Prepper's Guide to Home Defense

Defend Your Home and Maintain Security in Dire Situations

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: Through the Eyes of a Criminal

Becoming a Target

Layered Security

Worst Case Scenarios

Chapter Two: Defensive Solutions for Your Home

A Reinforced Structure

Guard Dogs

Chapter Three: Offensive Solutions

Firearms at Home

Chapter Four: An Escape Plan

Preparation for Escape

Chapter Five: Real Scenarios

Real Stories, Real People

Protect Your Home

Best Practices & Common Mistakes

Do’s

Don’ts

Conclusion

Sources and Suppliers

Introduction

You’re sitting at home with your family, watching the latest movie on Netflix. Your children are sprawled out on the couch, enthralled by the movie while you’re quietly typing on your computer—not accomplishing much, just happy to have the time to yourself after a long day at work. Your wife mentions it’s getting late, but the children complain. You promise they can stay until the end of the movie.

Suddenly, you hear the sound of glass breaking. Heavy footsteps and multiple voices come from the back door. Immediately, all color drains from your wife’s face, and every family member turns to you with wide eyes and fear on their face—what do you do?

It’s a frightening tale but is it likely? In the U.S. alone, there were more than 3.6 million house break-ins every year. The U.S. Department of Justice reports 38% of assaults and 60% of rapes are committed during a home invasion, with one home in every five likely to have a break-in or burglary. And despite a decrease in general crime, the FBI reports that burglaries are actually on the rise.

There are worse situations yet; when natural disaster strikes, or when civil unrest occurs, your home might be the only form of defense you have. Perhaps you have a family to protect, or perhaps you only want to protect yourself. Regardless, in the direst circumstance when even the government has collapsed, having a defensible home is an asset. Fifteen years ago, this might have sounded farfetched—consider, next time, Hurricane Katrina, and the absolute lawlessness that arose.

Whether you’re a pragmatic prepper or preparing yourself for the worst scenario imaginable, this book has you covered. We’ll discuss what you need to know about critical home defense: preparing your home to reduce the likelihood of being a target, defense solutions for reinforcing your home against assault or invasions, the best offensive weaponry available, and developing escape plans when all else fails.

We realize that situations vary, so we’ve divided our advice into rural, suburban, or urban settings depending on where you live. In some instances, the advice might apply to all homes—but where it matters, we point out the choices you have.

Aimed at beginners and experts alike, we seek to set a solid foundation for home defense, then build upon tried and true methods of securing your home against common threats, and extrapolating onward for worst case scenarios. The first chapter alone will help anyone in the modern world secure their home.

Knowing is half the battle; without the ability to predict when your home might be at risk, preparation is very much an obligation. When your family is looking at you with fear on their faces, be prepared with your plan of action. Read on and discover how you can keep lives safe.

Copyright 2015 by Marcus Patton - All rights reserved.

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Chapter One: Through the Eyes of a Criminal

In this chapter, you will learn:

How homes are targeted in traditional burglaries/home invasions

Layered security solutions

Becoming a Target

It’s important to realize that homes often aren’t randomly chosen for burglaries or home invasions—in fact, it’s quite the opposite. In traditional break-ins, criminals will often observe a targeted home or neighborhood. The best targets present easily accessible entry points, cover, and a good escape plan. To decrease the chances of being a victim, homes should either be chosen to limit these factors or every action should be taken to make breaking into your home difficult. To understand how, you must first look at your home through the eyes of a criminal.

Criminals must assess homes by comparing the risk to reward. Obviously, they look for high rewards with low risks—homes which are easy to break into and contain many valuable items.

Points of Entry

When assessing a house, a criminal first looks for easy access. That doesn’t necessarily mean an open door; even a reinforced metal door is an easy point of access if the house is isolated. To be easily accessible, the point of entry is either easily and quietly opened or hidden from view. To downplay this, keep all access points in view of the main street and neighbors. For isolated homes, keeping entry points visible is of little use. Instead, reinforcing entry points is the only valid option.

In short, keep points of entry visible to the main street. All points of entry should be reinforced regardless, which will be discussed in greater depth in chapter two.

Visible Valuables

Despite leaving windows and doors visible to the main street, giving a burglar visible access to the interior of your home is a very bad idea. No one should ever have a clear view of your home, and this applies to all scenarios, whether it’s a pragmatic approach to avoiding home invasions or defending your home in the direst situations. Keeping the interior of your home out of sight is easily accomplished through the use of blinds, frosted glass (or frosted glass film), or even netting. You should be able to stop a criminal from viewing the inside of your home whether he’s on the street or has his face pushed up against your glass.

Cover is a Double-Edged Sword

Leave a criminal with no way to reach your house without being seen. There have been many cases of people purchasing property shrouded in trees or even behind walls. This often gives a false sense of security; in a realistic scenario where a police force is still available, barriers will only help to hide a thief and make his entrance into your home easier. With enough coverage, a thief can easily drive a truck to your home and spend as much time as necessary loading all of your valuables.

Also keep your lawn and house well-lit. Not only can accent lights look great, they can also keep your doors and windows visible throughout the night. Outdoor lights should be tamper proof, as cheap lights connected by wire can be cut at the source. (Running wires through buried piping is a better solution).

Making a Quick Escape

The final quality criminals look for in a target is the ability to make a quick escape. In suburban areas, corner houses are often targeted—despite high visibility, the ability to make a quick escape outweighs the risk (especially if caution is taken to downplay visibility, such as entering at night). Rural areas provide wide expanses of wilderness to escape into and, similarly, crowded urban environments present many points of cover when making a quick escape. Ideally, criminals try not to need an escape, relying on proper preparation to give himself all the time needed to enter and leave the target home. Making escape more difficult can be tricky and often runs counter to other advice; a walled home or gated community certainly makes escape difficult at the expense of providing more cover for the criminal.

Layered Security

The key to a proper home defense is layered security—that is, having multiple levels of security protecting your home at every level. At no point should a criminal find breaking into your house easy, from scouting out your property to being inside it.

Deterrents from the Start

Your first level of security should keep away the inexperienced criminals looking for an easy target and nothing more. Even if the house doesn’t have valuables, some criminals will target multiple, low-value homes which present no deterrent for robbery or home invasion—simply because it’s easy.

One of the first deterrents many people recommend are security system decals or stickers placed on entry points. You may be surprised this isn’t as effective as you might think; many home security systems are never armed thanks to forgetfulness or a false sense of security. However, it’s still helpful in the simplest of cases.

Do not include specific information regarding your security system on the sticker. Likewise, the security panel should be hidden from view. With the model number of your system known, a simple Internet search will easily yield instructions on how to deactivate it.

Other initial deterrents include the aforementioned lighting and signage regarding dangerous animals (Beware of Dog—though this is perhaps the most ignored sign by criminals when entering a home).

Never Absent

It’s impossible to stay in your home at all times. But that doesn’t mean it should be obviously empty. When gone from your home, lights should be kept on a timer. The timer should have an element of randomness. Otherwise a repeating pattern could tell anyone scouting your home exactly when you aren’t at home. TVs and radios can also be kept on a timer to give the impression someone is at home. Taking it one step further, recorded conversations can be kept on a timer too; TV and radio are easily discernable as such, but hearing two people talking (or arguing) will give an immediate impressive to any would-be thief that your home is occupied by several people.

Alarm Systems

Having a sign for an alarm system is one thing, but actually having an installed system is another. Though an alarm system may be of little use in very rural areas, or during times of great disaster (civil unrest or natural disasters), it’s very useful in peacetime to keep burglars from your home. When choosing your alarm system, there are some things to consider.

Wireless systems are among the most insecure. The top security systems sold by ADT and Vivint, as well as many others, use outdated data transmission techniques. In typical wireless systems, sensors on doors and windows use radio frequencies to transmit their status to the central monitor in the house. Because these signals are unencrypted, it’s easy to jam the frequency altogether (so the central monitor receives no alert signal from the sensors), or to cover the alert signal by transmitting a stronger signal. High-tech alarms which allow full control by an owner using a mobile device can often be even worse, creating the possibility of a criminal gaining full access to your security system remotely.

The best solutions are, ironically, the simplest. Wired systems that don’t depend on the main power grid are often strongest. Main control panels should not only be kept out of view, but also locked away itself so that thieves or home invaders aren’t able to find and deactivate it in a more destructive fashion. As stated before, keep specific model numbers off your sign deterrents—warning that your house is protected by an armed security system is often enough. And, of course, keep it armed whether you’re at home or not. Keep this in mind for home invasion scenarios listed in the last chapter of this book.

Maintaining a Secure Space

If a thief or home invader hasn’t been deterred, your next step is to keep your home as impenetrable as possible through reinforced structures (also known as structure hardening). This will be examined in much greater depth in the following chapter; however, it’s worth noting that layered security should also be applied to each level, too. A home, whether in the city, suburbs or country, should have a physical barrier between your property and outside it, as well as a secure structure. Within your home, consider the ability to further lock-down the rooms—doors and walls between each ‘layer’ of your home can be hardened, with the innermost layer and lower/upper-most levels containing the most structurally hardened room, the panic room.

Protecting Your Home by Force

When all else fails, your last line of defense should be a good offense. We will give due consideration to all offensive tactics later in this book. During peacetime, you should know the self-defense laws of your state. Two main laws of note are the Stand Your Ground laws and the Castle Doctrine. In the former, you have no obligation to retreat from a threat, whereas castle doctrines allow deadly force to be used in your home. In both cases, deadly force is authorized when used in self-defense. As of this year, some states uphold a duty to retreat and does not allow the use of deadly force, even for self-defense. This may change at any time, and, of course, the specifics of these laws differ from state to state. The following states that require retreat when threatened are: Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

In cases of widespread disaster, civil unrest, or government collapse, these laws may no longer be enforceable or applicable.

Worst Case Scenarios

In the worst case scenarios, such as those listed above, much of the information in this chapter may no longer be applicable. As we delve deeper into home security solutions, you will learn more information on protecting your home against the worst scenarios imaginable. Being a true prepper doesn’t just mean preparing for the worst case, it means preparing for all cases. And so you can apply most of this first chapter towards your first level of security—house burglaries and home invasions—whereas the next chapter will address ways of defending your home against worst case scenarios.

Chapter Two: Defensive Solutions for Your Home

In this chapter, you will learn:

Defensive options for each level of home security

Best-in -business builders of panic rooms and hidden rooms

Options in security systems to integrate home defense

Resource allotment in times of need

A Reinforced Structure

Having a reinforced structure, otherwise known as structural hardening, is imperative to good home defense. Consumer grade building materials for homes aren’t rated for protection against a forced and concentrated effort for entry. Thieves and home invaders usually need not expend much effort to get inside even a door secured with deadbolts or a locked window—kicking a door open, or breaking glass, is quite easy to do for the experienced. We’ll examine some of the ways you can make forced entry into your home, if not impossible, then extremely difficult.

Camouflage

While not strictly a defensive tactic, camouflage is useful for avoiding confrontation altogether. Camouflage also doesn’t require a tin of paint to accomplish. However, tactics must change depending on your home location, with most rural homes possibly being the easiest to hide away.

Rural homes are less dependent on a quick response from the police force, so benefit more from concealment than other homes. The best method of concealing a country home would be on the main road—assuming a house that is far enough from the main road to be hidden by trees, it’s a simple matter of covering the path to your home in plant material so as to blend in with the surroundings. This isn’t a valid choice for many, however, and especially not for suburban or urban homes.

Another tactic would be hiding in plain sight—making your home look worthless to criminals. A rundown and dirty exterior are exactly what you might want to use though preparing for this in the suburbs with an HOA governing your home is easier said than done. Likewise, nondescript apartments in the city often lack the ability to camouflage or hide in plain sight—you present so little to the outside world that these tactics aren’t needed. If neither of these tactics is a valid choice, rest assured the remainder of this chapter will help secure your home.

Perimeter Security

The next step to defending your home is securing the perimeter. This is essentially what separates your property from the rest of the world—the boundaries for your castle, as it were.

Physical Security

One of the most basic methods of protection is walls and fences. In most suburban neighborhoods, walls are very difficult to construct due to HOA concerns—if there is no HOA, due to emergency or neighborhood, then you have more freedom in the matter.

A security wall can be made up of various materials. Although their strength is important, walls generally shouldn’t be treated as fortifications unless you have the manpower to defend them. Otherwise, security walls are there to buy you time—to arm yourself (Chapter 3) or get to safety (Chapter 4). Typically, a wall should be eight to twelve feet high and topped with some deterrent—barbed wire, if available, though many citizens in third world countries will often top their walls with broken glass cemented into place.

These defenses are easily circumnavigated with a ladder and scrap carpeting, so it’s important to take two further steps: first, the ground immediately inside of your wall should have some deterrent so that intruders can’t simply jump inside once atop your wall (bales of barbed wire are great for causing pain and entanglement); second, include some form of alert system. Even a simple wire held on your wall that can set off an alarm when pulled is an immediate improvement, as any material placed atop your wall will immediately bring it to your attention.

A solid foundation should be set beneath the wall to offer an anchoring point, as well as prevent burrowing under the wall. Building a wall is the costliest solution to perimeter security and will require a specialist to survey your land to ensure a solid structure is built.

Material choices aren’t as important given the function of the wall. Be wary of cheap solutions, however. Walls should be solid (not hollow)—cinderblock walls should be reinforced with steel and concrete, and brick walls should be solid throughout. Bricks and cinder blocks can be costly (at about fifty centers and a dollar each, respectively). Today, new advances in precast concrete has made it easier to build large walls for cheap. Our favorite supplier is Inter-Block.com, which sells precast, interlocking concrete blocks that weigh an amazing two tons each. At five feet long and two-and-a-half feet wide and tall, building a wall is made simple. Their interlocking blocks are sold for retaining walls, seawalls, or bunkers—exactly the type of versatile material any prepper needs.

In older times, these hi-tech solutions weren’t available. If an emergency arises, you won’t have time or money to erect these fortifications. When in the countryside, take a lesson from the Ancient Romans; palisades are easily constructed from earth and wood and are quite strong. When building a palisade, create a mound of earth around your property (typically around four feet high in Ancient Rome). Then, create a fence of sharpened logs that stand upright on the crest of the mound. Further earthworks or wooden construction can reinforce the palisade though in the past they were often free-standing and placed close together.

Unfortunately, suburban houses and urban houses have little recourse. A common fence can help slow down criminals somewhat at the expense of visibility to the main street. In emergencies, urban homes and apartments will likely have to rely on obstructions to keep passage to their homes difficult.

Landscape Rules of Thumb

Avoid ostentatious ornamentation in your lawn. Ideally, your lawn should be free of obstructions and cover so that you can clearly see any individuals approaching your home. Keep your lawn well lit—front, back, and sides—with a line of sight to all areas of your lawn.

Points of Entry Revisited

In the previous chapter, we discussed the importance of keeping points of entry visible to the main street (in urban and suburban environments) while also keeping visibility inside your home limited. Now, we’ll examine ways on keeping these points of entry physically secure.

Doors

The main point of entry for your home, doors often see the most structural hardening and rightly so. Once opened, the entrance is easy and quick—as an escape if the intruder faces trouble. The following advice should be applied to all outdoor doors, whether front-, sides or rear-facing.

The goal is to offer additional layers of security at the point of entry. A very easy addition to any home is a “security door”—a steel door, often sold with a screen, that is placed over your door for added protection. These are a great way to easily increase home security, providing a metal overlay to your door. Screen doors are not the same as security doors. Our favorite provider of security doors (as well as sliding glass door and window security) is NxStageSecurity.com, who deliver secure solutions that are guaranteed.

You may be surprised to learn exactly how easy it is to break down a door and even more surprised to learn what gives way. Instructions for breaking down a door involve kicking the lock. The reason is simple: deadbolts and locks are stronger than the threshold they’re built into. Focusing efforts on the lock will result in the lock breaking through the threshold and, with no purchase in the frame, allowing the door to swing wide open. To combat this, locks should be installed into a structurally hardened frame. A strip of 10 to 16 GA steel is recommended for holes removed for the locks. Remove the catch plates and install the metal strip instead. Also, consider installing longer, thicker hinge screws and a deadbolt shroud. Finally, the door itself should contain no windows and be constructed of metal, not wood.

When purchasing deadbolts for your door, ensure they are rated as Grade 1 locks by ANSI (the American National Standards Institute). If the situation is dire, consider the installation of brackets on either side of the door to hold a length of wood or metal. This will ensure a reinforced door can’t simply be beaten out of its frame.

Sliding glass doors are among the least safe door choices imaginable, with a vast majority of home break-ins occurring here. They are easily lifted out of their track or simply broken. Security overlays exist, but we recommend simply avoided them altogether. At the minimum, keep a length of wood or pipe on the track so the door can’t be slid open, and follow some of our window defense tips below for the glass.

Windows

Windows are often the second choice of entry. If your house is isolated, you could very well expect it to be the first choice—breaking glass is easier than breaking down a door, after all.

Unlike doors, windows are easily secured in multiple ways. First, metal guards can be placed overtop the windows on the outside of your home. The aforementioned NxStageSecurity also supplied high-quality security solutions for windows, though cheaper solutions can also be purchased elsewhere. These screens are iron or steel and makes physical entry impossible even with an open window.

Less obtrusive (but less effective) security films can be placed over the glass. These films keep the glass from shattering when broken. Beware of cheap films which can easily be pushed aside once the glass is broken. Glass can also be replaced in its entirety with tempered or bulletproof glass though this comes at great cost.

Finally, bars can be installed inside your home. Ensure bars are anchored into the structure of your house and not simply into the frame of your window, as window frames can commonly be pushed (or pulled) out with enough force.

In worst case scenarios, and without the preparation listed here, the simplest solution would be to board windows up. It’s simple but effective. However, keep in mind that line of sight is needed to all sides of your home if you intend to defend yourself.

Fortunately, all of this advice can usually be undertaken no matter where you live. Remember that renters must gain approval by landlords before modifying the rented property.

Inner Security

In a worst case scenario, intruders may gain access to the home. If this occurs, you should be able to contain the threat by utilizing layered security.

A common tactic is using some holding room or area—whether a foyer, or an outside patio—so that purposely (or accidentally) allowing a stranger inside doesn’t immediately grant access to the entirety of your home. This can also be applied to your perimeter security, with the area immediately inside your gate further walled off and another gated entrance beyond that.

Home layouts can vary greatly. Apartments are generally much easier to build layered security—as an example, having a reinforced door at entrance to your bedroom and another leading to a closet or bathroom in the same room, you’re putting two more barriers against you and an intruder. The same can be applied to houses, keeping entranceways and floors sealed from one another. Of course, this relies on being able to call for help; each section of your floor plan should have the ability to contact the authorities.

Sealing off each room can easily be done by following the same procedures for structurally hardening your front door. Be cautious of being trapped within your home. We’ll review some escape plans in the last chapter of this book.

Building a Safe Room

A safe room, or panic room, is designed to be the most defensive portion of your home. Although few people like the idea of having to retreat, that may be the only option if you become outnumbered, outgunned, or you need to protect the lives of others. In the more pragmatic scenarios, a safe room is perfectly capable of keeping your family safe in case of a home invasion—with supplies and communication equipment within, time spent within a panic room is likely to be less than an hour. In the introduction to this book, you read a story of a home invasion during a casual night in. Given the preparation discussed so far, your family should have ample time to get to safety if an intruder can even get in your home. But when threatened, your loved ones can retreat to a safe room knowing they’ll be free from harm.

A safe room has other benefits, too. When natural disasters such as tornadoes and hurricanes strike, your family will be kept safe. The force of these events (particularly tornadoes) shouldn’t be underestimated. If in an area prone to tornadoes, your home may already have a perfect safe room already built. In terms of tornado protection only, single pour, reinforced concrete safe rooms are very strong and comparatively cheap. Lastly, safe rooms are a good storage place for valuables as well as food stockpiles.

Remember that a safe room should be safe. Never leave the room unless you’re certain the threat is gone, or unless help has arrived. It isn’t likely you’ll be in the room for very long—only the very worst case scenarios could lead you to be trapped inside indefinitely.

When building a safe room, it’s best to integrate it into your home during construction—not possible for most people. If you can’t build a dedicated safe room, resort to repurposing a room in your house. Prime candidates are large closets or bathrooms. Safe rooms should have no windows and proper ventilation at a minimum. Unlike previous reinforcements, even the walls and ceiling of the safe room should be reinforced. This makes single pour concrete solutions a very good choice.

Interior walls of houses (and even exterior walls in some cases) are incapable of stopping bullets. As such, you’ll need to reinforce the walls using steel sheeting, concrete, or Kevlar. Keep in mind the relative weight of your reinforcements; ideally, safe rooms should be built in a corner of the basement so that only two walls need reinforcement. If designing the safe room yourself, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) provides several blueprints to get you started. The web address for these designs has been included at the end of this book.

Unfortunately, not all people can afford extreme measures. Once the safe room door has been reinforced, you can use (as a temporary or permanent measure, depending on budget) shelving or cabinets to create a partially bulletproof room. Fill all shelving and cabinets with paper or books.

Hidden Rooms

Relating to the very first section of this chapter, it’s possible to camouflage your safe room—or any room—by creating a variety of hidden entryways in your home. The actual construction can be complicated, so you may opt for a Murphy Door kit purchasable online, or find several free DIY options also available online. We leave it to you to find an option which matches your home décor. Ensure your hidden entrance doesn’t stick out, and remember: sometimes, you must enter safe rooms quickly.

For those with money to burn, our favorite custom builder of safe rooms is Create Home Engineering, located in Gilbert, Arizona. Their site, hiddenpassageway.com, will give you a good idea of their quality and capabilities. They are among the best in the country for building hidden rooms or passageways!

Guard Dogs

A guard dog is a great defense and offense tool. However, most dogs should be viewed as purely defensive. Although many dogs may seem violent, they can be unpredictable, and even the most violent dogs could be scared away by unfamiliar noise. A large dog could be your ideal choice but consider also that thieves consistently avoid houses with small dogs. Small dogs are very difficult to keep quiet and are very alert. Regardless, as a system for alerting you of danger, almost any dog will help.

Dogs can be either guard dogs or attack dogs. The former is trained specifically to alert you of danger and scare away an intruder, but not necessarily attack unless it feels threatened. An attack dog, on the other hand, is taught to attack any unfamiliar figure almost immediately.

It is well worth the money to have your dog trained if this is an important aspect of home security for you. Having someone at home while you’re away—even a dog—can help deter an intruder, especially if that dog is difficult to quiet or extremely aggressive.

And lastly, realize that just having a dog is no guarantee of defense. There are many cases of intruders who were simply ignored by a dog or even greeted warmly by it. In other situations, intruders killed a dog outright. A proper guard or attack dog should be trained before being relied on and should never be your sole source of defense.

Chapter Three: Offensive Solutions

In this chapter, you will learn:

Firearms worthy of home defense

Melee weapons for close quarters

Effectiveness of, and how to choose, a martial art

Firearms at Home

Firearms should be the last line of defense for your home—a gun is often a final solution, which may or may not be the best course of action. Before we continue, we’d like to urge the reader to consider the ramifications of taking a life if other courses of action are available. If there exists any type of law enforcement in your area—whether there is a natural disaster or civil unrest—you may find yourself at odds with the law even if you killed in self-defense. As stated in the previous chapter, not all states have self-defense laws and, those that do, don’t guarantee immunity.

Consider also the dangers of owning a gun. Despite the obvious benefit to defending your home, guns are more likely to cause accidents than prevent a home invasion. We make all assumptions that the reader is a responsible gun-owner and understands how to properly handle firearms—but that understanding doesn’t always translate to children even with verbal warnings. In 2013, a fourteen-year-old Massachusetts boy accidentally shot a friend while showing off his mother’s gun despite repeated warnings by his mother not to touch it.

Statistics shows that guns kept at home are 22 times more likely to be involved in an accidental killing than home defense. In a five-year timespan (2005 to 2010), 3,800 accidental gun-related deaths occurred in the home and, with 29% of gun-owning parents failing to lock their guns away, it’s no surprise.

Make no mistake: having ready access to the gun could save your life, but anyone with children in the home should keep guns in a locked case.

With the warnings out of the way, we’re ready to compare some of the best guns on the market for home defense. You may think all guns are equal, but that isn’t the case. Due to confined spaces and thin walls, some guns are better to use than others.

Choosing the Right Gun for You

Choosing the right gun can be daunting, especially for the novice. Every factor should be considered—the strength of the shooter, penetrating power of the gun and ammo, and the size of the room, just to name a few. Those who live in apartments will have a more difficult time choosing the right gun due to the penetration power of most guns on the market; a bullet can easily penetrate into a neighboring apartment. In the case of suburban homes, high powered rifles used by police have been known to penetrate neighboring homes.

There is a silver-lining if most guns seem too heavy for you; most home defense guns see little action, and heavier guns typically (but not always) have less recoil. It’s perfectly acceptable to choose a powerful gun so long as you can comfortably lift it, as you’re not likely to be carrying it around for hours on end.

Below, we’ll discuss the three main types of guns—handguns, shotguns, and rifles—as well as the place for air powered weaponry in an emergency situation. For novice gun owners, we’ll explain some nomenclature as well.

Shotguns

Shotguns are the quintessential home defense weapon, and it’s fairly obvious why. Shotguns require very little skill to operate, are among the most robust guns in terms of wear-and-tear, and hold considerable stopping power. When choosing a shotgun, the gauge refers to the size of the barrel. A higher gauge results in a smaller barrel size. It’s important to know that larger gauge shotguns are the typical choice for home defense.

The shot is the ammunition being loaded and has a great effect on penetrating power. If you choose a shotgun for self-defense but live in an apartment or townhome, you may want to choose smaller shot sizes (#8 is appropriate if you could potentially be shooting through a wall). If you have no neighbors to fear of, you can explore all the different shot sizes. Better choices for home defense are buckshot sizes which range from No. 4 Buck to 000 (triple aught).

Shotguns require almost no aiming, especially when confined to a hallway. However, if you decide to purchase a slug round, aiming becomes a very considerable concern. It’s also more difficult to be disarmed with a shotgun—there are many techniques for disarming someone holding a handgun, but very few for shotguns. But a shotgun can be heavy and slow to fire and carry a much more limited amount of ammunition compared to modern handguns. The length of a shotgun can also be a drawback, as the weapon can become cumbersome when maneuvering through tight quarters. Finally, if high penetrating ammunition is used, you can easily injure innocent people (including family) if your shot penetrates a wall. With the spread of shotgun ammunition, this is a very likely scenario.

Not to be forgotten is the versatility of a shotgun. Unlike other weapons, shotgun ammo is varied and very common. It’s even possible to use home-made ammunition in a shotgun if ammunition supplies become limited. The Home Gun Smith offers a more in-depth guide to creating custom shotgun ammunition, and a link to his free guide has been included at the end of this book. A shotgun is a very formidable and very effective weapon for home defense, especially when used within the home, and comes highly recommended.

Handguns

Pistols and revolvers are a good home defense weapon thanks to the ease of concealment. They can easily be worn at the waist or hidden away in drawers, beneath furniture, or beside a bed. Due to their ubiquity in the market, there are many options to choose from.

When choosing a handgun, consider the penetration power, recoil, and capacity. We particularly recommend the Glock 17 and Glock 34, two guns that are easy to fire, have reduced recoil, and offer higher magazine capacity than other weapons in its class.

Because they can be easily hidden, and their size makes moving throughout a house easier, handguns are a fairly good choice for the skilled gun owner. But handguns require a higher degree of training to hit the proper target, and some models are more likely to jam than others—especially compared to the simple mechanisms in most shotguns. As such, handguns will also require more routine maintenance. An alternative to complex modern handguns is the revolver. Revolvers have simpler firing mechanisms, but can be even harder to fire than handguns thanks to a heavier trigger pull and more limited capacity. Lighter weight handguns are a possibility in crowded settings though even small caliber handguns have the potential to penetrate walls.

Rifles

Rifles are the least popular, and least likely, a weapon for home defense. Rifles are often too high powered to be used indoors and are too large to be hidden. It’s true that when choosing a weapon for use inside the home, a rifle is an extremely poor choice no matter where you live. However, rifles are a prime option for those in a rural setting—unlike a handgun or shotgun, rifles have the longest range possible. Heavier rifles are also possible, such as the AR-15 (easy to fire but unreliable if not maintained) or the extremely resilient and durable AK-47 (which is, unfortunately, less accurate than the AR-15). In a truly apocalyptic scenario, an AK-47 would possibly be the best weapon a man could own thanks to its robust design—some AK-47 rifles have spent months submerged underwater and still remain usable.

If you must choose a rifle for an urban setting, rifles such as the FN P90 5.7x28mm or the Beretta Cx4 at 9mm are at least shorter and less powerful (resulting in less unwanted wall penetration). But largely, rifles are good for rural settings and long range targets.

Air Powered Guns

BB guns are viewed as toys to the majority of people. However, air powered guns and rifles do have a place in a prepper’s home. In dire times, an air powered gun guarantees ammunition even after all your bullets have been depleted. Though they don’t pack the punch for defense against humans and large animals, they can still be used to scare targets as well as to hunt smaller animals such as rabbits, squirrels, and birds. Without gunpowder, a typical gun is useless—an air powered gun relies solely on compressed carbon dioxide tubes which are easily refillable at home with proper equipment. Another choice, pump action guns, use compressed air. Though weaker, they need only muscle power to charge up a shot.

Traditional guns are also noisy and, if ammunition is scarce, shooting can be difficult to practice without using costly bullets. Air powered rifles and guns offered a cheap and silent opportunity to develop good shooting form and increase accuracy.

Melee Weapons and Non-Lethal Choices

Nearly any item has the potential to be a melee weapon. Yet, most melee weapons require skill to use. Don’t necessarily buy a flashy weapon—swords, while idolized by many, are difficult to use without training.

In a survival situation, weapons such as axes or hammers are a nice choice because they serve multiple purposes. A baseball bat can also be very useful, but requires a lot of rooms to swing. Melee weapons may be good to have in a backup situation—in case a gun jams or ammo runs out—but in most cases, a melee weapon doesn’t have the stopping power of a gun. Most intruders won’t run away when confronted with a knife, but a gun will often have him turning tail.

Martial Arts

Martial arts is a very gray area. Very few martial arts available in the United States are practical. Most focus on discipline and not necessarily useful techniques. However, there are some useful martial arts out there: for sheer brutality, Muy Thai is the top contender and the first choice of many MMA fighters. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is an underrated martial art with a high focus on grappling. Their close-combat fighting is a great way to stop an attacker from doing any harm, and it also teaches many disarming techniques.

Choosing the Right School

Every area is different, and it’s important to research thoroughly to find the best school for you. Many schools offer a trial period for lessons, which you can take advantage of, or will at least allow you to watch a lesson. Research the teachers to ensure they’re qualified. Many of the lower quality schools allow students to take over classes; while it sounds good, this is often a sign of low standards as students ranked only slightly above their pupils make very poor teachers.

Talk with the teacher personally to be sure they’re teaching a practical martial art. When watching the class, the teacher should also be on the floor and actively helping their students—having them only repeat drills is a sign of a low-quality school. Drills have their place, but the focus should be on the actual techniques and not memorizing ‘forms.’

Chapter Four: An Escape Plan

In this chapter, you will learn:

Preparation for escape

How to escape your home

Best escape plan choices

Preparation for Escape

Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do to protect your home. In case of a foreseeable, impending disaster (floods or hurricanes), or in case of being overrun (civil unrest or total economic collapse), you may find yourself having to leave your home in a hurry.

Packing for Escape

Creating an escape pack or bug-out pack, is essential. This way, you can quickly leave your home without worry—all the items you need to survival will be packed away. There exist specific guides for creating the perfect escape pack but give due consideration to the essentials you need to survive.

We recommend packing a tent, a fire starter, dry tinder, a portable water filter (such as the LifeStraw), a knife for utility and defense, a gun for hunting and defense, rope in the form of highly durable Paracord, a multi-tool, and finally crank operated flashlights and batteries. Other supplies that may come in handing depending on your area is portable fishing gear (an easy way to catch protein!), insect repellent and sunblock, and flares.

Choosing an Escape Route

Choosing an escape route can be difficult depending on your location and many other factors. In the best scenario—a rural setting—it isn’t too objectionable to have an escape tunnel from your safe room to an outlying area. This tunnel must, by necessity, be well hidden at its terminus, and very well protected. Otherwise, all your home defenses would be useless. If you were to find yourself severely outnumbered or being ‘smoked out’, an escape tunnel is an ideal solution—it’s unbeatable, in fact, assuming the exit is far enough from your house.

If an escape tunnel is your choice, consider using concrete tunnels. The sections are cheap and quite strong, and cracks are easy to repair.

Many of us lack the funds or situation to create an ‘escape tunnel.’ In those cases, the situation becomes harder. Ideally, if you’re locked in a safe room, you should be perfectly safe until help arrives.

Plan for multiple escape routes. You can never be sure which routes of escape are blocked off—with only one plan of escape, anything that stands in your way could mean disaster.

Land, Sea, and Air

Obviously, having the ability to quickly take a boat or helicopter away from your home would be a godsend. This seems unrealistic, however, and inapplicable to the majority of homeowners.

In reality, escape is meant to get you as far from your home as quickly as possible. If you live in an urban setting, a prime candidate for any raised apartment would be an escape ladder or rope down to street level. In case of fire, this is also one of your better choices. Be aware that the higher your apartment, the more difficult escape can be—too high, and your escape rope could snap under its own weight. Do the math to be sure your rope or ladder can safely hold your weight plus the entirety of its own weight. (Knots will always weaken a rope, so be careful!) Having many escape routes from your exit is then essential.

In a suburban home, the car is the best choice for a quick escape, especially considering many suburban homes will be unable to install strong defensive walls. In this case, you will need quick access to your car and then drive to safety as quickly as possible.

If a tunnel is out of the question (and don’t be so sure—storm drains and sewers might be accessible!), escape in a rural setting will also require a quick get-away. Cars and trucks, like in a suburban setting, is a good choice. If able, you can also use a zip-line to quickly and efficiently escape your home and travel a very long way at high speeds. The end of your zip-line should have some other mode of transportation to get you to safety.

Chapter Five: Real Scenarios

In this chapter, you will learn:

Real home defense situations

Real Stories, Real People

The following stories are real. Some stories ended in success, others in failure. They are not to be made light of—the effects of a home invasion can be permanent, and will forever change a person’s life. For those who successfully stood their ground, we can be proud that lives were saved. For all those who were caught unaware, we can only hope to learn from their mistakes.

A Texas Burglary

In December 2012, a would-be burglar broke into the home of James Gerow. Unfortunately for that burglar, James Gerow awoke and, gun drawn, followed the man as he exited the home. Once outside the home, Gerow forced the man to surrender—a peaceful resolution thanks to a gun and quick-thinking.

Georgian Home Invasion

In January 2013, a mother and her two nine-year-old children were forced to defend themselves when an intruder entered their home. Armed with a crowbar, the intruder forced open the front door and—hearing the woman shout out to her children—gave chase. The trio tried to hide near the attic but, with deadly intent, the home intruder pursued them. The mother was forced to fire on the home intruder, striking him multiple times. The attack was considered random.

Hurricane Katrina

After the devastating events of Hurricane Katrina, police were sparse, and gangs were prevalent. One neighborhood pulled together, taking up residence in an old Victorian style house. The balconies were manned by lookouts armed to the teeth. Trees were left across the road and empty cans lined up to act as an alarm—if intruders approached in the dark, they would disturb the cans and the residents turned on their lights and threatened to shoot.

Double Murder in Alaska

As proof that no one is safe, 24-year-old Jerry Andrew Active broke a window to enter an Anchorage home and beat to death an elderly couple inside. The depravity didn’t stop there—the couple was taking care of a two-year-old granddaughter at the time. Both the grandmother and granddaughter were sexually assaulted. Jerry Andrew Active escaped but was later apprehended by the police.

A Connecticut Ransom

In 2007, an uptown suburban neighborhood—an otherwise safe and prosperous area—was turned upside down after two armed men gained entry to a home. The men entered the home sometime in the morning at around 9 a.m. After subduing the family, the mother was forced to accompany a man to the bank where money was withdrawn. Once back at the home, the mother, husband, and two daughters (11 and 17 years old) were tied up, beaten, and the home set ablaze as police arrived. The suspects took the family car and attempted to escape, but were apprehended. The only survivor was the father, William A. Petit, who stumbled from the fiery house with a severe head wound.

Protect Your Home

Home protection is imperative for anyone, whether living alone or with family. Despite these stories, there are many more untold stories—scenarios where people with the proper home protection had defeated a home invader before they even entered the home. We can only learn from the misfortune of others to help protect ourselves.

Best Practices & Common Mistakes

In summary, keep in mind these things to do and these things to avoid when creating a home defense plan.

Do’s

Maintain Your Home Defense

No matter what your choice in home defense, keep it maintained. Keep an eye out for weathering and rust around entry points—anything which weakens your home.

Practice Makes Perfect

Plans should be practiced and even timed. This includes making your family aware of what to do in specific situations. Make sure everyone understands where to go and what to do in case of an emergency.

Learn New Skills

Being prepared doesn’t just mean spending money on your home. Make sure you have the skills to properly defend yourself. Take gun classes or self-defense classes and understand how to use all of the tools at your disposal.

Don’ts

Assume a Gun is All You Need

Many people purchase a gun and believe their home defense system is complete. What should happen if you can’t reach the gun? What if the intruder finds your gun first? A gun should be among the last lines of defense—passive defenses should be utilized to stop you from ever having to fire.

Be a Target

Reiterating the very first chapter: don’t turn yourself into a target. You should never make it obvious that you possess expensive goods, nor should you make it obvious when you’re not home. This even includes having fliers and junk mail removed so passersby can’t see it piling up!

Rely on a Single Defense

Whether an alarm system, a reinforced door or your gun, a good home defense has multiple layers of security.

Conclusion

You’re sitting at home with your family, watching the latest movie on Netflix. Your children are sprawled out on the couch, enthralled by the movie while you’re quietly typing on your computer—not accomplishing much, just happy to have the time to yourself after a long day at work. Your wife mentions it’s getting late, but the children complain. You promise they can stay until the end of the movie.

Suddenly, you hear an alarm. Something has tripped the perimeter alarm around your property. It’s no big deal—this happens occasionally when a deer gets a little too inquisitive. You calm the children and stand up to review the security cameras.

You see a quick glimpse of black in the security monitor before hearing a dull thud. By this point, the family is standing and looking worriedly toward you. Switching feeds, you can see on the camera that the home intruders are trying to break apart your security door. You quickly urge your family to the safe room—at this point, the police have already been notified by your security system.

Once your family is safe, you take up position by the front door and ready your weapon. The moment that door opens, you’ll fire, and you verbally warn the intruders as such. But the moment never comes—a siren stops the intruders in their tracks, and they quickly scatter.

Home defense is no laughing matter. With more than three and a half million homes being broken into per year, it doesn’t have to be a matter of luck to stay safe.

We’ve reviewed the best forms of defense for your home—securing your points of entry, keeping your doors and windows well lit, and securing a perimeter. We’ve also discussed having the ability to contain a threat and erecting a panic room for dire emergencies—civil unrest or natural disaster.

When choosing a weapon, it’s important to choose one that is appropriate to your skill as well as your surroundings. The last thing you would want is to defend your home but accidentally shoot your neighbor or loved ones thanks to an errant bullet fired through a wall.

And sometimes, escape is necessary. Planning that route and practicing is essential for your safety.

Some people are preparing for hurricanes or tornadoes. Others are protecting themselves from civil unrest and riots—an ever increasing occurrence. Still others want to be ready for ‘The Big One’, an event so catastrophic that the infrastructure of the entire nation falls apart, and the police force is no longer a guarantee.

Whether you’re seeking a pragmatic solution or protecting yourself from the worst, you’re now ready to secure your home against any threat. Never underestimate your enemy, and never put yourself in more danger than is necessary. Help protect yourself and your family. Protect your home.

Sources and Suppliers

Inter-Block

A company specializing in the construction and assembly of large pre-cast cement and concrete blocks usable for defensive walls. [ http://www.inter-block.com/ ]

ShatterGard

Supplier of high-quality glass security film. [ http://www.shattergard.com/ ]

NxStageSecurity

A supplier of high-quality and high-strength security screens for hinged doors, screen doors, and windows. [ http://www.nxstagesecurity.com/ ]

Hidden Passageway

A group of builders who pride themselves on constructing hidden rooms and doors in any home. [ http://www.hiddenpassageway.com/ ]

FEMA Safe Room Plans

Plans produced and distributed by FEMA for building custom safe rooms in a residential home.
[ http://www.fema.gov/pdf/plan/prevent/rms/453/fema453.pdf ]

Guide to Creating Custom Shotgun Ammunition

A guide provided by The Home Gunsmith on creating custom shotgun ammunition.
[http://www.thehomegunsmith.com/pdf/EHF_Shotgun_Ammo_Book.pdf]