Immediate Action Plan for a Home Invasion

I'm sure you remember fire drills from your time at elementary school. And you probably know that you're supposed to have a plan in case your home catches fire, for you and your family to follow. Maybe you've even run a fire drill at your house, actually acting out what it is you're supposed to do. Maybe escaping through an alternate route, all rallying-up at the big tree in the neighbor's yard or whatever it may be. Do you have a plan for a home invasion?

Maybe it's something you should consider. Not only thinking about what you would do. Not only talking to your family about what you would do. But actually running through the motions. What kind of plan do you have in place if you're all sitting in the living room watching a movie, maybe sitting at the dining room table eating dinner, and all of a sudden, someone bursts into a front door?

Someone bursts into the rear door. Maybe you get a little bit of warning and you hear some car screech to a halt in front of your home. You hear a sound, you hear yelling. Maybe you hear someone banging on your door. Maybe you have a reinforced door and that's what's keeping them outside for the first 15 to 30 seconds of the active home invasion.

What exactly are you gonna do? First thing you need to think about? Where are you gonna go? Now what's the natural reaction if you hear a loud banging at your front door? It's probably gonna be, to look towards your front door, and have the initial reaction of wanting to move towards it.

If you hear someone banging on your front door, is that really the best idea? Probably not. You may know that, but does your family know that? Does your family realize that a loud banging on the door probably means anything but run to the door? Secure yourself, look for an alternate exit.

Maybe it simply means go to a window that you can observe the front patio area from, and see who's out there at the door. Maybe it's a neighbor whose house is on fire and they're panicked and they wanna get over here for help. But maybe it is that person who means you harm. Having a plan in place, discussing it ahead of time, means you'll be able to actually put it into action when the time comes. Now, what else will you think about when it comes to your immediate plan?

Not just where will you go or where will you look, but what will you do? If someone is trying to invade your home, probably one of the most important things you can do right away is make a phone call. Get to that phone. If you always keep your cell phone in the same place when it's in the house, if you always charge it in the same place. Maybe you have a phone that's no good to you anymore, that you don't have a service plan on, that you keep on a charger in your barricade area, in your staging area.

You can know that that is always gonna be there in the corner of that bedroom or in the closet, or maybe in the spare bathroom. Wherever it is that you're gonna barricade, you can get to that phone and always make an emergency call because it's on the charger and ready to go. Maybe you still have a landline in your house that you know is obviously kept in one place. It's always gonna be there. You can get to that phone.

You can make the call you need to make. What about the rest of your family? Did they always know that if there's an emergency, if there's some kind of imminent danger, that they're supposed to go in a specific place? They're supposed to do a specific thing? Do you wear a firearm when you're in your home?

If you've always got the firearm on you, and that's what a lot of people say, fine, great. You're armed. You're ready to respond in that worst case scenario. But the reality is we don't always have a firearm on us. There's going to be a time when we're in the shower.

There's gonna be a time when we're changing clothes. There's gonna be a time when we were out jogging and we put the fanny pack down with our small gun and we hadn't quite gotten our holster back on. Where are those guns? Do we have a plan to be able to get to them? Are we thinking ahead of time about where they're gonna be?

Do we have firearms staged around our home? Are we going to forgo the handgun and actually go to something a little more powerful and a little more capable in the event of an imminent home invasion? Does every family member know how to use it? Does every family member know where it is in case they need it? And do they understand that the first person who passes by the back of the couch, that's the person that's supposed to grab the shotgun and meet the rest of the family in the barricade area?

Or, are you the only one who's gonna be able to get to the gun, and you're gonna need to maybe cross the house and cross a path of danger to be able to get to the only firearm that you have staged? Regardless of what your plan is, and only you can know what the specifics are, the important part is that you think ahead of time, you talk to your family, and that you actually rehearse the plan. And rehearse it a couple of different ways. The door bursts open. What do you do?

There's a banging. What do you do? There's a screeching of tires in the front of your house and some guys yelling. Maybe even shots fired, a situation that doesn't involve you. What is your home emergency plan gonna be?

And specifically, what is it for a home invasion?