A home invasion is probably the self-defense scenario many of us fear the most—it violates not only your personal safety, but also your sense of security in what should your safe place. Most home burglaries take place during the day while the house is empty, which is the least scary of all the home-break-in scenarios. These are simple resource-predator burglaries, where the bad guys take what they want and leave. It’s the bad guy who knows someone is home but who decides to break in anyway that you have to be more concerned about—that guy (or team of guys) is willing to commit physical violence to get what he wants, and if he’s bold enough to do it in the daytime, he is a very dangerous man indeed.
One of the more common ways this type of home invasion occurs, believe it or not, starts with a simple knock on the door. You answer the door, and the bad guys either shove you aside and bust right in, or they set you up with some innocent-sounding ploy until you let them in voluntarily, or they distract you while their buddies break in the back door. Fortunately, there’s a pretty easy way to guard against this tactic, and it starts with…well, not opening the door. Let’s back up from there and go over a few simple safety checks you can put in place to avoid the knock-knock-style home invasion.
Keep Your Doors Locked
It’s still common in many rural areas for people to leave their doors unlocked when they’re home and when they’re away. I have friends who haven’t locked their front door in years, even when they’re gone on vacation! Look, I know this violates some deep sense of nostalgia for the good-old-days for some folks, but you should keep your doors locked, even when you’re at home.
For one thing, this provides the obvious barrier of making it harder for a bad guy to get in. But it also has a benefit you might not have thought of: It keeps innocent people out, too, preventing any potential cases of mistaken identity. Day or night, you don’t want the neighbor with dementia or a 12-year-old from down the street walking into your house mistakenly thinking it’s their own and causing you panic. Locked doors buy you at least a little time to assess what’s going on.
Set Up an Alert System
I have a long, curvy, rocky driveway and a simple driveway alarm that rings inside the house when someone advances past the mailbox. This gives me quite a bit of advance notice that someone is approaching my house, which gives me time to prepare for whoever I see out the window. If you have a long driveway, I suggest something similar. If you don’t, any kind of alert system that will let you know when someone approaches your front door (even a barking dog will do!) is helpful because it gives you time for the next following step.
Have a Way to See Who’s There
It sounds obvious, but people break this rule every day: Don’t just swing your door wide open to see who’s there. Get a look at who you’re dealing with first. Doorbell cameras are so popular for a reason: It’s extremely helpful to be able to see who’s at your door, watch the way they approached, and evaluate what they do while they stand there waiting for an answer. If you don’t want to invest in a camera, I suggest the old-fashioned method of peeking out a side window—this is superior to peepholes and chains, which require you to get right up against the door or even crack it open to see who’s there, leaving you vulnerable if he decides to kick the door in.
Lights at every door are important so you can identify any nighttime visitors; motion-sensor lights are handy if you don’t care to leave a porch light or flood lights on all night long.
When you peek out to see who’s there, scan the driveway and neighboring yards for context clues. A truck with the electric company’s logo on the side is an indicator (not a sure thing) that someone has a legit reason to speak to you. An unmarked van with four guys standing around? Not so much.
Speak Through the Door Before You Open It
An intercom system (often available through your doorbell camera) makes this easy, but if you don’t have one, you can probably just speak loudly enough to be heard through the closed door until you’re satisfied that whoever is on your porch isn’t a problem. There’s absolutely no reason to open the door to a stranger without speaking to them first.
What you usually don’t want to do is stay silent and hope they just go away, which could give off the impression that no one is home. This works on Girl Scouts and religious solicitors, but if the stranger at your door turns out to be a bad guy and he thinks no one is home, he might take this as his opportunity to break in. When he’s surprised to see someone in the house, will he turn around and run out? Will he panic and do something stupid? Will he get violent with you? You don’t know—so don’t let him be surprised. Use your voice first.
Do You Need a Firearm Handy?
I don’t answer my door with a firearm in hand, although I would certainly have one handy if my doorbell rang at night when I wasn’t expecting anyone, particularly if I was home alone. I don’t recommend you answer the door to a stranger with a gun in hand, either, because the overwhelming majority of the time, the visitor has no ill intent. You should have gone through the previous steps of seeing who it is and speaking to them through the door before you opened it, anyway, and if you had reason to suspect you needed a gun to deal with them, you wouldn’t have opened the door at all and you’d already be dialing 9-1-1, right?
However, this is a good argument for home carry. If you always have your CCW on your person, you don’t have to worry about slinging a shotgun on before seeing who’s at the door. I don’t practice home carry, but because I always have a good 15 to 30 seconds between the driveway alarm pinging and someone making their way to my door, I sometimes grab my holstered CCW and strap it on while I evaluate the situation on my cameras. I mostly do this when it’s an unmarked car and I’m not expecting any deliveries or visitors.
There’s also a case to be made for a quick-access safe beside the front door, although I’d argue that if you’ve gone through the proper steps outlined above, you shouldn’t need a gun at the front door. Worst-case scenario, you don’t open the door at all, and if someone tries to force their way in, you should be well away from the door yelling at them to go away while preparing to defend your home if it should be required. Just not from the doorway.
Be Sensible, Not Paranoid
As mentioned, the odds of encountering a violent offender who rings your doorbell are very low—but never zero. Chances are extremely high that anyone on your front step has innocent intent, so I don’t want you to live in paranoia or feel a sense of fear every time a stranger approaches your home. Just take some very simple precautions like locking your doors, getting a look at whoever is there, and speaking to them without opening the door, and you’ll up your personal safety factor when it comes to home break-ins.
