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Sometime back, a person climbed over my 8 foot iron gate at home and stole a laptop out of my SUV. This person (or people) also casually rummaged through my wifes vehicle as well. I filed a report with the police...

So, now I'm a little "edgy" about our home security.

About 3 months later, my wife wakes me up in the middle of the night and says she hears someone climbing our gate! I hear it to. I grab my Smith & Wesson 44 Magnum and my Streamlight flashlight. I silently went out the back door with my 44 Magnum cocked and my flashlight ready to illuminate. I hear MORE gate noise (and I'm pretty scared about now) but I'm ready to face this perpetrator. I instantly turned the corner facing my gate while firing up my Streamlight and aiming 44 Magnum at the top of my gate. My adrenalin is high and my finger on the trigger... (I couldn't believe it,) about a 30 pound POSSUM is trying to climb over my gate!

I didn't shoot the possum.

Glad you made it out unharmed!

I silently went out the back door with my 44 Magnum cocked and my flashlight ready to illuminate. I hear MORE gate noise (and I'm pretty scared about now) but I'm ready to face this perpetrator. I instantly turned the corner facing my gate while firing up my Streamlight and aiming 44 Magnum at the top of my gate. My adrenalin is high and my finger on the trigger.

I'm sorry to hear that your vehicles were burglarized. That almost always causes a profound sense of violation that is much more traumatic than the dollar value of the loss itself..

I wasn't there when this happened, and there are a lot of relevant details that aren't included in your brief post. I'm therefore not in a position to criticize anything you did or didn't do, and it's not my intention to do so. However, I think it's worthwile to point out that you reported doing a few things that have ended up badly for others. I would most certainly not want to see those same things happen to you. Because of your generosity in sharing the details, we all have some pretty good food for thought and an opportunity to reevaluate, and perhaps modify, our own plans for the time when it looks like the wolf is approaching our door. In that spirit I'd like to suggest an "after action review" of how things went during the uninvited 'possum's visit. It's always a good exercise that can be used after any significant event to improve our threat handling over time, and there are several points that merit a closer look:

1. Give thought to how good an idea it is for you to exit the relative safety of a home with an intact perimeter and potentially expose yourself to a burglar who could have already made it over the fence and could have been way too close for comfort by the time you got outside the door. (Yes, I understand you had a large, powerful weapon, but up real close that can be neutralized with astonishing ease by a streetfighter who's less than 5 feet away. There are a quite a few deceased and injured LEO's who can corroborate that). Would an unexpected attack that left you incapacitated outside have left your wife and family vulnerable to a predator?

2. Reconsider the wisdom of walking around with a cocked revolver and placing a finger on the trigger (which has about a 2.5 lb letoff at that point) without an identified target or a decision to fire, thus violating at least gun safety rules 3 and 4, with questions about rule 2 as well. Be aware that if you are startled by, say, a loud noise or the sudden appearance of someone you didn't expect, there is an excellent chance that the startle response will cause your gun hand to contract with about 50 pounds of pressure (average for an adult male under these circumstances.) Think about a 50 lb. hand contraction applied to a cocked 2.5 lb. trigger, do the math, and consider what the consequences of negligent discharge would be under these circumstances. You're fortunate it didn't happen this time, but, according to your post, I suspect you were a lot closer than you may have realized. To prevent ND's, even SWAT officers on a high risk warrant entry or combat troops in an active threat zone keep their fingers off the trigger until they've got sights on an identified target. (Don't believe me? Look for this in news photos and video clips from law enforcement operations in the US, and military ones in Iraq and Afghanistan- it's one of the really basic trademarks of a gunhandling professional.)

3. When you pointed the cocked weapon and flashlight at something that had not yet been identified as a target you had decided to shoot, what was the backstop to the opossum at the gate? Where would a miss or an overpenetration have ended up when the projectile's energy was spent? If the answer is the window of the neighbor's kid's bedroom or something along that line, that's worth giving some thought to also.

4. Might calling 911 and assessing the situation from inside the closed windows of your home been a better and less risky tactic? (Before 25 people pile on this question with chest pounding roars about the legality using deadly force to defend property at night in Texas, I'd like to point out that just because you can do something doesn't mean it's necessarily the smartest thing to do at a given time.) Consider what's really important: Protecting your home and your family from inside the home during a possible criminal incident that could proceed to a breach of the home's perimeter, and having an excellent chance of living to see the sun rise, or sacrificing the ability to do that to expose yourself in a 360 degree threat environment with questionable or no cover (this detail wasn't addressed) to investigate a possible burglary to a vehicle. Set your priorities accordingly.

I sincerely hope these remarks are taken in the spirit in which they are offered, and serve as a jumping off point for productive and gentlemanly discussion.

Excellent food for thought. Great beginnings for ensuring you have a plan of action for the what ifs of the home environment.

Something almost exactly like this happened to me just the other night. I was up and at my computer on one end of the house, and my wife had just gone to bed at the end. She came out to me and said that she was pretty sure she had heard someone scaling the gate into our backyard, right outside our bedroom window.

I grabbed my Kimber and my Surefire light and went out to investigate. The area where she heard the noise is a confined space that runs along the side of our house, between our house and the neighbor's property. I started by exiting the house on the side opposite the gate patrolling inward from the more open area of the yard toward the more confined area so that there was no possibility of someone being in hiding behind me as I advanced. As I got closer to the other side of the yard, I used the exterior design of the house and various yard features to keep from exposing myself to anyone who might be hidden on the far side. Even though my flashlight was announcing my presence, I couldn't be seen directly by anyone hidden there.

Anyway, my heart started really pounding when the moment of truth came and I had to step around the last corner and confront whatever might be trapped in that space. I kept the pistol and light raised at the ready and tried to keep a decent sight picture, but I confess that I was plenty scared for a moment, and I don't know how steady my sight picture was.

There was nothing there. It must have been a cat or a raccoon scaling the gate. I don't think that I would normally have done anything more than stick my head out the back door and sweep the yard with a flashlight, except that this time my wife was more than a little scared that something was really going on, and that worry was transmitted to me. In hindsight, it probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, and thank God that it turned out well. But at the time, it seemed like it was the right thing to do, and that the need to do so was urgent. Ironically, I have a different pistol with a tactical light mounted on it and a higher capacity mag that would have been a better choice to take outside with me, but the Kimber and the Surefire light was what I had handy at that end of the house when my wife came and got me.

Even though my flashlight was announcing my presence, I couldn't be seen directly by anyone hidden there.

Anyway, my heart started really pounding when the moment of truth came and I had to step around the last corner and confront whatever might be trapped in that space. I kept the pistol and light raised at the ready and tried to keep a decent sight picture, but I confess that I was plenty scared for a moment, and I don't know how steady my sight picture was.

Thanks to The Annoyed Man for sharing another personal experience that is remarkably similar to Mark F's. It's also remarkably similar to lots of these that happen with lots of different folks every week.

I think it's worthwhile to use each and every one of these as an opportunity for after action review to tune up everyone's understanding, planning, and ultimately, performance when the chips are down, which fortunately they weren't in either of these cases.

Once again, I wasn't there and it isn't my intent to criticize any individual person for action taken or not taken, but I think there are a few questions that are worth considering without beating the subject to death. They're not aimed at the member who generously shared his experience with us, warts and all, so we can learn, and they're just as useful for folks who weren't there that night but might be faced with noises in the night and similar decisions tonight or the night after:

1. Remember that BG's often work in pairs or teams. When you went out, did you lock the door? If you did, you closed off your potential escape route if you needed one. If you didn't, you left your family potentially vulnerable to an intruder who now had an easy, nonforcible, quiet and extremely quick way to enter your now unsecured home. If that had happened, how would your wife have managed it? How would you have known it had happened? What would have happened when you got back inside?

2. You were aware that your flashlight gave away your presence. That's a bad thing. He doesn't have to see you directly once he knows you're there. If he wants to take you out, since he knows you're approaching, all he has to do is conceal himself and wait until you enter his kill zone. Not survival friendly for the the good guy.

3. When you came around the corner, were you right up against the wall like most folks do it on TV? If so, all an unarmed BG would have had to do is wait just around the corner on the other side and wrestle you for your gun when you came around. That's why the tactical guys stay away from the corners.

4. You mention you kept the pistol raised and at the ready and tried to maintain a decent sight picture. What target was the focus of that picture? Was your finger on the trigger? (See the implications of the reflexive startle response my first post below.) Where would a projectile have gone if the weapon had gone off in that adrenaline charged moment?

5. What communications provisions did you take with you so you could contact either your wife or the police if you needed help? How long would it have taken help to arrive if it hadn't been called already? Are you comfortable if the answer is in minutes and the need is in seconds?

6. If you had come around the corner and found a bad guy crouching in the bushes, would you have remembered to look for the second or third BG's? What was your plan for dealing with him / them? Do you advance / retreat / challenge / shoot? (The "now that I've got the tiger by the tail, what do I do with it" question.) If he decided to open the action by shooting at you, were you behind anything solid enough to that it might have given you a fighting chance and a second or to to react?

7. If there was a prowler in the neighborhood and another neighbor had called the PD, what would have happened when / if they saw you outside with gun and flashlight in hand and no prior notification you were out there?

8. If there was no prowler, but your neighbor heard the same noise and took the same course of action, how would that have turned out if you each caught a glimpse of each other?

9. Last but not least, what could you possibly have accomplished by going outside that wouldn't have been taken care of much more safely for both you and your family by asking the PD to investigate? They do that with shotguns, rifles, and radios, in groups that use tactics they've trained together with, and they're really good at it. That's why most of them bring in lots of bad guys and live to collect retirements.

As you may have guessed, IMHO, going outside to investigate noises in the night is not generally a good idea. In areas with reasonable police response times, if you stay inside and call the LEO's and let them do their work, an intruder would have to come to you, working against the defender's very strong advantages on his own turf, to do you any harm. There's a lot to be said for that, and it's very survivable even when there really is a bad guy with a fairly simple "secure your family behind cover in the safe room with your defensive tools, stay in contact with the LEO's, and make the BG come through the fatal funnel to get to you" plan. The risk picture in the outside option isn't nearly as sunny.

i think i would have shot the possum out of pure anger

Excaliber wrote:As you may have guessed, IMHO, going outside to investigate noises in the night is not generally a good idea.

Excaliber's points are definately something to think about. All of them, even if you don't agree on every detail, they all must be considered.

There are people who call police every time a cat climbs the fence, the wind blows the tree branches against the house, or some kids are walking down the alley much later than they should be out and about. Remember the little boy who cried "wolf"?

Some people ignore the noises as just normal noises.

Some people may barricade themselves within the house and wait it out when they hear the noises.

Some people are going to go investigate. Perhaps putting themselves in a less favorable tactical situation should it turn out to be a serious threat. But perhaps protecting their vehicles/property from theives and vandals.

And some people are oblivious. "What noises?"

We each have to decide where in there we want to be and at what point we want to take action, what that action may be, and at what point to call the police.
Where you live, what your level of training is, and where you place your priorities will help you decide what action to take, on a case by case basis.

Maybe you have neighbors you can discuss this with in advance and incorporate into a plan.
** ring ring ** "Bob, sorry to wake you. I think I heard somethign between our houses. I think we should . . . "
Just thinking out loud. I haven't put much thought into that one.
My old room mate, before he lived with me, lived in an apartment complex with a bunch of college students in Waco. They had formed their own loose neighborhood watch. Every time a car alarm went off, six guys with shotguns ran outside to see what was going on. Over reaction maybe. But they never had a vehicle burglarized. (And surprisingly, there was never a weapon discharged either )

who would want to steel a car there
the thief's knew what was up and moved on to another complex that was easier prey

30lb possum + 44 mag = big cloud of greasy pink and gray stuff.

Excaliber wrote:I think it's worthwhile to use each and every one of these as an opportunity for after action review to tune up everyone's understanding, planning, and ultimately, performance when the chips are down, which fortunately they weren't in either of these cases.

Once again, I wasn't there and it isn't my intent to criticize any individual person for action taken or not taken, but I think there are a few questions that are worth considering without beating the subject to death. They're not aimed at the member who generously shared his experience with us, warts and all, so we can learn, and they're just as useful for folks who weren't there that night but might be faced with noises in the night and similar decisions tonight or the night after:

Thanks for the input, and I'm taking your criticisms exactly as you intended them, without rancor. I'll address them as unflinchingly as I can.

1. Remember that BG's often work in pairs or teams. When you went out, did you lock the door? If you did, you closed off your potential escape route if you needed one. If you didn't, you left your family potentially vulnerable to an intruder who now had an easy, nonforcible, quiet and extremely quick way to enter your now unsecured home. If that had happened, how would your wife have managed it? How would you have known it had happened? What would have happened when you got back inside?

I did not lock the door on the way out, and frankly, it didn't even occur to me to ask myself whether I ought to or not. Neither did I consider if the BG had a team mate. I acted on the assumption that it was one person, because my wife described the sound of one person going over the fence. That was foolish of me, and it's not a mistake I will make again. As to my wife's safety while I was outside, the only unlocked door was the one I had just come out of, and she stayed in the back bedroom, with another pistol within a few feet of her. However, another problem for me might have been getting shot by my wife if I did not properly announce my return. In any case, you would have to see the layout of my back yard, but it would not have been possible for someone to slip into the door I had just come out of without my being aware of it.

2. You were aware that your flashlight gave away your presence. That's a bad thing. He doesn't have to see you directly once he knows you're there. If he wants to take you out, since he knows you're approaching, all he has to do is conceal himself and wait until you enter his kill zone. Not survival friendly for the the good guy.

3. When you came around the corner, were you right up against the wall like most folks do it on TV? If so, all an unarmed BG would have had to do is wait just around the corner on the other side and wrestle you for your gun when you came around. That's why the tactical guys stay away from the corners.

The corner was to my left in front of me. I stayed about 15' out away from the wall toward my right, and I described a slight leftward arc as I crossed my back lawn. By the time I got to the point where I would become dangerously exposed to someone around the corner, I had interposed a tool shed between me and whatever was around that corner. Again, you would have to see a layout of my yard, but I calculated that I would only be exposed for a second at the very most. So, I was exposed, but I wasn't exposed for a very long time. In hindsight, perhaps I should have left the light off. I don't know. But, I did know not to hug that left wall as I approached the corner, for exactly the reasons you stated.

4. You mention you kept the pistol raised and at the ready and tried to maintain a decent sight picture. What target was the focus of that picture? Was your finger on the trigger? (See the implications of the reflexive startle response my first post below.) Where would a projectile have gone if the weapon had gone off in that adrenaline charged moment?

I kept my focus going back and forth between the front sight, and whatever was in out in front of me. My sight picture problem was partly because I kept raising the pistol to the full ready, and then lowering it just a tad, and then raising it again; and partly because my hands were probably a bit shaky from a pounding heart. However, I definitely exercised good trigger finger discipline, which I did very deliberately because the safety was off. Had I had an ND or a missed shot, the most likely impact zone would have been a retaining wall made of railroad ties (my house is built on a bit of a hillside, and my neighbors' properties, both to that side of the house and to the rear are higher than mine).

5. What communications provisions did you take with you so you could contact either your wife or the police if you needed help? How long would it have taken help to arrive if it hadn't been called already? Are you comfortable if the answer is in minutes and the need is in seconds?

I stupidly did not think to bring my cellphone with me, and I did not think to call the police before going outside, although my wife would have most certainly called 911 if she had heard a shot. Also, we have a home security system with built in panic buttons. I honestly don't know how long it would have taken for a police unit to respond and show up. I've never had to test this before. As to whether I am comfortable if the answer is minutes when the need is seconds, no, most certainly not. I will do what I have to do, even if that means acting without a police backup. I may not have the luxury of minutes to wait. We have an outstanding police department here in Grapevine, but I live in a suburban area, and I am certain that a response would take at least several minutes, and that might be way too long.

6. If you had come around the corner and found a bad guy crouching in the bushes, would you have remembered to look for the second or third BG's? What was your plan for dealing with him / them? Do you advance / retreat / challenge / shoot? (The "now that I've got the tiger by the tail, what do I do with it" question.) If he decided to open the action by shooting at you, were you behind anything solid enough to that it might have given you a fighting chance and a second or to to react?

Honestly? No. I would not have thought to look for a 2nd or 3rd BG that night, but thanks to your questions, I will remember to think of those things if it should ever happen again. As to what I would have done, well, I set myself up to be about 25-30 ft away from a BG if there was one back there. My intention was to loudly command him to lay down, and tell I would shoot him if he did anything except comply. If he acted aggressively, I would have shot him. I had that little conversation with myself as I first went out the door, and I was resolved to do whatever had to be done. If he had complied, I would have kept my distance, and kept the gun on him until the cops got there, but I would not make any attempt to get close to him or physically restrain him. As to shelter, I did put a shed between me and that back corner alongside the house, but I'm pretty sure that a bullet might just go whistling right through it. It's just one of those aluminum storage sheds you can buy at Home Depot, although there are are shelves inside with heavy tool boxes full of tools on them. So, let's say it gave a modicum of cover, but not really adequate enough. The only real advantage it gave me was that it would make it hard to see me.

7. If there was a prowler in the neighborhood and another neighbor had called the PD, what would have happened when / if they saw you outside with gun and flashlight in hand and no prior notification you were out there?

8. If there was no prowler, but your neighbor heard the same noise and took the same course of action, how would that have turned out if you each caught a glimpse of each other?

Well, for one thing, all of this was happening inside the confines of my back yard, which is surrounded by high fences. A neighbor would have had to climb up a tree to see what was going on in my yard. Even the police would not have been able to (legally) access my yard without knocking on the front door and asking for access. My wife would have naturally told them I was out there and armed. If my wife had called the PD, she would have warned them that I was out there with a gun in hand. If a neighbor had called the PD, when they showed up, I would have set the pistol on the ground and stepped away from it with my hands in the air until they could ascertain to their satisfaction that I was not the perp. If my neighbor had undertaken the same action as I did, I'm pretty sure I would have recognized him. He's pretty distinctive looking. I don't know if he would have recognized me or not, but this was all happening on my side of the fence, not on his. Plus, our houses aren't all that close together. his house is about 20' back from that side of the property line, whereas mine is only about 6' back from the property line.

9. Last but not least, what could you possibly have accomplished by going outside that wouldn't have been taken care of much more safely for both you and your family by asking the PD to investigate? They do that with shotguns, rifles, and radios, in groups that use tactics they've trained together with, and they're really good at it. That's why most of them bring in lots of bad guys and live to collect retirements.

I am certain that they are better at it than I am, but you asked if I was comfortable waiting minutes if the need was in seconds. At the time, I felt like the need was in seconds, not minutes. In retrospect, there actually was no need at all. But my wife, who does not jump at every little noise she hears, was agitated about this one, and so I took heed to deal with it. In retrospect, it may not have been the smartest thing to do, but I also would have had a hard time just sitting and waiting for the PD to show up, and a lot can go wrong in just 5 minutes.

As you may have guessed, IMHO, going outside to investigate noises in the night is not generally a good idea. In areas with reasonable police response times, if you stay inside and call the LEO's and let them do their work, an intruder would have to come to you, working against the defender's very strong advantages on his own turf, to do you any harm. There's a lot to be said for that, and it's very survivable even when there really is a bad guy with a fairly simple "secure your family behind cover in the safe room with your defensive tools, stay in contact with the LEO's, and make the BG come through the fatal funnel to get to you" plan. The risk picture in the outside option isn't nearly as sunny.

Thanks very much for the advice.

HighVelocity wrote:30lb possum + 44 mag = big cloud of greasy pink and gray stuff.

A 30 lb. possum would also= New world record by a comfortable margin.

Hard to imagine a 30 pounder scaling anything, let alone a gate.

Good post. I, for one, still have plenty to learn and it's alot better to ask all these questions and answere them now than in the middle of the night with our hearts pounding and weapons in hand.

This is a great discussion, thanks a bunch for the give and take. I'm happy to find a CHL forum that isn't a constant flame war. I have learned from this one.