Forget operatic fat ladies. I’m with Lenny Kravitz: it ain’t over ’til it’s over. To wit: “Police say the intruders knocked on the back door of a home in the 450 block of Church Street around 4:19 a.m. One of the three residents inside the home answered the door, thinking it may be a neighbour,” windsorstar.com reports (hence the funny spelling). “As the tenant opened the door, the suspects forced their way past her . . .

“She asks, ‘What’s going on?’ and they say they’re looking for someone,” said Windsor police Staff Sgt. Brad Hill. But, whoever they’re looking for doesn’t live at the residence.

“After they look around, they decided maybe they’re in the wrong house and say that to the complainant,” Hill said.

The suspects assure the resident they’re not going to harm her but, before leaving the property, they steal an Xbox game console.

The obvious lesson: don’t open your door to a stranger. To paraphrase Woody in Toy Story: spy holes. If you don’t have one GET ONE! The not-so-obvious lesson: when you’re in a self-defense situation, resist the urge to let your guard down.

Previously, on I Never Saw  A Horror Movie With A Fake Ending in My Life, I shared the story of a self-defense shooter who failed to reload after dispatching a bad guy—only to have the bad guy’s friend walk up and execute him. Yeah, it’s that serious.

In this case, the cornered Canuck became a target of opportunity as the criminals’ priorities shifted. If you’re in a dangerous situation, remember that there may be multiple threats arriving at multiple times.

Also remember that you have the option to leave. There’s no rule that says you have to stay in your house if a bad guy or guys come waltzing in. Unless there are loved ones inside, there’s nothing in your residence worth defending with your life. And it’s entirely possible they would be better off with you outside getting help than inside trying to fend off invaders.

Note: it’s perfectly legal to leave the scene or a crime if your life is in danger. Just make sure you call 911 ASAP. Which leads to the obvious conclusion: carry a cell phone on you at all times. And a gun.

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32 COMMENTS

  1. A gun and a cell phone at all times? Nothing else? No flashlight, no bottle of water and first aid kit? What about plastic hand restraints?

    Where does you paranoia-disguised-as-preparedness end and common sense take over?

      • I think in the home invasion self defense scenario described a gun and a cell phone is really all you need. The scenario didn’t involve exploring a cave, going on a hike, or assuming the responsibilities of a LEO. Removing one’s self from where the danger is is always good advice.

        -D

    • lol Common Sense

      Just call 911 and wait for the police to show up. They’ll always be there in the nick of time, just like on TV. Never take your own safety into your own hands. That’s what our benevolent and caring government is for, citizen!

      • “Greg in Allston says:

        April 25, 2011 at 1:55 PM

        What a great question, Mike. Keep looking for the answer, the truth is out there.”

        Whoa whoa, Greg. Don’t hate on Fox… just don’t.

        • Buuurr, it’s only sort of coincidental that the X-Files was on Fox. I’ve got no more animosity towards that network/media-outlet than I do towards any of the others. They’re all largely crap these days, IMHO. Ed Morrow must be spinning like a turbine, or, if you will, like a 5.56 at 3.2k from a 1:7. To me, the MSM, like the MSParties, are like the left and right wings of the same bird of prey.

          • Veritas; Oh!, … duh… I get it now. Anyway, Muldaur is totally cool in my book. Though why he and Sully were working for the Fibbies when they could have been freelancing is still something that my feeble/myopic mind can’t quite wrap itself around. I would have preferred to have seen them as a sort of gonzo/modern-day Holmes & Watson with the Fibbies as being a kind of lost/impotent/clueless/bureaucratic/missing-the point-entirely foil/sidekick that has the uncanny ability to feed them timely intelligence that they themselves are too blinded-by-science to see.

    • I use muzzle-flash to illuminate my way, mike. No need for a flashlight, but it my justification for needing a 33rnd magazine for my G-19.

    • Cell phone has a built in flashlight, water is available from any tap and first aid kits are stored in several accessible locations. Plastic hand restraints will be provided by the officer(s) responding to the 911 call from my cell phone. I ain’t stupid enough to try and cuff someone by myself who just minutes before had me convinced I needed to shoot him.

    • I’m a newbie; both to handguns and to this site. I’ve only been reading for a few weeks, but I have to make one observation:

      damn but you’re an easy target, mikeb302000.

      Either that or you’re just a troll. Regardless, you seem to provide the regulars on this site with hours – okay, minutes – of entertainment. I do think the quality of discussion on the site would be improved, however, if we could recruit a passionate – and informed – commenter who was also a staunch gun control advocate.

      • You want to find an informed gun control advocate?
        Two things easier to find:
        1) Bigfoot
        2) Loch Ness Monster

        • Yeah, I know. I was just trying to be generous…

          It’d be nice to find a gun control advocate who actually knows something about guns. I’ve yet to find one who has ever handled a pistol, let alone been properly trained in its use.

  2. Why would he need a bottle of water? Does his going outside mean he is in an arid wasteland? Why would one take a bottle of water to a fight? I never saw Tyson with one. He came out fine.

    Why would he need a first aid kit? The only guys I have ever seen walking around with one are EMTs. Again, is he going somewhere where all this is not readily accessible?

    Hand restraints? Hemmm… for me self defense doesn’t require them.

    You can call it paranoia all day but the fact is a cell phone is something a lot of folks just plain have on them anyway. The gun is much needed in a gunfight. It is preparedness.

    I don’t expect a sensible nor quantifiable reply so no worries.

    • Tyson may not have carried water bottles into the ring, but he damn well had guys with buckets of water sitting in his corner.

      Bad analogy is bad.

      • “James says:

        April 25, 2011 at 1:56 PM

        Tyson may not have carried water bottles into the ring, but he damn well had guys with buckets of water sitting in his corner.

        Bad analogy is bad.”

        Lol. Maybe but my point is that he didn’t pop open a bottle of Aqua Fina mid bout did he? Come on, Guy. He had those at the end of the round. Just like you have some in your fridge to have when you get out of a situation like this.

  3. Having a gun and phone on you at all times makes you crazy Mikey? I guess I’ll keep on being a crazy sheepdog knowing that the wolves aren’t gonna get my flatscreen or my life.

    • There’s no rule that says you have to stay in your house if a bad guy or guys come waltzing in. Unless there are loved ones inside, there’s nothing in your residence worth defending with your life.

      I have a rule that says I must defeat all intruders. Squirrel or Crip, break into my house and you will leave shortly one way or another. There are plenty of things in my house worth defending with my life, such as the rest of my guns, my gold and silver, the base metals, the cat. Heck, this computer is worth risking my life for. I won’t tolerate one penny being stolen from me if I can help it. I also have the home turf advantage – I know all of the angles and available cover and concealment. Running away is not an option for me.

    • Having a gun and phone on you at all times makes you crazy

      Yes. The gun is perfectly rational. Cell phones all serve as bugs and tracking devices. You have to be crazy to pay for the government to track your location and to listen in not just to your phone conversations but to everything you ever do. That is irrational.

      • If you buy disposable cell-phones with cash and don’t plan on having regular social contact with more than a few people you’ll be fine.

  4. “there’s nothing in your residence worth defending with your life.”

    Right, there’s nothing IN my residence that is so important that I’d want to die for it. I mean I really like my flat panel TV, but in a life or death situation, the Sony is on its own. But here’s where I disagree: my residence, my home, is worth placing myself at risk. Someone who won’t fight for his or her own home will soon learn that there may be nothing left worth fighting for. So when it comes to my home, my castle, I have one rule. If bad guys walk in, they’re not walking out.

    • Right, well, if you’ve known violent crime victims (such as home invasion & kidnapping victims, for one example), you know how it impacts their quality of life for years, perhaps forever. And, in my opinion, never feeling safe in your own home again is a price of victimization that I am not willing to pay.

      Would I shoot some kid in the back as he escapes out the back door with my favorite skillet? No, but things don’t typically go down that way, unless the news is failing to report a rash of snatch & grab skillet thefts.

    • So, your house is like the roach motel of bad guys: they check in, but they don’t check out.

  6. I have video camera’s at each door so I can always see who’s there before I open the door. I can also see who’s in my front and back yard, so I must be paranoid.

  9. The reason you don’t need a bottle of water and restraints and all of that other crap is because I keep that stuff in my car. I’m ready for a 48 hour tour of duty from my Ford Exploder!

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