Home Defense Tactics to Protect Your Family
Ken CrawfordDescription
Ken Crawford of Reno Guns & Range discusses an important home defense concept: how to move through your home with a handgun without endangering your family.
Bump in the Night
Whether you hear the proverbial bump in the night or for any reason believe you need to get your handgun because a lethal threat may be in your home, it’s critical not to endanger the people you are trying to protect when using home defense weapons.
Empirical data shows that the majority of unusual sounds heard in the middle of the night are not threats and do not require the homeowner’s going armed. There is almost never an actual need for the homeowner to use the handgun in home defense.
That being said, Ken demonstrates how to check your home for intruders while not threatening your family with your home defense weapon. He demonstrates two home defense tactics scenarios, with a barrier on the range representing a corner in a home.
Scenario 1: Ready Position
Ken’s family is behind him. He has full confidence that everyone is with him and he can move safely with his handgun in the ready position. He can go around the corner knowing that if something startles him, it’s not a family member because they are all behind him. If he needs to engage a threat, he can do so efficiently from this position.
Scenario 2: Staged Position
If Ken is separated from his family and has to go around the corner and down a hallway to reach his family, he moves in the staged position. This means his hand is firmly gripping the handgun, which is in the holster while he goes around the corner. There is much less likelihood he will shoot a family member if he is startled. However, he can still bring the home defense handgun into action quickly.
I want to talk to you about how to move through your home with a handgun without threatening your family. We've all heard or we know that there's a bump in the night or there may be something that causes us to believe that we need to get a handgun because there's a potential lethal threat. And we have that gun. What we want to avoid because we know through empirical data is that even though we hear that bump in the night the vast majority of those bumps, aren't even a real problem. There is no real threat, in the overwhelming evidence out there is that, there's almost never a need to actually use the gun. That being said, I want to show you how to do that without threatening your family. So I've got this barricade here to represent a hallway in a home or a corner I would have to turn to. In the first scenario that I'd like to talk to you about, is this, my family is behind me. If my family is behind me and I have full confidence that everyone is with me and I can move safely, then I would have my handgun out at the ready with my family behind me. I'm able then to go around this corner, knowing that if something was there that startled me my whole family is behind me, so everything that I truly care and what I want to protect and love is safe. If I need to engage a threat, I would be able to do so efficiently from this position. There's another scenario though that I want to talk to you about. And that scenario is if I was separated from my family and I was at one end of the house and I had to go around this corner through this hallway to get to my family. If that was the case, I'd want to move in what we call a staged position. The stage position is simply where I have my hand, firmly gripping the gun in the holster while I'm going around the corner. And as I go around the corner, I have a far less likelihood of accidentally shooting something that I love if I'm startled from the sight of seeing something while the gun is in my holster. And the actual reaction time is negligible from needing to get the gun from there to here and engage a thread if need be. I've never put my family in a threatening position and either one of these things, because we understand again that the likelihood that there is actually something threatening in our home is very low. And the overwhelming evidence is that the use of the handgun is not even necessary.
I have seen many home defense videos and it strikes me that they all have =one major flaw. The presenters are fully dressed and wearing a holster. Who on earth goes to bed this way. There are probably some gun owners who sleep in the nude, hear that bump in the night grab their gun and proceed. Can't anyone address a REAL home defense scenario?
Follow up question, not so much related to my presentation (or not) of the handgun, but in the first scenario where my family is behind me in the house. Not behind my person, but I'm entering a hallway where my wife is behind me in the bedroom, but my kids are in their bedrooms in the hallway behind me. So, I'm exiting my bedroom on one side of the hallway and my kids rooms are behind me, but on the other side of the hallway. The threat is in front of my person, but my family are in rooms on either side of the hall behind me and I unfortunately have to engage an armed threat whose course of fire might send rounds through soft walls into those rooms. Would I be better off spending time securing them in rooms or closets farther from the course of potential fire first, prior to engaging a threat that might return fire? Does that make sense? I.E., they are behind me, but I engage the threat and the return fire breaches walls where they are or might be? Thanks, good stuff
I agree with what you're trying to say but not with the totality. If you go in to a potential conflict where you have a firearm on your person with the mindset that the statistics show you're wasting your time then the chances of you getting wasted just went through the roof. I don't want to be the exception to the rule. If I am concerned enough to be carrying my gun then I think the more prudent approach if I'm concerned it's a family member that made the "noise" in the first place then a shout out from a safe or concealed place in the home asking for an voice identification may keep you and your family safe. I just think your approach to the topic was defeatist and setting yourself up.
Excellent training and sound advice.
Very thoughtful way to address the problem. I was fully expecting a lesson on how to "pie the corner" and other tactical techniques. But given that we aren't Tier 1 Operators, how often do we get to discern the threat/no threat problem under stress? Never. THIS alternative is a great compromise.