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Comment by kinkrtyavimoodh | Hacker News Reader

My nightmare scenario, as mentioned by another commenter, is of being present in the house when the burglar comes. I don't know what I would do or want in that case. Sometimes, when I am awakened at night by some sound, I have often wondered what I'd do if I do in fact find an intruder in the house.

As someone who does not own a gun and would probably not last long in hand to hand combat with an unarmed person, let alone someone with a knife or gun, I almost wish that I am NOT awakened from my sleep so that the situation ideally does not escalate into anything that can put me in physical danger. At worst, I lose some valuables.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Edit: Lots of helpful replies here. Thanks everyone!]

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If you value your safety, don't buy a gun.

Owning a gun makes the people in your household statistically more likely to be killed both inside and outside the household[1].

It also makes you more likely to murder an innocent person or have the gun used against a family member[2].

1. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-guns-in-home-increase-suic...

2. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/defensive-gun...

Those points remain in contention. Here's the rebuttal, also published in Politico.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/defensive-gun...

Kleck's science is terrible. There's an entertaining overview of it on the Science Vs. podcast[1]. His rebuttal is basically debunked at the bottom of the rebuttal itself.

1. https://gimletmedia.com/episode/guns/

Does it actually make you... or is it a correlation vs causation? Neither of those sources are ones I would trust for being able to tell apart correlation and causation.

It's causation when the gun used to harm you is your own gun.

Why make such blanket statements and logically loose arguments? You might as well advise the commenter to refrain from buying knives and baseball bats, too. Because, statistically, you're much more likely to be killed with a knife or a baseball bat in the commission of a crime.

A gun is a tool with a high(er) degree of lethality. Just like any other tool in the house, if one is not trained and practiced in its use, one is far more likely to make an error when using it in an emergency situation.

If you want to make blanket advice statements, at least qualify them. The responsible thing to say, in this situation, is, "Please don't buy a gun without undergoing proper training." Guns are a force multiplier/equalizer and we live in a society where guns are easily obtained by criminals. Telling law abiding citizens to strictly avoid force-multipliers like firearms, in our society, benefits the criminals and anti-gun lobby -- but it doesn't benefit the person to whom you've replied.

In fact, you've only perpetuated the cycle of fear by trying to instill more fear in your argument to avoid guns (lest they kill a family member, murder an innocent person or be shot with the firearm).

I gave sources. You're making an argument that isn't supported by data. There's an excellent overview of the data on the Science Vs. podcast[1], which you'd probably find interesting. It explains why arguments like yours may apply to a few people, but not to the vast majority.

While it's true that training makes you less likely to be killed by a firearm, it has no effect on suicides of family members, someone stealing the gun and using it, someone in the family using it improperly, etc.

> you've only perpetuated the cycle of fear by trying to instill more fear

That was exactly my intention. Guns are dangerous. People should be afraid of them.

1. https://gimletmedia.com/episode/guns/

>Guns are dangerous. People should be afraid of them.

What a stupid conclusion. Jet engines are dangerous as well, but we don't perpetuate fear of them. We just train people to be safe around them.

That analogy doesn't make sense. Jet engines weren't invented to kill things quickly with as little proximity and mass as possible. People can avoid jet engines and people who operate them without any difficulty.

Furthermore, jet engines aren't marketed as devices to make people safer in their homes, nor are they stored in homes, nor are they considered to be useful to a layperson.

What a stupid analogy. How many people have jet engines in their houses?

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thank you, I'm quite new to this site and have not yet learned the appropriate way to respond to political shit.

I also advise you not to keep a jet engine in your house.

Having a car means you are more likely to die in a car accident. The question is if the risk is worth the benefit. If you follow simple gun safety techniques and don't have any mental health issues, your odds of harming yourself or an innocent with a gun is greatly reduced.

>My nightmare scenario, as mentioned by another commenter, is of being present in the house when the burglar comes.

Really? My nightmare scenario is for these things to have network connections (oh wait) and to work in concert for surveillance purposes.

I'm perpetually amazed at the wolves people invite into their homes. I'm looking at you, Alexa.

It's bad enough owning a cell phone...

Live in a nice neighborhood the police pay attention to. Install an alarm system which makes a lot of noise and calls the cops, probably most people trying to break in will not stick around once the alarm goes off. Statistically the chances of a breakin, especially by some sort of violent uber-cat-burglar, are probably quite low.

[Edit] And as another poster said, get a dog.

It's the principle of parking a crappy car next to a Mercedes. You just need to convince the car thief to steal the other guys car, ie, convince the burglar there are easier targets around.

Hide and call 911 (or whatever emergency number for your country) is usually the advice police give.

If you're not living alone, it's a bit more complicated. Instruct your family to know how to hide in situations of home invasion and to call 911. Engaging with burglars is not really worth the risk. Valuables can be replaced, life cannot.

As for preventative measures, you could get a dog or two (and train them properly), multiple loud alarms all over the house, and put night-vision enabled cameras in very visible places pointed at entry points (the cameras should be obvious to the burglar that it's a camera, it might scare them off).

If you want to go further, burglars tend to not burglarize homes that they know are occupied or with people awake. If you leave lights on or audible TV/radio/music on, it might be enough for them to back out. That could be distracting to sleep/power-bill-costly though.

Not a fun thought experiment to be sure. I own a gun, and I am constantly awoken in the middle of the night for my "real job" so I have an unfair advantage. That is, I generally have my wits about me very quickly post eye opening. Still, I am not sure that discharging a firearm in the darkness of my house would be easy. I am in good shape due to said job, but that doesn't mean the burglar comes after me, they may have my 7 y.o. "hostage"... or something.

I would probably try to negotiate with a burglar. The only thing I really care about are pictures, videos and my family. They can literally have the rest... funny that sometimes I am a bit jealous of people when their houses burn to the ground. They get to start over... I always hope they keep offsite backups of what really matters.

I would question whether pictures or videos really matter. I think it's the memories that are more important (I'm assuming these pictures and videos have sentimental value, and minimal financial value). It's why I really don't take many pictures when I'm on vacation, at family gatherings, etc.

Pictures can help relive the memories. When I take pictures on vacation, it's not to show off to my friends how cool of a place I'm at (ok, sometimes I'm guilty of that). It's so that afterwards I can look at the picture with my family, and remember the experiences & feelings that went along that static picture.

And who knows what state my mind will be when I get old: those pictures may come in super handy in a few decades.

Why not backup the pictures and video off site as well so the entire house is disposable?

When I'm on vacation or at family gatherings, I rarely take photos too. So many photos taken nowadays that I don't need to take any unless I see something that others aren't paying attention to. People are always very willing to share given the tech these days.

> funny that sometimes I am a bit jealous of people when their houses burn to the ground. They get to start over... I always hope they keep offsite backups of what really matters.

As someone who has had a house destroyed by water damage twice... It's not worth it! The stress from dealing with insurance and displacement is far more than the time you could spend minimizing!

Let's say you have your gun stored properly. How quickly would you be able to arm yourself if the starting point is when you are sleeping? Quick enough to defend against an intruder who knows you are home and still enters? (Honest question. I don't own a gun, never used one. I am thinking of getting licensed for fun at the range.)

Quick access safes are common - usually with either a keypad or biometric access. If you want warning invest in other measures like alarm systems and dogs.

Good call on the training if you're not familiar with firearms.

The kind of person who is in your home on the prowl rarely wants to escalate to Murder 1, unless they're after you and not your things. If you're not confident in your ability to subdue or do not have an opportunity, comply and protect your family. Best you can do, even with training; waking up you're at a disadvantage and don't know if they have backup. I know an Air Force major who has won awards for hand to hand combat and he still let his stuff go. Smart.

Your goal should be to get them out. Grease those wheels. Offer more. Be blunt. Nothing you own is worth the escalation.

They might not have come with the intention to murder (if they did, I am already toast), but it's not uncommon for such things to randomly escalate from a simple burglary into a total disaster. The intruder can freak out or suddenly feel exposed and take an unintentional drastic step. My point it that it's very difficult to second guess these things and anything can happen in the heat of the moment.

Get a full size dog. And an ADT sign outside. I couple these with the means of defending myself and my family (i.e., a bedside gun in a biometric safe and training to use them), but to each their own.

To add to your comment, important to have the right type of dog and one that is trained.

My previous full sized dogs would happily welcome any visitor. My current dobermans don't.

Train the dogs to bark and bite an arm on command. Some people say "oh, my dog will know when to protect me"... really? You're going to rely on a dog's judgement of the situation? I also don't want the dog to just react after I'm getting punched in the face.

There has been numerous times where there is an odd noise in the house. They sleep in my bedroom so I just open the bedroom door and tell them "go get 'em" and I follow them out there while the wife stays behind.

Buy a gun if you're a responsible individual. If you aren't, then take solace in the fact that the odds are low that your house will ever be broken in to, let alone while you are there

I've been in a home that was burgled, and slept through it. It wasn't until I was woken up by my wife asking what I had done with the X-box that it got weird.

Knowing that we had two dogs and three people living in the home, none of whom were apparently woken by the intruders? That freaked me out for quite a while.

> I don't know what I would do or want in that case

Leave the house. Quietly slip out a window or a back door

That's a good suggestion. Unfortunately I don't live on the ground floor...

Then you loudly slip out a window..

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