Get Out of Dodge – Update January 13, 2012

USA Home Invasion Robberies – We did some research on this contacting knowledgeable parties that we know seeking some answers recently. We were shocked to find out that there was a whole lot more home invasions in the USA than we thought. It appears that in many locations the police will still respond to crimes in progress with vigor. California and other places have a policy where the police will not respond to an alarm. This means one needs to make a live call to 911 which can be busy, you can get put on hold, and you might not have enough time to do this if they are breaking in. Some jurisdictions have diminished the police force, their crimes rates are so high the police go from one call to the next leaving no time for patrol or responses to crimes in progress. There are now places where if you call the police screaming that your home is being broken into the response times may be so long that the police will just be picking up the pieces. If you are in a rural area the response times to an alarm or a live call may be 15 or more minutes which is way too long. Alarms usually notify the alarm company. They will usually try to call you and notify the police that they received an alarm from your location. If it is a panic switch alarm is used they might not call you. Police response times will be getting worse and worse over time. Home invasions can be life threatening. The perpetrators of such crimes are vicious people with little regard for consequences.

The odds are overwhelming that home invasions will be rising every month. Some of you will say oh in my area the cops are good, they have a budget and we are ok. Can be true but wait a few months and see if it still the case. Unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness, people without money to pay for utilities, medical care, medicines, gas, car maintenance, taxes, etc is constantly rising. Yes it gets worse each month. Obama has never stopped the descent. First one would have to stop the dropping economy then try to reverse the trend upwards. Obama has never stopped the drop. Inflation is going up. Food prices are rising. Wages are far from going up. People are under a lot of pressure. Forty six million are on food stamps. When things were good people tended to behave. Now they are under dire straits so they start breaking laws. The police system in the USA basically worked in a lousy way when things were good. What do I mean? Well cops did some patrolling looking to prevent crime. Today they are raising revenue with tickets and silly enforcement. They tend to see we the people as their enemy, not the people they are there to protect. They keep arresting folks for victimless crimes where the state is the alleged victim. If they stop raising revenue (tickets, fines etc for a number of things) they are going to get laid off and they know this. Catching more criminal bad guys does not do anything for their job security. In fact it makes it worse for them. More jail costs, prosecutor costs, court costs, less time on the streets writing tickets and infractions raising revenue, etc. Did you ever look at it this way before?

Another problem is the police have basically limited budgets and resources all over. Ninety nine percent of the cities, counties and states have a reduced income today. The police deal with this by diverting investigators from investigating crimes to patrol or responding to calls. If the people call for help and no one shows up, or they come 45 min. later the people start to say what the heck do we need the police for. So the police try to have someone show up when there is a call as soon as possible. As crime rises (think now) these response times increase. Then people begin to not phone in crimes. They no longer have insurance and know the police report is a waste of time. This is not the case in every city or county yet, but wait. Then when people stop phoning in crimes then the crime stats start to look encouraging. To stop a home invasion you need police in a few minutes. Five minutes is about the most, three minutes is better. If they come in fifteen minutes the signal they are sending to the perps is that you are not going to get caught.

Why Home Invasions? - Well we can do some elimination. Bank robberies are dangerous. There are cameras and panic switches in banks. Most banks are accessible by the police very rapidly. The feds will at least show up and take notice of the robbery with a report and put it in the system, build a file etc. Most bank robberies are only going to net a few thousand dollars, often as little as $2500, getting over $8000 would be on the high side. Robbing armored cars is tough. They have guns, radios, cell phones and armor. Store robberies are usually not that rewarding. They have no idea what they will get. Then they have crowd control issues. If they rob a supermarket they have no idea who the customers are, there are multiple doors to worry about, there are managers locked up in offices on second floors that they cannot get to. Supermarkets are usually most accessible to the police patrols. They have silent alarms, cameras and their own security. Jewelry stores, pawn shops etc have guns, silent alarms, door buzzers etc. They are knowledgeable regarding stick ups and can be problematic to crooks. Then again jewelry is not a good haul. It is going to sell hot for 10% to 20% of value. They want cash or say gold and silver coins, chains, etc that can be melted down and not traced.

I think gold and silver hoarding can be behind home invasions at times. They can be getting tipped off from pawn shops, gold dealers, coin stores, bank clerks who see the vault boxes etc. If your gold or silver comes by USPS, UPS, Fed Ex etc the driver can be tipping off the bad guys as to your address. The drivers see the insurance certificates and by the from address they can tell it is precious metals, then there is the weight and package size. They can tell. This is all they do all day. The store clerks could be working with them. If you buy or sell they can get your address, phone, maybe see your car get a tag number, get a picture of you with their blackberry when you are not looking or use the store security cameras. You cannot trace a maple leaf or 10 oz bar of gold. Don't think the police are going to analyze the crimes for common threads like gold and silver purchases at a certain store, deliveries etc. They generally have no time for such investigations. The victims may be afraid to report the metals that were stolen for tax reasons, etc. Just wearing a lot of jewelry like gold watches, diamond rings, necklaces, etc can attract attention. They can write your car tag number down and get your address.

We thought we would give you some pointers as to how to make your home not be a likely target.

Mode of Operation – The criminals basically will try to get someone to open the door. Then one or two can get inside and present a weapon. Usually there will be others outside in the car, down the block, etc. A young woman is often a good ploy to get people to open the door. She looks like a teenager, but is nothing but a female thief. They come up with a variety of stories. They ask to use the phone. They ask some questions about an address. Impersonate a business having a delivery for you complete with commercial van outside. Do not open the door unless you know who the people are and why they are there. Never say leave or I will call the police. They may barge in to stop you. If you want to call the police just say hey hang on a second, I need to do something, be right back. This is done from behind a closed door. Act friendly. Then call the police. Tell the police you think they are going to break in any minute. Get a description, try for a license plate or vehicle description, both is best.

Some of these thugs will shoot through the door. Really, it happens. Best to stand off to the side of the door and away from any windows they can see through into the house. If you have glass windows on the door cover them up.

Police Impersonators – This is really done. They come to your house at night when you are sleeping or watching TV, or reading and half asleep. They have regular cars. They put red or blue lights on the roof or dash of the car. These are small lights that plug into the cigarette lighter and have magnets at the base. The lights are on. They hold radios or walkie talkies. They have raid jackets on that say Police, Sheriff, etc. They have a public address device. They jump out of the cars and using the megaphone tell you it is a drug raid, gun raid or whatever kind of raid. They could say they are bail agents looking fro someone, or probation agents looking for some fugitive. The idea is to get you to think well gee we do not have drugs, we are not fugitives and be willing to open the door. They tell you to lock any dogs up, open the door and lay down on the floor with hands visible. If you see this going on, stay calm. Call the police and explain what is going on. If there is a raid the dispatcher will know or find out right away. Do not say I am calling the police to verify who you are unless one of them walks up to the door and calmly starts talking to you. He or she will say I am sergeant jackson from the so and so Sheriffs office. Can I talk to you a minute please. Calm and polite. This is a good sign but verify with 911 that there is a sanctioned raid going on. Do not try checking their ID. This means opening the door. You can play with them for time by asking them for names, ranks and badge numbers, what station they work out of, what division, how many years on the job, anything that sounds like a real inquisitive person. They could even be real police conducting a criminal raid on their own (robbery). It is a little early for this sort of thing but wait a while. So if you see such police outside then call the police to verify. If the cops are real you should see one or two marked cars with lights on and cops in uniform. If they are all plainclothes they can be impersonators. If you have guns in your home the police may know it. There are CCW licenses, hunting licenses, you may have been stopped and they ran your gun serial numbers through whatever. Real cops if they think there are guns in the house will usually bring a large force. Expect eight or more cops. If you see two cars that are not marked police cars, and three or four “cops” in plain clothes this is a good sign that they are not real. Cops conduct raids with overwhelming odds to avoid confrontations. Your problem is if you start shooting at real cops they will probably try real hard to kill you immediately. If they are not real cops and you cooperate with them they may kill you, beat you, rape the females, and expect to be left tied up and gagged and this can be a real awful ordeal. Of course they will rob you.

Alarms – This is your first deterrent. Get an adequate alarm system with alarm switches on the doors and windows. Forget glass breaks and motion detectors. They are costly and generate a lot of false alarms. If you are worried about people getting in when you are not home there is a better way. You create a zone that is normally not used when you are home, only when out. You put switches on two or so bedroom and closet doors. If they manage to get in by passing the door and window switches they will for sure open the interior closet doors and trigger the alarm that way. No false alarms from spiders crawling in front of motion detectors. No false alarms from kitty knocking something over triggering the glass break detector. If the cops see a lot of false alarms from your house, the response times are going to become worse and worse. Try to avoid false alarms.

Make sure you get a wireless key fob or two from the alarm company. The key fobs have panic switches on them. Also get a panic switch on the wall in the kitchen or bedroom. Panic switches should make the siren sound off. Ask the alarm company for two signs. One in front of house and one in back. A home invader is not going to feel warm and mushy about an alarm system. It means cops can be on the way. Now in some places the police will not respond to alarms. If you live in one of those jurisdictions the alarm is not going to be so meaningful.

The alarm should have a siren high up on the outside of the house. This will make a sound that will not be comforting to the invaders.

Make sure the alarm system is not dependent on the land phone line to notify the alarm company. Often the crooks will rip out the phone line before attacking your house. Get a cell phone from the alarm company with a 24 hour battery to back up the land line. This not a normal cell phone. It will be on a different frequency. They might call it a radio. This way the alarm and panic switches work without the phone lines not being operational. The battery back up works even if the power is out for a time. You might be able to get a three day battery especially if you just have switches on the doors and windows. The more switches the more the drain on the battery.

Cameras – It is a good idea to place a few CCTV cameras around the house on the outside. The alarm company can get you some of these. You can also just buy dummy cameras that look the part. If they see the cameras they will spook. Often the images go to the alarm company via the internet. It is not a sure thing that they can break in and grab the tapes of the cameras. They know this. One camera monitoring the front door with a small black and white TV monitor is good. This enables you to see who is at the door without answering it. You can stay silent and hit your alarm if you see trouble. Having a camera by the front and back doors is mandatory for protection. You can also have one high on the roof aimed at the street in front of the house. This will be a deterrent. Place a sign in the front and rear of the house that says Warning: Security Cameras. This is in addition to the alarm signs. Bad guys do not want pictures of them and their vehicles. So the alarm and the cameras are your first lines of defense, a deterrent actually.

Home Defense, Doors – The next thing to consider are your doors. Your front door should be a solid core door. All wood or some of the tough fiberglass ones. The door should not have any windows. Take out the dead bolt striker plate. I assume you have a dead bolt if not get one. Replace the two or three inch long striker plate with one that is about eight inches long. It should have three inch screws that go deep into the two by fours in the house inside the door frame area, but deeper in. The normal striker plate screws are like two or so. The long ones have six or eight. The regular screws are like one inch, not three inches. These changes are cheap and will stop your door from getting kicked in easily. If you have your door situated to open out, not in, it will also make kicking the door in much harder. There is a device call the club for doors, the door club. It places a plate on the bottom of the door with a pin that goes into a hole in the floor. This should serve to further secure your door. They cost about $24.95.

Sliding glass patio doors are a problem. You can put a pin through the door into the guide for the sliding door to secure it from being bumped off of the track. This helps. Best to have a laminate placed on the glass to prevent the glass from being broken. This is easily done, check the yellow pages. This will make the sliding glass door much more secure. The laminate is not bullet resistant, it just stops the glass from being broken in by hitting it with a hammer or kicking it.

Windows should have decent locks on them. Usually this is enough to stop window entry. To really do it up securely you would need to put bars on all the windows. Then the doors would need a steel outer door, bars or solid. This would provide a much better level of security but most of you will not be doing this, at this point in time.

If you have a garage you can secure the garage door with pins into the frame when you are home. This makes things much more secure. For more security do the same with a hurricane proof garage door. If you secure the door to your garage from the house, you can accomplish a lot perhaps easier. Do the same thing with the striker plate, put in a dead bolt and make sure it is a solid core door. If you really wish to tighten up the house have all the doors and windows with hurricane proof products. Do put the alarm on the door to the garage. So if they break into garage and cannot get to you, it is no big deal.

Bedrooms – It is perhaps important to secure the interior of the home. Some houses can be entered easily. Sure the alarm may go off. If the police response time is 15 minutes the crooks may not care. You can put a solid core door with a dead bolt, strong striker plate, the club for the door etc on your bedroom door. This enables you to wait for help in the event of a forced break in. You might want to do same with the doors for the kids rooms. A cheaper way is to get those brass flip locks that go in the door frame. You can put two on the same door as well for added strength. They can slow down a perpetrator some. This can give you time to grab a gun, hit panic switch, make a cell phone 911 call, etc.

Safe Rooms – You can take a bedroom closet and secure it. This gives you a place to hide in the event of a break in to buy time only. So you can secure the bedroom door and then do the same to a bedroom closet. You might wish to have a gun safe in this closet that has a closet door that can be dead bolted. You should try and arrange things so you can hide behind the safe if you expect the perpetrators to shoot into the closet. The problem with these cooks is they will assume you have a safe, safes or valuables hidden in obscure places. Cash also might be hidden. They are going to want to get you and force you to get the hidden valuables, open safes etc. They can be violent about this to you, children, family members etc. If things got this far something is wrong, very wrong. You can have two safes. One hidden and one not. Open the visible safe for them and leave a few hundred dollars in it, some books, records, pictures and perhaps a few silver coins. They might think this is all you have and leave. We have heard where they stay with the family while they send you to the bank. They look at your bank statements and get you to take money out and bring it back using the family as hostages. This is something that is very rare but it can happen. The idea is to not let yourself and your house be taken this way.

Firearms – The gun of choice to defend the house with is the shotgun. Use a 12 gauge semi-auto. Forget the pumps. Under stress an inexperienced person may just pull the trigger and forget to rack the slide. It should have at least six round capacity, eight is better. The standard 00 Buck round is fine. Do not go for the reduced velocity, go for high velocity shells so the buckshot will penetrate doors, cars etc. If you can find nickel plated 00 Buck better yet for penetration through doors, cars and walls. Lead pellets will flatten out some when hitting hard objects and this diminishes their penetration. Copper coated pellets will also flatten out on hard objects. Suggest if you live with others have two shotguns, the same using the exact make and model so you can grab either one and be familiar with it in a high stress situation. Each shotgun shell has 9 pieces of 00 buck which is basically a .32 caliber bullet. Six rounds of this is 54 .32 caliber bullets flying at serious velocity, more than what a .32 caliber pistol is capable of. Deadly. This is a massive amount of firepower to throw at someone trying to enter the house. Two such shotguns is even better. Suggest some pistols as well for backup. You might not have time to reload the shotgun if they are coming in through windows, front and rear doors, shooting into the house etc. It can happen. A good high capacity 9mm is fine. The 9mm is a penetrator. It goes through doors and walls nicely. The .357 magnum even better and the .44 magnum better yet, but they make a lot of noise indoors, they throw a lot of flash at night and have a lot of recoil and they are really revolver rounds. Revolvers do not have the capacity you will need. The 9mm in +P format is a good choice. The +P means the round goes faster which helps penetration. Ask the gun store for hollow points that will not expand in solid matter. You could also use solids inside the house. Get pistols that are semi-auto 9mm with at least a 15 round capacity. Have a few extra magazines that are kept loaded and stored with the gun. Remember you are wanting to be shooting at them a lot to get them to abort the attack and go away. A lot of shooting will freak them out. If they go away, you live, you were not robbed or hurt as in victory. Shoot at them through doors, exterior walls, windows. Anything to make them feel in mortal danger. Make this venture of theirs seem life threatening to them at early onset. If they get hit then there will be DNA at the scene from blood. Then they have to worry about a doctor and hospitals. If they do not get it treated they can lose blood, get infected, go into shock, etc. These people cannot really afford to get wounded from a gunshot. If they start kicking in doors, windows, going up on a roof etc then you start unleashing a ton of firepower at them and keep it up until you see and hear them drive off. Then wait inside for the police. There could be a wounded one laying around they left behind who could be armed and conscious. Stop shooting at them once they start to run away. This is important legally. Do not shoot a fleeing crook.

Assault weapons are nice but if you have nearby neighbors they can kill your neighbors. If your nearest neighbor is like a mile away then assault weapons can and should be used. The .223 round is not first choice. The AK-47 family of assault rifles is where I would go. You can legally get armor piercing rifle ammo in the USA. This is a good choice since you will be firing at them through barriers. Get a few extra magazines and keep them loaded. You are going to be throwing a lot of bullets at them to get them to go away fast.

Bullet Resistant Vests – This is a good idea. Get a vest that fits you good. It should stop any pistol round up to .44 mag.and 12 gauge shotguns rounds. To stop rifle rounds you will need a plate carrier vest. This can have steel plates or ceramic plates. This will be heavy and probably not necessary. Having vests for the family is not so bad of an idea in general. These are bad times and getting worse.

Flashlights – Here you have to get good ones. Try for lights with at least 250 lumens. Forget candlepower, use lumens. You want the light to be able to blind a person if you shine it in their eyes. A light with 250 lumens can be very hard to look at. Lights with more power even more so. Consider shutting the lights out if you are at risk and using the flashlights.

Dogs – They are good. They hear and smell for early warning. Keep them in the house with you. If they are outside they can be shot easily. If inside they make a real problem for the invaders. If they take the time to get the dog, you can shoot them. If they go for you then the dog can get them. It makes for a bad problem that only a well trained perp is going to be able to deal with. If you have two or more dogs it can even be overwhelming for a trained person especially if you have some shooting proficiency and are behind cover firing at them. Well trained people will probably never be breaking in as home invaders. Dogs are better in pairs. They get more fearless as the pack mentality sets in. How do they deal with two dogs charging while you are shooting? Bad thing for them.

Tactics – Tactics are like things you can do to get an edge over your adversary. You try to put them at a marked disadvantage with tactics.

Vehicles - Their vehicle(s) might be vulnerable if parked on the street by the house. You can start shooting out the windows and tires. This is after they have tried to break in and displayed guns. This might make them committed. This can also freak them out in that a shot up vehicle is a poor choice for a getaway. Stands out too much. They might then try hard to get your vehicle. If you are the sort of people that will engage these adversaries seriously in mortal combat then you might have an edge here by spooking them. You make them think you are more dangerous than they are. They have the luxury of running away, you don't. This could make them try to run away and jack a car on the street. They could try to get a neighbors car. This is usually the beginning of the end for them. They have to make their altered plans on the fly under duress. The idea is to convince them you are determined, equipped and will come back at them very hard if they stick around and press it. They may get worried and flee. They will probably never arrive at a consensus as to what to do and start fighting with each other about what is best. Divide and defeat. Their vehicle is a point of vulnerability that can be attacked from the house that will get their attention and distract them form the task at hand. Remember once they try to break in, the nice guy routine is over. You go into life and death defense mode.

Lawn Sprinklers - Sprinklers are nice for distractions. If you can safely get into the garage and turn them on it will make life hard on them if they are trying to get in. Now running around the yards means they slip, they get wet, their eyes get wet etc. Anyway you can mess with their visual capability, their ability to move or run, and make them more identifiable (wet) is working in your favor.

Sensor Lights – These should be extremely bright lights that come on for 30 secs when they detect movement. They are cheap. Having these all around the house will give you an edge. These lights are blinding and they will keep going on and off and they detect movement. During the night hours they can be helpful.

Conversation with Invaders – If they attempt to break in do not have any further dialogue with them. Nothing. Do not bother threatening them verbally or otherwise. Shooting at them will accomplish this just fine. A silent shooter sends a way different signal to them than someone screaming threats at them.

Stay in the House – Unless you are a well trained backwoods fighter and live in the woods by yourself, stay in the house. Use whatever cover you can muster up and defend the house. You are so to speak on the high ground.

Think this sort of scenario through. We are hearing about all sorts of crimes in the USA that were not common a few years ago. Nothing is going to change for the better. Even if Ron Paul got in it would take years for any changes to take hold. Two years would be a very short time frame for changes. Three or even four years would be fast for changes. Ron Paul is probably never going to be elected. Those that will probably not vote for Ron Paul are as follows:

Those receiving any sort of welfare, disability, govt hand outs etc.

Employees and retirees of cities, counties, states and fed government.

Families that have relatives that are in the country illegally.

Families that want to bring in foreign relatives from other nations.

Those that work in banking, stock brokerage & defense industry

This is a large amount of people. Then there area lot of people who will just vote democrat. Then there are those who do not know or understand Ron Paul. He has a very hard road ahead of him.