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Who needs guns-gates-dogs when you have a guard cat?

I apologize if I came across as contrarian. The guy who presented was mumbling, was a graybeard, had a heavy coat on a warm day (sign he is homeless mental) and in my judgement was mostly a threat to himself. If he had been a cool rational operator I would have acted differently.

Besides, contact with the law has its own risks. I am CHL and you never know, you get a responding officer who has it out for CHLers and the next thing you know, there is a "threatened citizen with gun" report on your file that stays there forever. The lawyers I know charge $350/hr with no guarantees. And the officer takes the gun as evidence and you spend the next five years trying to get it back. No thanks.

In the 'burbs, with fences and so on, someone in a back yard is definitely worth reporting.

In the right context, yes call the law. But sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

respectfully

Cutter

I've reported prowlers in the past, and the police came by and looked around and asked if property was broken into, and as there was none, they would go on their way. There is so much street trash wandering around my area (close to downtown) that reporting someone poking around an unfenced back yard may not elicit a response. The dude will say, oh I'm lookin' for my buddy Jimmie have you seen him. Is it fair? No. "Action Beats Reaction." Our whole relationship with the criminal element is lopsided, at least until they get put in a cage for a while.

There are no easy answers when a regular citizen is confronted by someone who may or may not present real harm. You get criticized for over-reacting, or for not doing enough.

Next time I will call the police and waste half the afternoon. And the perp will get a good look at me and maybe come back prepared. I once ID'ed a bicycle thief in the back of a squad car and I pulled my sweatshirt up over my nose first.

I'm now armoring the interior of my place. A co-worker told me that the invaders now know exactly how long they have if an alarm goes off, and they work fast. All files under lock, check books, camera, laptop. I guess I can put some kind of cable on the big TV.

Thank you all for good comments. Will be more inclined to call 911 next time. I think the fact that he was a mumbling homeless-looking guy let me treat the whole incident with less seriousness than if I had spied a clean-shaven alert daytime prowler through the blinds. He never saw me so I can't imagine that he could plausibly complain to authorities that "someone" threatened him. They would ask for a description etc and he would have to say he was at a stranger's back door and so on. I was in the drive-thru line at a Wendys one time when this street dude started coming towards my open window and I politely but firmly asked him to back off, and he got all offended, and then the Wendys server came out and yelled at him that she was going to call The Law. He shuffled off and then waited for me at the exit and yelled some more. This was before I started carrying and I didn't have so much as a sharp pencil on me. Not that I would display today in that situation. I would close the truck window and wait for him to make the big move, or drive off if he looked serious.

At this point I would imagine that if a guy at the back door looked like a serious invader I would go into another room and call 911 and wait and hope they show up in a timely manner and catch him while he is still on the outside. Definitely showing a weapon is risky in that a perp would know to come back and potentially get it.

Gun-on-glass is not very original. Guy apparently saved himself this way from the (eventual) Zantop killers (q.v.) in New Hampshire 2000. Killers tried to get into a home at night by saying they had a flat tire and the suspicious resident displayed a Glock, and they took off. They had already cut his phone line at that point.

I'm not hot for an outdoor shoot no matter what. The legal aspects are exponentially more complex outside/in public. But inside my crib, its katy bar the door.

I have more firepower available, including Dan Wesson 357 with 8". Damn thing is so loud that the cops at the donut shop three blocks away would hear it and come running.

I work from home in a "mixed" close-to-downtown neighborhood, and we have had a lot of daytime burglaries in the past couple of years around here. Just after lunch today I heard a very light tapping at my back door (no fence, or gate at driveway). Now I have a nice front door with a nice doorbell that works, so its either one of my neighbors, or someone up to no good. And I have a home alarm sign prominently displayed out front, and another in a back window.

I pulled back the shade a little bit and there is this homeless looking guy (skinny white dude with a gray beard). He's muttering something. I took what was handy (TCP) and held it up against the glass of the door. His eyes got somewhat larger (no, not saucer-effect here, but then it was just a TCP) and his hands went up, and he kept right on talking and walked briskly away. He wasn't a professional burglar but still, he had no business at my back door, tapping lightly.

I suppose I could have just kept quiet and waited to see if he would break in, and then let him have it (inside dwelling) with larger caliber (357 or 12 ga buck) but I'm not ready for a Joe Horn life-trajectory. "Avoid the shoot if possible, no matter how boring your life is."

Did not call police. I figured they might not show for hours and I had appointments. And the dude was not professional.

Lessons learned: a) .380 pea-shooter is effective (at least its appearance is effective).
b) neighborhood is what it is, and unless I get the big fence and the hungry dog, its not going to change.


Cutter