a heartbeat. They may tear your throat out or lick you to death, anyone who wants to find out for themselves is welcome to try. We havent had any takers on that offer.
Anonymous, yeah. Still, I just dont want to take the hassle to register, so I'll drop my E-Mail here: gunfish@gmx.de
.. Dackel).
Yet, the name does not mean I am a militarist. Actually, I do support the German laws on gun control. That is, as a sportsman, in order to be allowed to own a firearm, you have to take tests, proof that you are in need (e.g. sportsman, guard duty on an armored car etc.) and keep your weapon locked at home.
In fact, especially in rural areas, you do have LOADS of guns. Those areas usually have many hunters living there and most towns and villages have a shooting club.
Yet, most of the firearms are rifles and shotguns (not pump-action, but dual- or single-loaders) for hunting and aiming at paper circles.
As for the police, they are armed with handguns and in most states, SMGs with at least burst-fire capability (which are usually locked in the trunk).
They are fast, trained and reliable when it comes to defending others citizens from bodily harm.
I know that in most areas of the US it is not common to have your door locked during daytime and often there are opening handles on both the inner side and outer side of the door.
We usually dont have these.
Very few houses here have a "standard" back door (wood etc.), as these doors usually lead through the boiler room (and that room is required to have reinforced steel doors). Actually, if someone broke into my home, that would be the place to go. The doors in my home are designed to contain minor detonations from leaking gas and gas vapors, which makes it very hard for an intruder to pry or shoot them open.
Additionally, these doors are also locked.
Recently, people have found security doors to be desirable, so if you try to kick or ram open a door on a newly built house, you will probably break your ankle or shoulder.
Windows around here (modern windows, that is) are also almost definitely designed to prevent entry for at least 60 seconds (most burglars give up after 15 seconds of unsuccessful attempts).
Oh, and dogs are all-time favourite pets, ranging from the German Shepard, German Shorthaired Pointer, Bernhadiner and Doberman to the smaller but more aggressuve Terriers and Daxhounds(?
If you happen to call for "fire" and the FD shows up first: We carry a wide range of "rapist and burglar removal tools", including a belt-mounted axe and "rescue tools", pikes and shovels. We are not talking about hoses capable of feeding 800 litres of water at 5 bar into some attackers rectum.
After all, Germany is pretty safe, but you still would not want to walk several areas of Berlin and other large cities at night.
Fortunately, you seldomly have to. Many cities are founding so-called "Night Bus"-Lines, which are scheduled around every hour and take to as far as the outskirts of the next bigger city (which has a busline itself, in my case).
What am I trying to say, you wonder:
I do not know why Germany has less crime per citizen than the US do. But I am sure that the German "lock everything up"-mind has a lot to do with it. Additionally, as you probably are not shooting offenders, almost every case of self-defense gets justified by the courts.
For example: Someone tries to rob you - unarmed, only threatening. You hit him with some club (e.g., your shovel) and he dies. What a pity. His fault. The law says, if you exceed the necessary level of force that would have been necessary to stop him, you walk free if you did it in fear for your life, someone elses life or an important good (TV, car etc.)
If he does not die, but suffers permanent damage - not your problem. If the attack originated from him, its all up to him to pay. Even his insurance will re-claim any payments.
There is one thing that IS in the US-Favor as far as I know:
If you hit a pedestrian with a car, truck or any other motor vehicle, your insurance has to pay. Even if he jumps in front of your car in black clothing
Move?
Just to be clear, it is perfectly legal to own guns, just *not handguns* in Chicago
Aha. Thanks for the clarification.
Yeah, but for every robber who might one day kill somebody, there seems to be tens of family guys just begging for an excuse.
If you need a thrill, go bungy jumping or something.
I appreciate there can be times when one has to kill. But you must be prepared to face the consequences. If the law agrees that the person you killed was *not* invited onto your premises and they *did* appear to be an immediate threat (ie not fleeing while crying for their mummy and blubbering like a wet blouse) then fine, but I don't think "He tried to take my guitar" is a good enough reason to kill. Maybe he thought it was *his* guitar (since it looked real similar through your window) and that you had stole it from him - and since the police couldn't do anything when he reported it missing, he decided to break in and take it back. Unpleasant for you, but deserving of the loss of his life? Just be thankful he didn't think that *your* life should be forfeit for stealing from him (mistaken though he was).
If you are allowed to kill because you have judged him to be doing a wrong unto you, be prepared to be killed for just the same even when they get it wrong. That is why we have courts, they determine if a person actually *did* do something wrong, and so they must apply to people who own land too. Hell why not scrap the police and the courts and save on the Taxes - those post-apocalyptic movies like Mad-Max and 28 days later do look kinda fun.
Rednecks.
It's absolutely not your fault, but it's kinda sad that you live in a country\area where you feel forced to carry a gun all the time in order to protect yourself. :-/
If you'd carry around those guns in Norway, you'd be sent to the nuthouse.
Check out Customs and Immigration Canada for their Skilled Worker immigration category. There's a little test on the site, and if you score enough points on the test you probably qualify for immigration.
How about this. Why not just throw out the rule books, tell everyone to work hard and make the same wage no matter what you do and then we can all go home to our 8x8 cubical in a highrise and take our drugs that are free and given out by the government. I also like that idea of saying that we should just "Make sure it's one where everyone has a genuine chance, which doesn't oppress you if you're poor/black/unlucky" and then we can all hold hands and form a circle, all while singing. As a poor college student who has $20 to my name I am really looking forward to leaving the bounds of college and my parents and try to work my way up through the ranks and become as successful as I want. (aka the American dream) I think that if we all just share everything equally and try to erase the past and start over we will run into more problems in the future like the aboloshment of our basic civil rights of free speach and maybe in the future being able to think something different than someone else.
> the UoP study didn't make any distinctions between how the injuries were sustained
So you're claiming that bullets used "defensively" are 3% as likely to kill someone as bullets used in any other way?
Firearm assaults - which shooting at someone in a DGU counts as - are fatal approximately one third of the time. With this more specific data, Kleck's numbers actually suggest that about 65,000 firearm deaths due to DGUs should occur each year, making his results even more suspect.
There are only 60,000 total non-fatal gunshot injuries treated in US hospitals every year, but Kleck's numbers suggest DGUs alone account for 200,000 wounds (fatal and non-fatal). Unless you're saying that somehow the large majority of DGU-caused firearm wounds are never reported to a hospital, Kleck's numbers still don't add up.
Guns fire bullets in exactly the same way, regardless of whether the situation is a DGU or not. Intentional, non-suicide firearm injuries will have about the same rates of injury and lethality, regardless of whether the situation is a DGU or not. Kleck's numbers paint a picture that is demonstrably at least an order of magnitude different from reality.
Kleck's numbers are not reliable.
It's really strange how people mod certain comments as being trollist. Your insight is right on. The only thing that I would argue with is the word "deserve". But anyway...
Capitalism fails spectacularly at the problem called the "prisoner's dilemma". This situation is used all the time to explain why socialism won't work. In short, the prisoner's dilemma states that all it takes is one bad apple, and the whole system breaks. For example, in the case of communism, let's say we all work in a commune, and someone decides to become dictator and starts diverting resources away from the rest of the group and into ICBM's, then eventually people will get sick of working so hard and become cynical. The more common variant of this argument directed at socialism is that one bad worker will piss everyone else off, who is getting paid the same amount, and eventually all the workers will become lazier and lazier, until the economy breaks down, that's the myth that we are told (although my first description is closer to the truth about why the USSR failed).
In truth, most people could care less if the guy next to them works 10% less hard. Most people don't even start counting until it's at least 2-10x as much of a difference. Seriously, most people just don't care that much, until the differnce in wealth start getting absurd. And, in capitalism, as well as the USSR, the differences are absurd. Workers don't get pissed off at other workers nearly as much as they do the CEO, or the government official, that commands a high salary for essentially nothing.
So, how does capitalism handle the "prisoner's dilemma"? Answer, it doesn't. It's solution is to embrace it's failure to address the problem, and it embraces failure spectacularly.
For example, if I lied about my experience in the former USSR, I might get promoted to a slightly better paying managerial position. However, in capitalism, if I lie on my resume, I could find myself making twice, three, maybe ten times the amount that I made before. All I have to do is manage to BS my way into a high paying corporate job, and I can be sipping champaigne with the best of them. So, what happens in capitalism, is we have corruption everywhere, and the rewards are stupendous. The people who get away with this fraud are a spectacle to behold.
And, that also explains why we get so upset when we find out people, such as Ken Lay, cheated. It upsets us because our whole system is based on the utopian belief that everyone, despite the enormous pressure of billion to one earnings differences, will just follow the rules and work their way up the ladder in an ethical manner. Capitalism, in this sense, is even more naive and utopian than socialism, and that's saying a lot. We have an enormous burden of proof in order to justify these difference in wealth, and people like Ken Lay screw everything up, and show us that there is no justifiable reason for paying people this much more than the average worker. The fact that most of us still are ethical human beings gives us a lot of insight into human nature, as well as capitalism. These pieces of walking satire, such as Ken Lay, George Bush, and the huge number of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals practicing without credentials or without a license, show the absurdity of our system.
There is no concept of personal responsibility anymore. If someone is a criminal, then they're just "misunderstood" and had a "bad childhood". So the thinking is that they should be dealt with kindly, even if they break into your house, rape your wife and are attempting to kill you. After all, it's not their fault.
/SARCASM
I agree with you. It's pure silliness and I have a hard time believing that people actually think like that. This has got to be the only time in history when someone breaking into a house or store could not expect to get hurt or killed, and if he/she is, they can sue. Apparently self-defense and defense of one's property and family is a crime now in some places.
Just sit back and take it and hope that the police take care of everything for you. No need to worry your head about such things as taking responsibility for defending yourself. That would be positively barbaric.
I just wonder if you would be thinking "who is this guy", checking to make sure your shooter is handy. I wouldn't like to think like that myself.
Why not? I live in the city, and believe me, you want to maintain situational awareness at all times, ESPECIALLY if you're not armed. Instead of keeping your gunhand and holster clear (since you're not armed), you'd look for available escape routes, and maybe decide you'd rather cross the street than walk past that groups of punks spoiling for some entertainment.
Or, if some guy shows up at your doorstep at 10pm at night - is he just looking for a phone (because he left his cell at home), or is he looking for a target?
The police cannot protect you - they protect society, not necessarily individuals. This is a reasonable thing - elsewise you'd have lawsuits every time the police failed to show up quickly enough to prevent injury/death after a 911 call. In parts of the US, the authorities believe that the armed citizen is the best deterrent to crime and mayhem. In other parts, the authorities believe that citizens are too dangerous to entrust firearms to, and that force of any kind fails the test of a "civilized" society, and that you, as a lowly citizen, must refrain from doing anything to antagonize your attacker, and entrust all actions relating to protecting yourself and the community to authorized law enforcement.
In any case, being armed is a personal choice, and only part of a larger strategy for safeguarding your home. If you're interested in reading a good article that lays everything out (ie, secure the house, add an alarm, a dog, and if you feel you can handle it, a gun), Massad Ayoob is the man.
My house goes all DOOM3 on intruders. The second they step in, all of the doors lock, the main lights are completely shut down, afew strobes kick in and some moving colored lights activate. "Welcome to Phobos, motherfucker!" I scream over the distributed dolby systems in each room for full A3D sound experience. That's when my soundtrack of Rammstein starts to crossfade with the environmental noise of grinding metal and random dopplering hisses. By this time I'm already in the same room as they with my 9" fixed-blade survival knife and 12 guage pump. I'll be damned if I'm pressing the F-key for the flashlight, that's such a fucking hassle (why didn't I get the mod!)
If the son of a bitch survives the shores of hell that is my house, (s)he'll have a new perspective on their life and of my house. Not that they're ever getting out, though. No blue spheres here...
DeMe
Rocket-propelled grenades and artillery shells converted into roadside bombs (source1, source2, source3, source4.
Mere assault rifles are only minimally effective against the modern US army. That's not to say civilian gun ownership may not have other benefits, but the days of civilians with handguns and rifles holding off the troops of a tyrannical government are long gone.
Seriously, you think that's ok?
Yes.
Then I guess we are under no general duty to provide their salary? The next time some politician or police union is trying to raise police wages remember this decision.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Except apparently we didn't, quite. Because we can't seem to go half an hour without one American (possibly drunk) shooting another in a dumb argument, or a hunting accident, or a jealous rage or something.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
I saw an adorable photo of a lynx kitten - looked just like a tiny little domestic kitten, but its claw were already about triple the size of a house cat's. Makes you wonder how people manage to keep pet lynx. Maybe they just resign themselves to only buying cheap furniture, and replacing it twice a year...
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
No, I'm saying that the majority of defensive uses of a gun don't involve the discharge of the weapon, and consequently don't have any injuries or fatalities at all.
Intentional, non-suicide firearm injuries will have about the same rates of injury and lethality, regardless of whether the situation is a DGU or not.
I don't think you can make this assumption - defensive uses will tend to have a lower fatality rate simply because the shooter is likely to be suffering from a substantial loss of fine motor control due to the fight-or-flight response. One can train to get around this problem, but the vast majority of people haven't.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
a Remington 870 Marine Magnum does the job. The world's #1 most regonizable sound is a loading shotgun... they'll get the hint.
..Just grow a bunch of roses around the fence if you have one... as for the front gate... electricity works on cows and robber 2 ... better yet .. motion sensor turn on the electric fence ... and set your water sprinkler on at the same time also.
It's not gun crimes I worry about.
It's crimes.
A Human Right
[posting anon for obvious reasons]
Since I cant read minds, anyone inside my house / place of business without my consent acting agressively towards me is a threat to my life and limb.
It's not about stuff or pride. It's about not knowing if they're there to kill me or take my TV.
Higher levels of violence in the United States are mostly associated with the following three cultures:
* Low-income white southerners
* Low-income African-American descendants of slaves.
* Low-income Hispanic-American descendants of immigrant laborers.
All three have in common:
* An "honor culture", where personal affronts demand a violent response. This follows from their shared cultural histories of being oppressed by an aristocratic upper class, where all they had left to defend was their dignity.
* Poverty, which more than anything else is a predictor for violent behavior.
If you add enough poor people with this cultural background to Canada, Canada would have the same rate of violence and homicide as the United states.
Thanks, but I failed, as I expected:
I do have boocoo years of IT experience, but no 4-yr degree, and no pre-arranged job.
I also lost points for age.
The sad thing is, I don't even NEED a job, I can live on what I have now.
This sucks. Looks like I'm trapped in Amerika with the Gang Of Bush.
Like we give a shit.....
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
Someone breaks into my house, armed, and I am not. I am now at the complete whim of a violent criminal. What he says, goes. Or I or my family are killed.
Or......
Someone breaks into my house, I am armed, now he has the choice to immediately stop what he is doing. If he drops my shit and runs away, great, I go clean out my pants and call the pigs. If he decides to do something aggressive, then he has made that choice, and will be shot quite a bit.
Now, you tell me, which is the greatest evil: allowing one's own family to be brutalized, or to defend that family, hopefully without having to shoot anyone.
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
How can you say he didn't intend to harm anyone? Done a little midnight robbery yourself? Good for you, I admire your desire to relieve other people of the fruits of their labors without harming their physical selves. Then why do you have a gun? To prevent me from stopping you.... Stopping you from stealing from me... That makes sense.
I've got a better idea - lets see what happens when people who commit armed robbery get shot and killed. Oh, yeah, I forget - that does happen! And you know what? That particular robber never does it again! Great!
This is one of the stupidest things I've ever read on Slashdot, and that's a difficult task; congrats. You are saying that access to guns creates criminals. Kinda like, flies create garbage. I have access to guns, and haven't become a criminal; you presumably do not have access to guns, yet where you live you still have criminals. Where is your cause/effect?I'll answer that myself - it is up your ass, where your head is.
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
Actually, since motion detection programs such as SupervisionCam (my favorite),Gotcha, &etc can automatically upload images to the internet, you still get images even if the equipment is stolen.
:)
:) But he never came back again. :)
:)
On my set up, detected motion turns lights on, plays sounds, turns on video monitors in bedroom, and wakes me up.
I am using a combination of USB webcams (low quality) and NTSC video cameras fed through cheap video input cards.
I live in a bad neighbourhood that is becoming a expensive neighbourhood, but in the meantime I have to deal with crack whores, dealers, and thiefs that walk my streets constantly day and night. Just the fact that the 'community' knows I have cameras it a huge help.
Very tall fences have been important also. Dogs contained in them work, but most people don't take good care of their dogs, who become bored and lonely, which I think is a cruel thing to inflict on a conscious being. Instead, I have an old partially blown set of Labtec speakers with a microwave-sized subwoofer hooked up to my video motion detection machine. It makes a very believable bark that is triggered by the video motion detection. I can also use to play a shotgun-cocking noise to scare people off.
Video motion detection actually works wonderfully well if carefully aimed. Any change in the picture pretty much sets them off, so you have to avoid looking at wind-blown shadows (if you monitor during the day), walls that headlights sweep across (at night), and close encounters with cats, lizards, and even spiders.
If you want human motion, I've found the it best to avoid the 'god's eye view' people often want to use for cameras, because from that perspective the cross section of a person is much smaller. The best set up is looking at a mostly monochromatic wall from about 10-20 feet, with the camera about 4 feet off the ground.
For video motion detection, also make sure the area is well lit at night. I've been amazed at how effectively compact flourescents (which are cheap) light up an area if spaced about every 6 feet. They make things much clearer than you would expect for the number of lumens on the packages, especially compared to using a single very bright outdoor light as people often want to do.
Sodium vapor lights may not cast a shadow for the human eye, but I've found they do a very poor job all round at illuminating a scene for video camera.
An old woman I know was being broken into every few days. The thief would take $20 here, $65 there.. I set up a video motion detection system at her place, and we got nice clear shots of him breaking into her car, her house, etc.. and clear close ups of his face. She sent this into crime stoppers, and someone recognized the man. When the police visited his house, he had 'left town'..
I am curious to hear other people's experiences with this technology... You know, someday it could become common enough that thiefs would just assume that they will be recorded if they set foot on someone's property.. imagine what that would do to the rate of break-ins.
I'd like to see cops wear cameras 100% of the time too, but that's another topic...
True, but Kleck's research suggests that a very large minority do involve the weapon being fired. Kleck's survey suggested that the weapon was fired in 24% of DGUs source.
Some more problems with Kleck's methodology: link
> I don't think you can make this assumption - defensive uses will tend to have a lower fatality
> rate simply because the shooter is likely to be suffering from a substantial loss of fine motor
> control due to the fight-or-flight response.
Loss of fine motor control will cause fewer hits, but in no way makes those bullets hit with any less energy or wounding power. Besides, firearm wound lethality statistics already take this into account by considering large numbers of criminal shootings, which aren't likely to be any better trained than civilian shootings.
While effective, getting a dog to defend your social group hasn't been high-tech for at least 10,000 years. :) I think it's great you rescued your dog though. I've done lots of volunteer work for shelters but now focus on spaying an neutering because the overpopulation problem is absolutely overwhelming.
The breeders make it worse by cranking out more animals when thousands are being gassed every day. In the United States the number is roughly 2 million cats and dogs euthanised every year. Here in Houston, Texas, it's over 120,000 in city limits alone.
Interestingly, the numbers that breeders crank out to sell for profit are almost the same as the number euthanised.
To add insult to injury, I'd say from extensive personal experience that 1/3 to 1/2 of the animals put down in shelters are pure breed or at least appear to be.
Animals are conscious, feeling individuals, not products. The Geek Way is about bettering society and extending human ability through technology. Unless your dog is a rescue, and you make sure he is not lonely or bored, I don't see how having a dog for security could ever fit the positive view I like to maintain of the geek way of doing things..
You know, having lived in safe neighbourhoods full of people avoiding the underclass, and having also lived with the underclass, I've be absolutely dumbfounded at the totally different social worlds this creates.
It goes way beyond the 'no role models' mantra about kids in these poor neighbourhoods. The idea that someone can be more eveolved that cro-magnon debauchery and hierarchy is simply unreal to them. Not only that, but this primitivists culture cranks out more kids and at a younger age, partly because their parents don't spend hardly any time at all raising them, so why not?
How about this for a geeky solution- reinvade the bad neighbourhoods. Just being around and talking with your neighbours there makes a surprising difference.. but then, I suppose fearing for your life a little bit isn't for everyone. I guess you'll just have to reach for the technological solutions.
Ultimately, poor urban culture is going to be the majority culture in our society if we don't do anything. It's taboo to consider, but the sooner we tackle this fact, the better off we'd be. I'd support technological solutions such as sterilization. If costs something like $20,000 a year to attempt educate a kid, an effort that probably will fail if he is from the anti-intellectual poor american culture.
Instead, why not pay poor youth to be permanently sterilized for half what their 4 kids would have cost us - $40,000 a year for 12 years. We'd save money and be able to focus our precious non-monetary resources on kids who are actually wanted.
I believe it was just that point about Americans which was considered flamebait, especially the jab at Bush.
First I don't understand where you get your statistics from. They don't hold true for the white trash criminals I know of. No body on the trailer park boys owns a pitbull. The stat I am paraphrasing I read in the StarTribune when Minnesota Corrections was starting a pet therapy program for inmates.
Criminals, by nature, are lazy. They can barely take care of themselves let alone a dog. What most criminals know about dogs could be summed up in two words, they bite!
I don't see how your flame gets 1 point and my advice got zip. Mine was one of the only posts that was taking into consideration that we are making security suggestions for an elderly woman. Suggesting a big dog or a gun makes as much sense as throwing a PII and a couple of openBSD disks her way so she could have a secure box for her first computer.
I think the small territorial dog combined with a voice activated light is a good combination of natural and tech solutions. It helps her notice if someone has set off her car alarm and it also give a fairly credible appearance that someone is home and paying attention.
I have had the opportunity to teach dog sledding to inner city "at risk" youth. It doesn't matter how tough the pose, they are afraid of big dogs. I also stand by my statement that walking down statistically high crime streets with a psycho looking husky bitch will make even the toughest street thug cross the street to avoid getting bit.
But a big dog makes little sense for a little old lady that is unfamiliar with dogs. It would probably jump up to kiss her face and break her hip.
In the same spirit any slashdotter would love to have a room filled with a beouwulf cluster. I doubt the poster's mom would put up with that much hardware in her house for a minute. She wouldn't know what to do with it.
I stand by my suggestion.
And for the record wouldn't step foot in a PetSmart... who knows what strain of parvo you'd pick up from one of those filthy places.
Japan has no guns.
= 32 31
Japan also is more dense then the US.
Japan also has many violent movies, if not as many as the US.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id
-----
For a more comparative study, here are results as compiled by the Taiwan
government which covers several countries. (data was taken from various
statistical sources for 1998)
Murders per 100,000.
1. Russia Federation 18.07
2. United States 6.32
3. Malaysia 2.73
Taiwan 1.17
Spain 1.08
Japan 0.58
Rape per 100,000.
1. United States 34.20
2. England and Wales 14.69
3. France 13.38
Taiwan 8.82
South Korea 4.38
Spain 3.23
Japan 1.48
Serious Assault per 100,000.
1. Australia 713.68
2. England & Wales 405.20
3. United States 357.94
Taiwan 37.30
Spain 23.94
Japan 15.40
Robbery/Violent Theft per 100,000.
1. Spain 169.85
2. United States 169.02
3. France 144.10
Taiwan 14.35
South Korea 11.74
Japan 2.71
When one wants to use a quotation to make a point, it usually works better when the person quoted is one who has a certain amount of independence of the topic---an unbiased observer, or at least one whose opinions are worthy enough to quote. Quoting Shaw ("Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.") on this topic is like quoting a neo-conservative on their opinion of a Democrat.
I was just robbed from my car. Insurance to replace stolen property is the best defense. Thiefs cannot steal what really matters, love for myself and family and all the sentimental bullshit in life.
One of the most dificult reasons people are willing to kill/mame or otherwise harm someone else is security.
Feeling secure in thier psesions as well as thier helth is one of the bigest motivating factors in home defense. It isn't about "the took my lawnmower" it is the "whast will they do next" factors we need to observe. Security is detrimental to not only a persons helth but mental well being also. You can sit back and monday morning quarterback all you want but that doesn't match thr anxiety or mental stess being placed on someone at times like this.
Without mental helth profesionals helping victoms, they will usualy try and elevate thier sence of security to a point they are comfoprtable with again. If this means gettign a gunn and planning on using it then thats what it takes to mke them feel secure again. Some people don't even have to have a anythign happen to them before felling insecure and wanting to corect it.
everythign you say sounds reasonable. I wouldn't go down the streeet and shoot someone because they stole form you. I'm not sure i would even shoot someone if they stole period. It is when they make me feel insecure i would take a stand. Invade my home, Mug me while wlaking downa scary part of the town after i read a newspaper with headline saying the last to dead bodies found were mugging victoms. I will show you how secure i feel compared to how secure i want to fell real quick.
Just becuase we live should give us the right to be secure. some people might take it more to an extream while others are more reasonable about it. Without security society cannot perpetuate in any meaningful way. You or i could not succeed if we didn't have some level of security. It hits hard when we are frightend.
Sure, Canada is low on the gun deaths, because Canadians use knives.
Thunder Bay Ontario is #1 in knifings... not bad for a pop of 100,000!
Use a propane bottle, a solenoid valve, a pipe and a spark plug. Make the "guns" in the turrets just special-effects devices that look and sound real.
It'll scare the bejeezus out of the intruders, wake up everyone in the neighborhood, and allow your vast array of digital cameras to catch their face staring in open-mouted shock at the auto-tracking laser pointers and fake muzzle flashes.
Stream the images wirelessly onto an offsite server, and you're golden!
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
If you're accumulating a lot of things in a big mansion, you'll probably look like a rich guy, and if you don't try to be known as a friendly rich guy, people who have to round their end of month on the so-called us-welfare will think of you as a potential target. The best way around is to get implied in grassroot organization, tool pool, community organisation. A lot of people active in those groups will remark you, and spread the word around that you're a friendly rich. This will at least save of ELF raids. Harming the people who try to steal with any device will emit the message of don't go stealing there to less people, and make those people wanting revenge, which is probably not a good solution, because all security will fail at some point.
A guest is invited, but no longer welcome?
Next time I'm surfing on your sofa, when I hear a round being chambered I'll know I'm no longer welcome. =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I agree it's a good idea to be prepared. But, a gun is in essence designed to kill in the quickest and unbiased way. You barely have to think to pull the trigger. In fact, none of the issues of actually killing or protecting yourself in a physical sense apply. The issue I'm raising is that a gun's propensity to escalate a situation to the point where either you or someone else is killed is very high. Take other forms of protection as an example: a baseball bat, a can of mace, a bowl of vinegar, a shoelace. They are all suitable to protect you and yet they offer a lot of leeway in terms of fatality compared to a gun. I'm not even talking about accidents. I think that preparedness has to be balanced with reasonable levels of eventuality and frankly I think having a gun jumps straight to the worst outcome every time for the attacker and the victim.
To paraphrase another reply, you buy bottled water before a hurricane, but you don't buy 10,000 bottles, 20 or 30 is plenty even in the unlikely event that your water is contaminated. 10,000 bottles creates more problems than is justified by the preparedness, just like a gun.
I heard (FOAF) about someone who raised Alsatians as pets/guard dogs. For those who don't know, Alsatians either do not or cannot bark. They came downstairs one morning and found a dead burglar in their house. The guy had broken in and woke the dog, which propmptly tore his throat out and went back to sleep. All of this was so silent that it didn't wake the family.
I don't know if it's true, but it's certainly hella creepy.
Not that I'm condoning such behaviour but what if: Needed - - rubber gloves, steal them if possible - box of tacks, also steal them - a roll of duct tape... need I tell you how? - a small file. You know by now - some lye, powdered acid, or alkyline (sp) Put the gloves on first! Take file and sharpen several tacks to razor sharpness. Take a piece of duct tape (the length of the cars door handle) and fold it in half (repeat if its too big to fit unnoticed under the door handle). Push tacks through the tape. Coat tacks and the side of the tape the tacks are sticking out. Carefully place under the door handles. Dispose of everything. When the police come to your house *and tell you of the tape on the handles causing injury to the criminal* deny any involvement claiming the tape was placed on the outside of the car that anyone can access. Laugh at the thought this 'person' had some burning sensation and in rare cases might even have lost feeling in their fingers or better yet need to get some or all of their fingers amputated. Again I wouldn't suggest this as there are TO many varibles that could make this go wrong >:)
I can't wait until Texas imposes laws like that.
>> Bullshit. In Britain we have incredibly few gun related crimes.
Especially in Gunchester. Er, uh, I mean "Manchester."
Look up the stats. Murders with firearms are increasing by the double-digits each year.
Take your mum in to live with you.
When you couldn't take care of yourself, she took care of you.
Now do the same for her. Don't be selfish, you owe her.
Yes, yes we do.
I've got one of these and I sleep well at night. :-)
Jim Lynch
Tech Analyst and Community Manager
Actually, since handguns were banned post Dunblane, gun crime HAS risen in this country. (maybe you have your head burried in the sand)
You see, 80% of handguns were held illegally by criminals. The 20% of us law abiding citizens who had sporting guns legally regestered (with serious consiqunces if they were taken/loaded anywhere other than an authorised sports shooting range etc) had them taken away.
This stopped armed crime how?
Somehow I resented having 750 quids worth of my property confiscated just on the off chance that I was a mass murderer of school children.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Guns are problematic. First, there's the obvious safety issue of having a gun in the house.
This is a non-issue if you have any brain power at all. Keep the gun in a secure place. Gun safes and cabinets are made for a reason.
Second, there's the fact that if you miss (or even if you don't), you could toss a bullet through a wall and kill your kid sleeping in the next room or the neighbor down the block.
That's why they make frangible ammunition and specialty ammo like the Glaser Safety Slug, they exist to reduce the threat to people in the next room.
It's even effective if you don't have a clear shot -- spray it into the hall and you'll deny access to a section of the house while you dial 911. And if your kids find it, the worse that can happen is they'll spray themselves and need an eye wash. Painful, but beats a bullet in the head.
Pepper spray is nothing to someone who is hopped up on hard drugs. A Sherm head who just got wet won't even notice that he's been pepper sprayed. For people like that, lethal force should be something that you can consider. It should be a last resort if possible, but it should be an option you leave open for yourself.
Given the real risks of even keeping a handgun, in most realistic scenarios (aka, 35 gang members probably aren't going to rush your house), pepper spray is a far better solution given the overall risk/rewards.
While it's true that the chances of 35 gang bangers invading your home is ~0%, ONE dope fiend looking for money for his next fix is ample reason to consider a firearm.
Do, or don't it's your choice, but understand the risks involved if you choose not to.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano