[bullhauler]

Ok so today I'm taking my son and daughter which are 11 and 12 to the indoor range today. They both have been shooting with me the last 5 years. they both are safe with guns and mature for their age. I was sitting here thinking do I want to train/explain to them what to do in case they are home alone and someone tries breaking into the house? Do I give them the code to my pistol vault, so after calling 911 they could lock themselves into a bedroom and put the gun on the door?

Not sure yet to be honest, might be a bit of a challenge to get that by the ol wifey, but then i remembered an actual home self defense situation I was in when I was 12, and thought Id share it.

I live in Iowa and grew up on a farm since I had been 6 I loved guns, had my first bb gun at 6, first 22 at 7, first 12 ga single shot at 8 (sucker kicked like a mule but loved it anyhow). first 20 gauge pump at 9. I shot one of these everyday after school. all i wanted for birthday and xmas was....ammo! and I kept them in my own closet under my lock and key.

so I was 12 and home alone, i had overheard my parents talking about how their had been a string of robberies in our area. it was happening later in the evening and so far no one had been home when it happened.

so i'm sitting in my living room watching tv with the lights off, I see out our big picture window a car driving slowly that turned onto the gravel road that goes right by our house about 3/4 mile away. it was driving pretty slow towards my house. no lights were on and once I saw it coming towards I flipped the tv off and watched a bit longer

It got about 1/2 mile away still driving slow and I ran up to my room and while looking out the window I loaded up the 20 gauge full of some high brass pheasant loads, but kept one out of the chamber. I had a roof right outside my window which i opened up and kept watching to see if they would stop.

yep they stopped, we had a bunch of thick trees between our house and the road which they parked behind. I crawled out on the roof, 20 gauge and all. I heard them shut the car off and start walking through the trees towards the house.

they cleared the trees and didn't see me on the roof, I rose to my knees when they were about 50 feet away and racked a shell...chunk chunk and pointed the gun at them. you should of seen the look on their face lol, they was in their car and a mile down the road in about 5 secs.

We never again heard of any more robberies.

My folks didn't quite know what to think when I told them what happened.

I'm glad I had access to my gun that night, i wonder how different the outcome would have been had they gotten in the house. as i'm typing this I just thought why didn't i call 911 back then? I should have but I didn't know they would stop until they were already stopped, and being out in timbuktoo it would probably be at least 15 min before cops showed. should have called first in hindsight

it all happened so fast, the only thought I had was I can't let them get in. when I heard my parents talking about it I remember thinking about what I would do if they tried robbing us, the only plan I could think of was load up the gauge and send them packing.

so to answer my own question..Do I give them the code to my pistol vault, so after calling 911 they could lock themselves into a bedroom and put the gun on the door?

yes I will be training them so they know what to do if mama or me isn't home with them and the unthinkable would happen.

 

[lklawson]

Cool story. Thanks for sharing it.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[garyd1961]

Just a few months ago and a few miles from my house a young teenage girl and her 14 year old brother were home alone when two young men broke in. It was right after NC passed the stand your ground law. The 14 year old boy shot one of the robbers inside the house,he made it outside and died. The one who died gave the name of his partner before he died. They had robbed several houses already and had a long rap sheet. It's no telling what they would have done to the boy and girl if they didn't have a gun. No charges were filled against the kids.

 

[harrygp]

u were one very cool kid bull.

 

[Rook]

I was coming home on my motorcycle one night back in 1964 when I was 14 years old and as I usually did I turned the key off on my motorcycle at the top of the hill and coasted down the driveway into the basement of our house. I hopped off and went jogging up the stairs when all of a sudden there was movement in the room that caught my eye. It was dark except for the moon light that was shining in the back door of the basement that had been left open. I stopped in my tracks and backed up to look and as I was looking around the corner there was someone's head looking around the door frame back at me at the same time. I took off running and was only hitting the high spots going up the steps to my bedroom where I got my Remington 20 gauge pump shotgun and headed out the front door of our house. As I came around the corner of the front of the house I heard him start running through the corn field behind the house and every time I shot he got faster as I could hear him running through those corn stalks. He must have been clearing 10 rows a stride as he went across that corn field by the time I had shot the 3 shells in the gun. He was far enough away by the time I had starting shooting that it wouldn't have done anything to him but burn him had I hit him but he didn't know that for all he knew it could have been a .30-06 that was bearing down on him.
I always kept my shotgun loaded near my bed when I was a kid as I do now. And we don't have kids in our home or any that visit either. I do keep my guns in my safe when I'm not home except for the ones I carry. In my opinion an unloaded shotgun or handgun used for protection is nothing more than an expensive bat or rock!

There was no such thing as 911 back then but we wouldn't have used it anyway. We lived so far back in the sticks that the Presbyterians handled snakes and the cops wouldn't have gotten there until the next day anyway.