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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? :)"
i think you might want to have a look at this paintball gun then...
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
I highly recommend this route. To avoid having to go through training issues and increasing demand on the puppy factories out there, seriously consider looking into a rescue dog. These are dogs that typically are taken from shelters before their time runs out. The volunteers who run rescues tend to pick dogs who have exceptional traits like intelligence, affectionate, etc...
In the rescue system, they are typically potty trained, given obedience classes, speyed or neutered, screened for diseases, full immunizations, and are socialized with other dogs. I adopted a 2 year old pit bull a few years back(I went to see a germen shepherd but this dog suckered me). I couldn't have asked for a better dog. She came potty trained(mostly) with basic obedience training and she's extremely loyal. She does really good with my infant children and she scares the crap out of strangers.
I highly recommend rescue dogs after this experience.
Think for yourself, destroy your television.
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 couple of months ago I had a neighbor break into my house and thought I wouldn't notice. As soon as I got home I did, and on consulting a camera in my living room I found pictures of her where she shouldn't have been.
Video cameras are great, but require lots of tape and can wear out, even digital ones require large amounts of disk space.
I was very happy that I was using a MemoCam that I had picked up in a thrift store back in December. I was very eager to use it as I had a pair of DVD's disappear the month before, and after many months of sitting idle it found my burglar (at least in this one case).
As for the camera, it's a small B&W cam that uses IR to detect motion, when detected it starts snapping pictures to a MMC card. It even supports scheduling so I have it automatically enable motion detection soon after I leave for work and disable it again just before I get home.
With such a device, there is always the risk that it could be stolen, along with the pictures it contains. To help prevent such an occurrence I have since improved my camera arrangement in my home... all I will say is that I now have more than one camera and not even a burglar setting fire to the place could prevent me from having good, usable pictures of the event.
For those who didn't go to the link above, my burglar initially denied everything until she was confronted with the pictures by the police. She's now facing charges of 2nd degree burglary and petty theft, charges that carry maximum jail terms of 10 years in the state pen and 30 days in the county jail respectively.
We are now at 3 months to the day since the break in and still the wheels of justice are turning slow... but at least they are turning, all because I am paranoid enough to have a camera in my home.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
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.
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.
It's usually illegal to have a static firearm with a trap mechanism.
They used to have things like this all the time in Europe and North America for both setting traps for deer, boar, bears and to keep poachers away, they became illegal a while back I think.
So what you are talking about is always pretty much illegal, with the guns at least.
It's common for Europeans to believe that they're enlightened enough not to need guns. Unfortunately, they're living in a dream.
That is what YOU say. Now consider the following statistics, which I have taken from this report and which are for the year 1991: (I cut the list by some countries in the midfield)
And now tell me again that having a gun in your flat is a good prevention. I guess I need to say that I am from Switzerland and have an automatic gun (SIG Stgw 90) at home (from the army), as every male citizen has, but you can`t get bullets for it (the ones you have are in a sealed package).
As for the question for security: I lock the door, that`s it, but I guess in the US that is unfortunately not enough.
this sig is useless
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.