RV, camper van, site trailer, and work truck carry considerations

[Mike S]

Wow, welcome to the forum! You are brand new here, & you've already opened a very thoughtful discussion & brought a specific topic to discuss. Thanks!

I typically recommend to avoid posting signs such as the one in your image, for two reasons:

1. It implies that you own firearms, & firearms are a lucrative commodity to a criminal (using it in other criminal acts, or to sell to other criminals for a quick buck). If the perp determines (correctly or not) that the vehicle (or home for that matter) is unoccupied, they may be even more enticed to break in.

2. Not that this sign SHOULD bear any influence on your justifiable use of force in court, but if you were required to use deadly force it MAY be the photo that accompanies the media coverage in the 'court of public opinion'.

I hadn't thought about an optional sign before you brought it up, but your post reminded me of the signage at rodeo arenas reminding participants that equine sports are inherently dangerous, & that they are assuming responsibility for their own injuries.

Perhaps an alternate sign for your situation could read:

"Pursuant to Chapter 9 of the Penal Code, deadly force may be justified in self defense, defense of a third person, or to prevent unlawful entry with force of an occupied habitation, vehicle, or place of employment."

This might be benign enough to get the point across, without being seen as a challenge to break in.

On another note, since you travel frequently you'll always want to check the use of force (& prohibited places) laws of the state(s) you travel to/through.

[The Annoyed Man]

Generally speaking, I’m not much of a believer in signs. If you stop to think about it, the only factor in the OP’s scenario that doesn’t apply in my own home is seclusion. OTH, I live in a very quiet suburban neighborhood where people tend to keep to themselves, and there is some distance between the houses. If I thought those kinds of signs - whatever the content - were effective, my house would be festooned with them. It’s not, and for good reason.

“This house defended by Smith & Wesson”, and other signs like that are simply advertising that say “guns available to steal inside this house”. And I don’t believe quoting chapter and verse of the law will matter either. Remember? They are law-breakers. They don’t care about your stinkin’ laws. What’s my first line of defense? Two large dogs who don’t like unaccompanied strangers. Their bark says “anyone who wants to come in here is going to have to face me before they can leave......and once in, they’ll pray they can leave with their dangly parts still attached.” I have a home alarm system, and external surveillance cameras, but that barking is what first alerts me to a possible threat.

I realize that a home security system may not be of practical use for an RV. However, dogs love to travel. Get yourself a good one. They provide companionship as well as perimeter security. He or she will hear or smell bad juju long before you are aware of it, and it will give you time to get to and deploy whatever your chosen firearm happens to be.

A thief who sneaks up on your RV in the middle of the night may not have any qualms about breaking in while you’re there, but he’s going to be mightily discouraged by the sound of a dog that sounds like it’s barking steel bricks. If all goes well, the thief will leave and look for a softer target, and you’ll never even have to confront him.

[WTR]

I have found that a "BEWARE OF DOG" sign has been very effective for me. I live in a farming community that you miss if you blink.

[troglodyte]

While I don't live in an RV and travel to remote locations I do live out in the country where my nearest neighbor is 3 miles away and the sheriff may be 30+ minutes away. Living out on the plains of the southern panhandle there is no real cover between my house and maybe miles away. If the cotton is up then there is concealment within a few yards. So other than being a permanent, known location structure I am in a similar situation.

You have a good start with a very capable sidearm. I agree that a stand-off weapon might be useful. As TAM mentioned, if someone is lobbing rounds my way from 200 yds. I want the capability to reply in a likewise manner. There also something about stepping out the door with a long gun cradled in your arms while the unexpected visitors are getting out of their vehicle that changes the direction of the conversation. It may not always be the best tactic but it is an attention getter.

I would suggest a bailout bag or tactical vest. Not to replace a 72 hr BOB (which are good to have) but to have something that you can grab quick and give you a basic loadout if you have to evacuate the RV. A couple of spare mags, some water, IFAK, and maybe an emergency blanket. Just something to give you mobility and a little support. You can come up with a light inventory to suit your needs. An RV doesn't allow for much cover so having the ability to be mobile is a plus.

It sounds like the dog is a good early warning system. You may consider solar powered motion lights or driveway alarms for a perimeter. It could be easy to get carried away and get to concertina and trip lines so be careful not to fall down the rabbit hole. You'll have to decide what is needed, what is practical, and what you want to mess with.

It's hard to make any specific recommendation because you alone know where you'll be and what you'll need. Hopefully we can provide suggestions and get you thinking. Welcome to the forum.

[Pawpaw]

If you want to put up a sign, try one like this:



Or you could start with a blank slate:



and fill in the blank with, "This vehicle contains Dihydrogen Monoxide!"

[Nutcracker]

I think "No Trespassing" signs are enough warning for decent people.

I'm not real concerned about bad things happening to the other sort.

[RSX11]

I saw a great sign on the back door of a house in the Houston Museum District. It was a masterful piece of misdirection. It said words to the effect "Dr. Johnson's Biochemical Lab only takes delivery of poisonous reptiles between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM". Not a place the average thief will want to break into and wander around - especially in the dark. It was much more convincing that a simple "Danger - Snakes" sign would have been.

We had a epidemic of burglaries in my neighborhood a while back - mostly back doors kicked in while people were out. I had an old PsyOps sign that my boss had given me (he had been a 1st Lieutenant with the Tropic Lightning Division), that they used to post in villages in Vietnam. I put a copy on my back door. It had a stylized Asian looking skull and crossbones on it, and warned "Hiem Ngheo! Can-Binh Cong San Se Chet Noi Day!" in characters formed from bones, and below in small type, "Danger - Communist soldiers will be killed here!" I figured, no one would want to risk breaking in on a homeowner who was still watching out for Communist soldiers. Can't say for sure it helped - but no one ever tried to break into my place.

[Interblog]

Regarding the "court of public opinion" consideration, I had not thought of that, but in THIS area, that wouldn't concern me too much because it is sufficiently conservative (thankfully). Plus it's a losing battle anyway. The other day, in response to an unrelated matter, my husband said to me, "You have to be careful not to lose control of that narrative." I replied (paraphrased), "With the way society is right now and all the extreme polarization, the only way not to lose control of the narrative is to never have a narrative in the first place, which is unrealistic." In other words, no matter what we do, we are guaranteed to end up recast in a bad light by somebody. It's assured.

Yes re: the dog, both in terms of an early warning system (our dog is superb in this respect) and the "Beware of Dog" signage idea as an alternative to advertising the presence of firearms via signage.

In fact, I experimented with such a "Beware" sign as I was driving to eastern Canada this past summer. I / we do long-haul cross-country trips that preclude the use of conventional campgrounds because we arrive too late for check-ins, and we are just grabbing Z's anyway, so no need to avail ourselves of elaborate facilities. For those of you who are not familiar with #vanlife, there are three major chain retailers that, by corporate policy, have chosen to allow overnight parking on their private property, a practice that has come to be covered within the realm of "boondocking". Those three retailers are Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and Cabela's. Walmart is the most prominent of the three and so the nickname given to the practice of overnighting in a Walmart parking lot is "Wallydocking". Similarly, we are moving toward usage of the slang terms "Crackerdocking" and "Cabeladocking". The neat thing about signing a vehicle is that, rather than defacing the vehicle with adhesive applications, the signs can be mounted on sheet magnets and simply stuck on the exterior of the vehicle when one feels the need. So here's a pic of my van at a Cabela's on the Tennessee / Virginia border, with the "Beware of Dog" magnet in place on the driver's door, where it arguably should be. I am a huge Cabela's brand loyalist because of this value-added service that they offer to long-distance voyagers - I won't buy anything at another store if Cabela's carries it, even if the price is lower (I bought the new S&W mentioned above at Cabela's League City). At this Virginia location shown here, Cabela's even offered a free dump station. It's hard to put a price on that kind of service.

[Ike Aramba]

I wonder if a warning sign to BEWARE OF GOD would give them second thoughts about violating the "thou shalt not steal" commandment.

[anygunanywhere]

If you want to put up a sign, try one like this:



Or you could start with a blank slate:



and fill in the blank with, "This vehicle contains Dihydrogen Monoxide!"

5,000,000 OHMS isn't going to kill anything.

5,000,000 VOLTS would.

[Pawpaw]

5,000,000 OHMS isn't going to kill anything.

5,000,000 VOLTS would.

No kidding? It must take some kind of genius to figure that out.

[anygunanywhere]

5,000,000 OHMS isn't going to kill anything.

5,000,000 VOLTS would.

No kidding? It must take some kind of genius to figure that out.

Well, actually, not everyone is well versed in Ohms Law.

[Pawpaw]

... and that's exactly why:

1. It's funny.

and

2. Such signs have been known to scare people away.

The same applies to "Dihydrogen Monoxide".

[cmgee67]

I know the beware of dog signs are great. If I were you I’d get a larger one for nighttime use with maybe some reflective quality’s to it. Dogs are amazing alarm systems and they sense when something is about to go down or that is near that shouldn’t be. My dog that is 4 now protected me when she was 6 months old. We were outside early in the morning about 6:30 just light enough to see. I was “watering” a tree when all of a sudden my little pup flew past me and I looked up and there was a coyote not 10ft from me. She chased that sucker clear out of the yard and over a fence. She’s a Chesapeake Bay Retriever and she’s my best friend. She didn’t weigh but maybe 20lbs at the time. Just a little brown fuzz ball full of urine and vinegar. Also the pistol you chose is a great choice. You can’t go wrong with those. I would also think that the shockwave would be excellent to have if I frequently stayed in a van. They also released a 20 gauge version if you are recoil sensitive because the 12 gauge loaded with buck shot or slugs will kick like a mule.

[chasfm11]

Generally speaking, I’m not much of a believer in signs. If you stop to think about it, the only factor in the OP’s scenario that doesn’t apply in my own home is seclusion. OTH, I live in a very quiet suburban neighborhood where people tend to keep to themselves, and there is some distance between the houses. If I thought those kinds of signs - whatever the content - were effective, my house would be festooned with them. It’s not, and for good reason.

“This house defended by Smith & Wesson”, and other signs like that are simply advertising that say “guns available to steal inside this house”. And I don’t believe quoting chapter and verse of the law will matter either. Remember? They are law-breakers. They don’t care about your stinkin’ laws. What’s my first line of defense? Two large dogs who don’t like unaccompanied strangers. Their bark says “anyone who wants to come in here is going to have to face me before they can leave......and once in, they’ll pray they can leave with their dangly parts still attached.” I have a home alarm system, and external surveillance cameras, but that barking is what first alerts me to a possible threat.

I realize that a home security system may not be of practical use for an RV. However, dogs love to travel. Get yourself a good one. They provide companionship as well as perimeter security. He or she will hear or smell bad juju long before you are aware of it, and it will give you time to get to and deploy whatever your chosen firearm happens to be.

A thief who sneaks up on your RV in the middle of the night may not have any qualms about breaking in while you’re there, but he’s going to be mightily discouraged by the sound of a dog that sounds like it’s barking steel bricks. If all goes well, the thief will leave and look for a softer target, and you’ll never even have to confront him.

I get it from the OP that having high end electronics visible can change the remote possibility of being a victim in an RV significantly. But we've had our RV since 2004, have over 60K miles on it, driving it all over the country and have never come close to an incident in a "camped" situation. I've tried to query my RV neighbors within that same timeframe and have yet to hear even a secondhand story about an incident while parked.

That said, incidents of RV breakins in storage areas abound and we've had our share of close calls while on the road. I personally believe that truck stops (we have a diesel) pose a much greater risk than campgrounds. We like State Parks and I am concerned that we could inadvertently run afoul of illegal activity in one of the remote ones than I am about us being specifically targeted. We have two small dogs and one of them is very attuned to things that she doesn't like outside. While I've kidded my wife that if she hears "the banjo and the guitar, we're leaving" in a couple of the less well kept campgrounds that we've used, we're really careful about where we stay. We have wheels that continue to roll if we really don't like the looks of a place. I don't have any statistics to back it up, but I'm much more concerned about someone who is high on drugs than I am about the types of criminals who could read and understand any posted sign.