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What is "window film"? Is that a layer that prevents the glass from cracking/falling out easily? Sort of like improvised safety glass?

Glass break sensors: Do you need one of these for every PANE? Every window? (I was thinking bout just putting a motion sense in each entry point, but of course that means the intruder is already (at least partly) inside...

I am pretty sure that I want a phone dialer to call all my numbers and alert me.

The type of window film I am referring to is designed to keep the glass from shattering and hold it to the frame so striking it doesn't create a hole - it just cracks the glass, which will have to be replaced after the incident is over. An example is the Armorcoat product. The material is invisible unless you know what you're looking for and look really close, and you get to keep the light, airy feeling of current residential design without having to accept the vulnerability that anybody with a brick could be inside your house in a couple of seconds. Check out basic info at:

http://www.armorcoatfilms.com/index.cfm ... ruders.htm

They have a dealer / installer in the Dallas area called Armorcoat Window Film that has done nice residential work for me.

Glass break sensors are sound processors that pick up the audio signature of breaking glass. In most residential applications, one sensor per room and centered among the windows is adequate. If you already have an existing alarm system and want to extend coverage with these devices easily, or if you want to install a new system without having wires run all over the house, there are wireless versions available with a battery life of 5 years. The professional grade ones are good enough that I've used them for family members and consulting clients. Unless you have considerable experience with designing and installing security systems, it will pay you to get a professional to furnish the materials and do the work.

A decent residential alarm system includes full perimeter coverage (all doors and windows - concealed magnetic contacts and glass break sensors) plus dual technology (passive infrared and microwave) motion sensors in the master bedroom and central traffic area(s). If you always, always keep all your windows locked, you don't need to put magnetic contacts on them as long as you have the glass sensors in place. Alarmed window screens are another viable and convenient option for these openings. They have the advantage of detecting an intrusion attempt before the window is actually breached. Of course, one per window is required and they are significantly more expensive than glass break sensors.

Perimeter devices are to detect an intrusion as it's happening, and the motion sensors are designed to detect intrusions in the event that perimeter devices are disabled or destroyed, and are great backups for when you are away. Motion sensors are not good for primary detection when the house is occupied because you'd have to keep turning them on and off to move around, and when they detected an intruder he'd already be so close that you won't have much time to react. The exception would be large open areas of the house that no one enters during times when the alarm is armed.

A LOUD external audible siren is mandatory, in addition to the inside one that alerts you. External visual indication (strobe light) is also very helpful for emergency responders trying to find your house in a hurry.

Autodialers are much less reliable than the digital telecommunicators built into every decent alarm control panel. These send digitally coded signals over the phone lines to a central monitoring station which makes the required notifications. They have programs that verify the transmission was received properly, and the monitoring station operators will also see and act on the alarms immediately, even when you are in a meeting, on an airplane, or otherwise unable to receive and respond.

Monitoring costs average between $10 per month for monitoring only arranged directly with a national provider to around $35 per month. The higher fee typically includes any service required to keep your system operating if you have problems. If you use central station monitoring and add a smoke sensor to the package, most home insurance companies will give you a credit of from 5 - 15% off your premium. This can help offset the annual costs.

when photos of home invaders are readily available, they nearly always look like 10-most-wanted posters. Someone kicking in your door or window, or trying to break into your vehicle, undoubtedly has bad intentions.

The reason the photos of true home invaders look like one of the 10 most wanted posters is because quite often they are among some police department's 10 most wanted, and many of those folks won't stop what they're doing without the presentation of a deadly force option, or the application of deadly force itself.

We need to distinguish here between bad intentions and deadly attack. There are multiple options for handling bad intentions, and not everyone with bad intentions is a deadly threat. Deadly attack, on the other hand, requires unhesitating application of deadly force. The time for making those decisions is short - very short.

Fortunately in the home, we have quite a few ways to give ourselves the edge by increasing the obstacles an intruder must overcome to get inside, and the time it takes to do so. This gives the defender time to detect intrusions, call for assistance, make good decisions, and implement sound tactical options. Some of the most important pre incident preparations are:

1) Motion activated lighting to illuminate intruders' approach after dark

2) High quality deadbolt locks,heavily reinforced lock strikes, and security window films to delay forcible entry

3) Alarm systems that include glass break sensors to alert us of perimeter intrusions in remote parts of the house

4) A safe room with a reinforced door, advantageous tactical position options, and prepositioned defensive equipment

5) Audio or video intercoms for interviewing unexpected visitors without exposing ourselves or opening the door

6) A plan taught to and exercised by everyone in the household to maximize the inherent and substantial advantages a homeowner has as the defender if he takes advantage of them.

Some things to keep in mind are:

1) Nothing says defenders will always win the battle. Street creeps are crafty, experienced, vicious, deadly and they've already decided what they're going to do. The less distance and cover you have between you and them, the smaller your chances of getting out alive.

2) If there is a way to keep everyone safe without engaging in a firefight, do it. Every firefight has winners and losers. Some end with no winners (or 2 "winners" if you'd like to look at it that way), and some end with "collateral damage" as well. The primary goal of defensive action should be to get every innocent person present through the incident unharmed.

3) Protection of property, while a lawful right, should be a very distant secondary consideration. I know some will disagree. I've given a lot of thought to how I'd feel if I gave equal priority to both, and succeeded on the second while failing on the first. I personally wouldn't consider it a win to save the big screen TV and lose a child. I make my tactical decisions accordingly.

4) Exiting the building should always be considered. It's not always a good option, especially since accomplices may be outside, but if moving to a preselected position of cover outside or at a neighbor's is the most certain way to ensure the continued health of the good guys under the circumstances, do it.

5) Unless either a family member is being attacked, or an intruder is moving toward an area where undefended family members are located, don't even think about doing a one man house search. If you do, all the intruder has to do is stay still and wait for you to come into his field of fire. I've done many hundreds of building searches for bad guys at active incident scenes. They're all difficult and dangerous, even with multiple experienced officers with full equipment operating as trained teams. Survival aware cops don't do one man building searches because it's suicidal - neither should you.

6) If withdrawal gives you a stronger tactical position, do it without hesitation. Your best option is often to get everyone into your reinforced safe room from which you can stay in constant contact with responding officers. This tactic forces the intruder to come to you, and he has only one way to do that - through your reinforced door which will confirm deadly intent if he attacks it, and which forms a "fatal funnel" if he manages to penetrate it and tries to move through the doorway. While he's doing that, he can be in only that one very limited preidentified area where your defensive fire can be focused from a carefully chosen position of solid cover, in the dark if possible. It's extremely difficult for any intruder to overcome a competent defense in this situation.

In Gravest Extreme is worth reading, but I have some serious quarrels with it.

Mr. Ayoob advocates the use of deadly force only to prevent murder or serious bodily injury. That policy may be appropriate for certain states; but in light of Texas law and community standards, I think it is dangerous.

If someone is breaking into an occupied residence or vehicle, that criminal is willing to use deadly force against the occupants.

There are few books I could recommend where I concur with everything the author has to say, and "In the Gravest Extreme" is no exception. There are some sections of the book that are somewhat dated, but Mr. Ayoob's presentation of the legal aspects of lawful self defense are for the most part as applicable today as when the book first came out.

As I read it, Mr. Ayoob's position is that deadly force should only be used by a civilian to protect against the threatened imminent use of force that is likely to result in death or serious bodily injury when there is no other reasonably safe option to protect the innocent. This principle is solidly grounded in law going back centuries.

After 20 years of law enforcement in roles that required both routinely making deadly force decisions on the street and investigating the use of deadly force by both officers and civilians, I couldn't agree more with Mr. Ayoob on this point. The difference here is between using deadly force only when there is no other reasonable way to survive, and using it when there are other options available, but use of deadly force is permissible under law - in a nutshell, "must" vs. "can".

Law enforcement officers don't shoot every time they encounter a situation where the law says they can, and neither do responsible citizens. The totality of the circumstances must be taken into account when making this judgment, and there are no "do overs" either way. If you screw up the judgment, either you or a family member gets badly hurt, or you make a mistake you'll never live down.

Intrusions into occupied homes are often dangerous, but they're not always as simple as they seem at first. If it turns out that a citizen shot his daughter's unarmed boyfriend who tried to sneak in to see her through the side door to the garage that she'd left unlocked for him, making the case that the kid presented a deadly threat simply because the house was occupied and the homeowner wasn't aware he had been invited won't pass the smell test. The homeowner may weather the legal and social aftermath, but it sure wouldn't be from the moral high ground.

I will look forward to seeing what others suggest.

Herb M's list is a real good start.

I would add:

Massad Ayoob's "In the Gravest Extreme"
Lewis Awerbuck's "Tactical Reality"
Jeff Cooper's "Principles of Personal Defense"
Brian Felter's "Police Defensive Handgun Use and Encounter Tactics"
Col. Dave Grossman's "On Combat"