A home invasion occurs when a member of the household is present during the crime. This threat is real and it happens more often than you think. According to the Department of Justice, 3.7 million burglaries occur each year. 28% of those reported burglaries were home invasions. Of those 28%, 26% were violent confrontations. Based on those statistics, a violent home invasion occurs roughly every two minutes!

As a protector of your home, having a plan is critical to confronting and surviving a violent home invasion. Plans will be different for each homeowner depending on their location & threat landscape, the layout of their home, emergency service response time, and whether or not they have access to firearms.

The protector wants every advantage. Security systems and firearms are tools, a source of survival. Their firearm needs to be ready when they are and fitted to their everyday life. When the worst happens, they are prepared.

So, how can you, the protector, lockdown your house to keep yourself and your family safe?

Being able to avoid a violent encounter is always the best plan. Unfortunately home invasions will still continue to happen, so if you want to avoid the situation altogether, you need to start with hardening your home. Make your home appear to not be an easy target. Here are a few home defense tips.

Having exterior lights on during the evening hours gives the illusion that someone is home, regardless if you are or not. Motion activated lights are a great option to and provide an indicator that there is movement outside. Lastly, criminals generally don’t want to be seen doing their dirty work, so if they see lights on inside and outside, they’re more than likely to keep moving to an easier target.

Fortifications to your home include reinforcing the main points of entry; most commonly any doors leading into your home or garage.

Fortifying these doors can include installing deadbolts, upgrading the strike plates, and replacing the original strike plate screws with longer 3” construction grade screws. Just by making these simple upgrades to your doors, you’re going to force any criminal to have to spend more time attempting to breach the door which will in turn cause more noise.

This also buys you some additional time to get your family secured in a designated safe room and to get your firearms ready as a last resort.

If you have an alarm system installed, you can arm the system at the first indication of a break-in. If the criminal manages to breach a door or window, the alarm system will generate a very loud audible alarm that may be enough to cause them to turn and run.

If you don’t have an actual alarm system installed and you have a key fob for your car, those generally have a panic button on them. In a pinch you could hit the panic button on your car’s key fob to activate that alarm. Whether your car is in a garage or the driveway it could be loud enough to scare the criminal away. If you have a spare key fob, it’s a good practice to keep that in a bedroom or safe room.

Security cameras can assist in your situational awareness of the outside area of your home. Being able to see dead space and identify potential threats will give you an edge on the criminal. This combined with the fortified entry points is going to buy you more time to prepare for a possible confrontation.

If your security cameras have the ability to record video, that can assist law enforcement in identifying and arresting these criminals as well.

Lastly, security cameras provide a visual deterrent to the criminals. The sight of security cameras is often enough to deter them from trying to break into your home.

The 12-gauge pump shotgun is often touted as the best home defense shotgun due to its simplicity of use and effectiveness. A home defense shotgun is one of the best multi-use weapons around. It can be used for sport shooting, hunting, rodent control, and obviously home defense. As far as maintenance is concerned, the pump shotgun is a workhorse, and requires very little maintenance to keep it running.

Many homeowners think a handgun or even AR-15 are better options for home defense, but neither is as forgiving in terms of accuracy and stopping power inside a confined space such as a home. Shotguns cast a wider shot pattern, and can take down an intruder even in the most inexperienced hands.

The 12-gauge shotgun is probably the best all-around choice for the average homeowner seeking a home defense firearm. With options of extended magazine tubes or a detachable box magazine loaded with 00 buckshot, the shotgun brings effective firepower to a violent encounter inside your home.

I’ve often heard that the best home defense pistol is the one you have with you. Home defense firearms are limited by the fact that they need to be either hidden or at least discreet.

The primary strength of a home defense pistol is portability, not effectiveness. When it comes to engaging a home invasion threat, the pistol will be more difficult to get rounds on target than a shotgun, and its bullets, depending on what you’re using, will have less terminal effect on the threat. The main reason for that is less stability. To shoot a pistol well, you need to incorporate the proper shooting fundamentals to include a solid shooting stance. Gunfights tend to happen in close quarters and are over in a matter of seconds, so getting a solid stance isn’t always possible.

Home defense pistols do however have good things going for them in a home defense situation. The portability is one of the primary benefits when moving in the confines of a small home. Its ability to be used one-handed is great when opening doors, moving children to safety, using a handheld flashlight, and calling 911.

There are a multitude of home defense pistol options out there. Just make sure you choose what works for you and that you practice with it often.

A firearm can be a force multiplier when faced with a violent home invasion, that is if you can get access to it. Do you hide or stage firearms throughout the house? What if you're in a different area of the home than usual when there’s a break-in?

What about children in the house? Does your home invasion plan account for easy access to your firearms during an emergency, but at the same time prevent children from accessing them?

Consider using one of the handgun vault options from Lockdown. Whether you’re looking for a nightstand gun safe or under bed gun safe, we have options for you. The Large Handgun Vault is perfect for these locations if your primary home defense gun is a pistol.

If your primary home defense gun is a shotgun, then you may want to opt for one of our trigger locks. Offered in both keyed access and combination access, the choice is up to you. The Trigger lock allows you to keep your shotgun ready at a moment's notice, but keeps young children safe from discharging the weapon.

If you’re staging a few different handguns around the house, then you need to take a hard look at our In Plain Sight shelves. These shelves look like your normal wall mounted shelf that you can keep picture frames on, a small clock or other home decor. But within seconds they can provide you with access to your firearm in the event of a home invasion.

Lockdown believes in your right to be prepared to defend. Let us help keep your firearms ready when you need them.