Never forget.
My intent is to discuss, in a
scenario based format, the dilemma posed by the increased risk of armed home
invasion and your potential responses to it. Firstly, let me lay out my
assumptions for this discussion:
1) Current ‘Law Enforcement’ policy has seen the
proliferation of co-called ‘SWAT’ teams. ‘SWAT’ refers to a ‘Special Weapons
and Tactics’ Law Enforcement team. However, due to insufficient selection and
training for these teams, there is little ‘special’ and ‘tactics’ about
them. Thus, for the purpose of this discussion I will be referring to them as
‘Home Invasion Teams’ or HIT teams.
2) You and your family are law
abiding citizens, for what that is worth in the current climate of
authoritarian tyranny. As such, you are not expecting a home invasion. You
would have no reason to do so. At worst, you may be in contravention of some
unconstitutional local statute or ordinance, such as selling milk, or harboring
Bambi, keeping standard capacity rifle
magazines, or some such other non-crime.
3) If you actually expected a
home invasion, then you would adopt different tactics. You would not be asleep
in your home. You would prepare a defense and probably not actually be in your
home. That is all a different topic, such as home / retreat defense in an SHTF
environment, something that I cover in detail in ‘Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival.’ Similarly, the assumption is that if you suffer a home
invasion, the intent of the HIT team is not expressly to kill you and your
family i.e. there remains a veneer of legality over this activity. However,
death is still a very likely possibility as the result of a HIT raid. If there
is no longer any veneer of legality, and you are suffering from kill squad
attacks, then refer back to the SHTF point, and you have no choice but to
establish defenses to repel marauders, or bug out, or both.
4) There are an increasing
number of ‘no knock’ nighttime raids by HIT teams. There are also an increasing
number of these raids that target the wrong address. There are also an
increasing number of criminal (i.e. non Law Enforcement…er…) home invasions and
a number of these raids have seen criminals wearing police/SWAT style uniforms
– er…just to clarify, they were impersonating Law Enforcement, and they were
not actually Law Enforcement personnel….still with me? I know, it’s confusing
nowadays….the problem being that with a ‘no knock raid’ there is no
announcement or expectation of a Law Enforcement visit. Back to point 2 above,
you are ‘law abiding’ people, not a meth lab or some such other den of
criminals
5) These HIT teams are often
established but poorly or inadequately trained. The focus is no longer to ‘serve and protect’ but
to hurt, threaten, endanger and control citizens, while ensuring that the
‘officers’ look to their personal safety. The focus is on the ‘officer’ “going
home at the end of my shift.” This means that the HIT team tactics may be poor.
They lack restraint. They are fearful. They lack fire control and discipline.
If they raid your house, everyone in it, including the animals, is in great
danger.
6) The better way for Law Enforcement to deal with
a visit to a home would be to phone ahead and discuss the matter. And/or send a
couple of deputies or plain clothes detectives. You know, the way it used to be
done when ‘Officer Friendly’ may have existed. If your grass is too long, in
contravention of the homeowners association and local ordinances, perhaps they
can discuss that. Maybe even offer to mow it on their time off. You know,
hearts and minds and all that….However, if it is felt that there is sufficient
threat of violence from the home, then have a HIT team on standby, secure the
perimeter, place overwatch. You know; all those sensible tactical things. You
know, for when the home is lived in by pesky tea bagger and constitutionalist
types, crazy white cracker white gun clingers i.e. the holy grail of domestic
terrorism. No: reserve your no knock 0300hrs raid for the den of drug dealers
and actual criminals.
Ok, so enough of the
assumptions. Let’s take a look at this. We are going to have, for this
scenario, a no knock raid at 0300hrs. You are the husband of a family with a
wife and young children, and at least one dog. You are preppers and Patriots
and you have firearms and ready gear. You personally have a tactical ‘crash
bag’ with your personal tactical gear, battle belt, plate carrier (PC) and
ruck. You have weapons readily available in the house in case of a home
invasion: something like a handgun, shotgun or AR15. However, with young kids,
these are not right there on the nightstand, they are either in a safe or up
somewhere high, like on hooks in the closet. You only have the ammo readily
available that is loaded into that firearm. The rest is in your gear or in the
safe.
More @ Max Velocity
