Does Anyone Else Here Collect Guns?

Off Topic
162

Had a bit of a scare last night. 1 am, wife and I were up watching a movie, when 8 gunshots popped off right behind our house. Not rapid, solid second or two behind each shot, like someone was aiming, and definitely coming from the intersection our house backs up to. We are in the city, so it’s not like living out in the sticks where I’d find this more normal. Shots were definitely a pistol, no more than 50 yards from the house, if that.

Grabbed my wife and hit the deck at the first shot, since we have windows all around where we were. Had my wife lay in the tub as soon as the initial shots stopped while I Scrambled to grab my pistol, light, and phone. Called 911, was scanning my back fence line, able to hear shouting and people running but no one tried to come over. Was actually on hold with 911 for 7 minutes before anyone picked up, which shocked me. Maybe I’m just from a small town and this is normal for cities, but I couldn’t believe it. Also, we aren’t in a bad area. Wife and I both have pretty comfortable careers and bought a home in a relatively affluent area, I even checked the crime stats before making an offer, so I’m honestly a bit shocked that something happened here. Just didn’t seem like the place for it, but spoke with the cops and they confirmed there was a shooting in the shopping center across the street from my house.

Side effect of this, buying a new pistol this weekend. I’ve hated my Glock for a long time, never felt right as I’ve said before In this thread, but it shoots every time I pull the trigger and I can hit well with it, so never really saw a justification to trade up. Gen 2, no rail, so I couldn’t attach a light, but I’ve trained a lot with a flashlight while shooting and always felt that was good.

…. Until last night, when I was calling 911. I honestly feel like an idiot, I mean I was literally one of the instructors teaching pistol shooting earlier in my navy career, but I never thought about the fact that I can’t hold my gun, my flashlight, AND my phone to dial 911. Very comfortable with the pistol and light, but the second I had my phone and light in my offhand, I realized my problem. Made it work, but it wasn’t great.

So, long story short, realized I want a pistol with a weapon light for the house, buying one this weekend. Planning to go check out the Walther PDP, Sig P320 X compact, Sig P365XL, Sig P365 XM Macro. Need a new CCW, application still pending, so I’ll prolly either go with a full size pistol and the P365xl, or get a compact to pull double duty.

Hopefully some cool new gun pics to come soon

4 Likes
163

Why would it take 7 minutes for your 911 call to be answered? I can’t say for sure. I can say that the 911 operator we just hired to work in a back-office role in our manufacturing company is among the most capable new hires we’ve had in a while. We’re really glad to have her on the team.

She would probably be great at handling 911 calls.

1 Like
164

Glad everything is okay. Sometimes it takes an “oh sh!t” situation for us to get a much needed dose of reality. I’ve had two this year, both non-threatening but they woke me up.

  1. Big noise in the house at night. Had the bedside gun ready but it wasn’t chambered. Realized that I didn’t want to perform that motion when half asleep. Now it’s always chambered. (And you’ve convinced me to look into weapon lights. Had to fumble for the flashlight too.)

  2. Out hiking. Wild animal of some sort burst across the trail in front of us. Mountain lion maybe; it was a blur. Realized my hiking gun was in my cross-body pack and it wasn’t that easy to get to. Now the hiking gun is on my hip.

1 Like
165

I’m just curious what most people’s reaction to something like this would be.

I see it all the time on TV shows. Someone hears a noise, goes to check it out with a gun/bat/light/whatever, and either they or the bad guy (or both) get hurt.

If I was in a house with other people (specifically in other rooms) I would want to make sure they were safe. If I’m alone, or know that the only other person/people in the house are in the same room as me, I’m locking my door and calling the cops. If there’s a robber, they can take whatever they want. They’re probably hoping the house is empty, or at least that they don’t see anyone.

I’m not a soldier, so I wouldn’t feel confident in my ability to be woken up from a dead sleep, and immediately go face a potentially deadly intruder and proficiently use a deadly weapon on him. That’s always going to be my last resort, or something I do if I know a dude’s downstairs and my kids are sleeping on the living room couch or something. (Although, in that case, I would still probably call 911 before going downstairs, to make sure I had some “backup” or medical help coming ASAP.)

Obviously, certain factors come into play here. Whether or not you have loved ones in the house with you, whether or not you can call 911, which you should pretty much always be able to do, unless you don’t have service, right? I guess I don’t know where @atlas13 lives but I would assume if he left his phone and the operator eventually came back and couldn’t get a response from him, they’d send someone over to check things out, right? I accidentally hit the emergency call button on my phone when turning an alarm off at 3am once, and I got a call back from an officer asking if everything was cool.

Anyway, what’re you guys doing? Grabbing the gun and going to see what’s up? Or staying put and calling for help?

Please note I am not bashing @atlas13’s, @Chris_Shugart’s, or anyone else’s actions. I am not saying they’re wrong or that I would never do them. Their posts just made me think of this stuff. I have an idea of what my initial instinct would be and I’m curious how others feel.

1 Like
166

Clearing rooms in a fire squad is dangerous. Clearing rooms by yourself is arguably reckless. I hear a loud noise, I am positioning myself between my wife and the noise, hunkering down with my weapon trained towards any access point to us, then staying on the phone with 911 until things are cleared out. (Note: I live in a city where 911 can get to us in a somewhat reasonable time, and I don’t have children to worry about)

So last night for example. Gunshots wrang out back, we are in the living room. Hit the deck, grab pistol, get wife safe, then positioned myself where no one could enter my house from the back without coming through and entrance I’ve got my pistol trained on, and called 911 and stayed on the phone until officers arrived on the scene.

I’ve got a decent amount of training, but I’m certainly not an Operator, Door kicker, or any other sort of badass, so if things get dicey, I’m getting my family as safe as I can, getting into as defensible of a position as I can, and praying that whatever threat is out there doesn’t materialize into my field of view.

Also something to consider about the legal aspects. You are in your house hunkered down and a guy breaks in after you hear gunshots? Most states would probably say you’ve got a pretty solid self defense case. You hear a noise and run around with a gun? Well, now it’s very state dependent, can you prove that there was a threat even if there was a break in, castle laws and duty to retreat come into play. If you are LEO/MIL obviously it’s different, but for civilians at home, I think the best legal advice is to do everything you possibly can to avoid firing rounds, to include letting something steal all your stuff. Don’t fire a round unless you truly believe your life, or your loved ones life, is at risk and you have no choice if you wish to preserve life.

(Please don’t take any of this as legal advice, and I’d highly recommend seeking out better training than a POG on the internet who’s taken a few firearm courses)

167

Many experts on this topic say to stay put: arm yourself first, take up a tactical position (behind your bed or a wall, minimizing surface area of your body), then call 911.

But as you said, it all depends on other people in the house (different bedrooms etc.). Then their advice is to put yourself between family and possible bad guys, while having someone else call 911. But don’t engage unless it’s absolutely unavoidable.

The philosophy there is: “Stuff is stuff. Just get robbed but stay safe, and don’t shoot a burglar because it’s a legal nightmare and you may not even win the case in some states.” Of course, sometimes it’s not a burglar, but rather someone with different intentions. Let the bad guy make that choice. If he (they) burst into your bedroom, then you’ve already taken cover, secured the spouse, and have your firearm aimed at the doorway. Doesn’t look good for bad guy, legally or otherwise.

“Stay put” is not bad advice, and it’s probably the best advice. But it’s really hard to NOT go check things out. I spoke with an expert about this recently. He said that one bad move most people make is to stay quiet. They do this so they won’t reveal their location. But most of the time, it’s not a serial killer or a rapist; it’s a meth-head looking to quickly steal some stuff. So, this expert said, make noise, turn on lights etc. and the bad guy will most likely just get out of there.

I have an Alexa device that I can tell to turn on the kitchen light downstairs. I’ve done that once before when hearing a noise.

168

I am getting my children and wife in the safe room immediately while being surprised they got through my dogs and security.

With my house, it is more likely they are still outside or in the garage attempting to breach the house with my setup.

My first priority is to get my family safely tucked away, have the wife call 911, and then eliminate the threat with extreme prejudice. I have cameras everywhere, so I will know exactly where they are.

I would say to stay put and wait on the cops, but I have a hard time just letting my castle go like that. But, it would depend on how many there are and what their weapons are like.

I would go into why I have a secondary main breaker switch in my master bedroom… but I don’t want to give too much away.

2 Likes
169

I’d get my family into the basement where it’s actually a nuclear bomb shelter. Then I would activate the silent self destruct function on my house.

The house would blow up but it eliminates my target regardless. I see this as an absolute win, ain’t that right Barber, I mean Bauber.

My plan better,

Tactical.

170

“Alexa, activate intruder protocol”.

Red flood lights kick on
Welcome to the Jungle plays
Speakers max volume
Strobe lights start

4 Likes
171

About two weeks ago around the same time my fiancee and I heard something similar. About a dozen rounds fired, clearly aimed. Big difference was that it was a rifle, and across the river behind my house is a large cattle farm. Pretty sure the land owner laid waste to a pack of coyotes because I haven’t heard much of them since that night.

2 Likes
172

Sounds homoerotic.

I like it.

1 Like
173

Tacticool*

2 Likes
174

Kill all the lights.

Going dark.

NVGs are a go.

1 Like
175

if picking the wrong house were a movie

2 Likes
177

Not to mention my neighbors are an ex-seal (best bud) and a former CIA agent turned Cerberus.

:joy::joy::joy::joy:

1 Like
178

As simply an admirer of those who have NODs, I’ll unfortunately need a source of light of my own.

Realistically, it would be the dull glow of a cell phone while I’m on 911 haha.

1 Like
179

I use this method while hiking:

1 Like
180

Wait, that’s actually my sexy time protocol. :grin:

1 Like
181

Just grabbed a Sig Sauer M17 with the Custom Shop Fire Control Unit.

image
image1920×2560 237 KB

@Bauber starting to really agree with you on the flat triggers, the one that came with this is pretty dang crisp for a striker fired pistol.

1 Like
182

IMG_20221029_181953
IMG_20221029_1819531920×2560 343 KB

IMG_20221029_181945
IMG_20221029_1819451920×2560 321 KB

Well, it’s done.

3 Likes