Passive Measures For Home Defense

Passive Measures For Home Defense. Photo – Adobe Stock (under license)

Any type of emergency preparedness should take into account the need for home defense.

There are of course active measures you can use, such as a good-sized dog. But in this post, I’d like to review some of the passive measures that you can use to defend your home. You won’t always be there when it needs to be defended.

Nothing is 100% secure.

Good security offers layers of protection, with different degrees of effectiveness. For example, if you have a fence around your property, you don’t expect it to be impenetrable. But it does deter trespassers and present one of perhaps several obstacles to any robbery or home invasion.

So the measures suggested in this post are best used as a set. Several passive measures together increase the degree of safety. But all these measures put together cannot make your home totally secure. So these measures do not make active home defense unnecessary.

Fencing

For home security, I think the best fences are those you can see through easily, such as a chain-link fence. Being able to see a potential threat while it is still some distance away is advantageous.

If you have a solid wood fence, a criminal can approach your home unseen, getting as close as the fence might be. He can peer over the fence at intervals and move along its length, while you are unsuspecting. That is not what you want. Now I know that solid wood fences provide a privacy screen. But you are going to have to make some trade-offs for the sake of home security.

The fencing does not have to be 8 feet high with barbed wire. What we are aiming for here is a significant obstacle, not an impenetrable barrier.

On the other hand, a nice low white picket fence is not as useful.

Hedges provide a type of natural fencing. But they have much the same problem as a solid wood fence, they can be used by the bad guys for concealment.

Fencing, even minimal fencing like the proverbial white picket fence, MAY POSSIBLY give you a legal advantage if you need to use deadly force in self-defense.

For example under Florida law, according to the book “Florida Firearms Law, Use & Ownership” (seventh edition, by Jon H. Gutmacher) –

If the culprit entered a fenced yard around your dwelling, this is called “curtilage”, and is also considered a part of your dwelling. Thus, the crime is a “forcible felony” once the culprit enters the fenced area. (Florida Firearms, p. 293).

However, if the perpetrator actually tries to attack you before any entry is made, and you are not within a structure or within curtilage when attacked — the use of deadly force becomes somewhat “iffy” unless they also appear to be armed. Why? Remember, deadly force is normally not lawful except to stop or prevent a forcible felony, or to prevent death or great bodily harm. (Florida Firearms, p. 291-292).

So if a confrontation and use of deadly force occur within a fenced area next to your home, you MAY have a stronger case for the use of deadly force (in Florida) — because the crime is then considered a forcible felony. But this does NOT mean you can shoot anyone who trespasses into a fenced area. And the laws on self-defense vary a great deal from one State to another. Some States require you to retreat if you are threatened, even from your own property or home. As always, know your local laws and follow them.

Open Spaces

This next consideration is somewhat the opposite of fencing. Open spaces don’t prevent anyone from trespassing, but they do allow you to see a threat at a distance. If you have thick hedges, you might want to prune them back, so that you can see anyone who might be on the other side. If you have a thick brush in a corner of your property, you might want to remove it, or at least cut it back.

If you have a large property, it might be impractical or expensive to fence it all around. You might fence an area close to the house, and then use the opposite approach on the rest of the property, trying to keep clear sight lines in all directions.

Once you have clear sight lines, you might want some way to view possible threats at a distance: binoculars or even a moderately priced night vision device.

Lights

Exterior lighting is very useful for home defense. It prevents a trespasser from using the cover of darkness to do harm. Install exterior lights that will turn on automatically, with a built-in motion detector.

This can function like an early warning system, alerting you to a possible danger. It might also scare away persons of ill will. At the very least, the exterior lighting allows you to see the nature of the threat, so as to respond based on knowledge.

A strong flashlight offers benefits. You can scare off potential perpetrators, and see what type of threat you are up against. Also, if it is strong enough, the light can make it harder for the trespasser to see you, and easier for you to see him. Some super cool flashlights have enough weight and even a beveled edging, to function as an ad hoc self-defense tool also if required.

Alarms

When the SHTF, the police might be overwhelmed and their response times might be much longer. Of course, you can and should call 911 when there is the police or another emergency.

But suppose that you are on your own, for one reason or another, a home alarm can still be useful. It alerts the neighbors to a threat. You might want to have a conversation with your neighbors, in advance, about mutual aid and defense. Sometimes there is safety in numbers.

A personal alarm can be useful if you have a large property, and some family members or kids might be out of shouting distance. Give the kids or the wife a personal alarm, that will emit a loud noise when activated. This type of alarm has a pull-pin, so that it is easy to activate, and makes a continuous loud noise. Shouting “help” is not nearly as loud as this type of 130 dB alarm. Vigilant makes a few different models, typically under $20.

Window Security

There are a couple of different ways to secure the windows of your home. You can reinforcing windows with a security film. 3M and a few other companies make a thick plastic reinforcement film that can be added to any windows to make them shatter resistant. The windows crack, but the plastic holds it together. The best of these films, when correctly installed, have incredible strength.

This type of film is used in Florida to protect against hurricanes. But it also makes forced entry more difficult, which is excellent. It can be added to sliding glass doors as well. One of the most common means to gain forcible entry to a property is via the perpetrator popping a window and then unlocking the door or window from the inside – so anything that makes this more difficult is a good thing.

Another way is to add hurricane shutters, which also add an additional layer of security in addition to protection against extreme winds.

You can put the shutters on any particular area of concern, like a sliding glass door or on any windows that offer easy access to your home. Then when the danger passes, you can remove and store them.

Door Reinforcement

The doors of your home can be reinforced with a bar, with door jamb reinforcements or with high strength door defenders. It is also worth considering whether you might want to replace a wooden door with a metal one, especially at a side or back entrance. Intruders prefer an entry point that is out of view from the street or from neighbors.

Doors that swing outward are of course more difficult (or impossible?) to kick in – but require a different type of reinforcement. The door hinges are then on the outside of the house, but they are difficult to remove without either power tools, a hammer and punch set to knock out the pins (in some cases) or the Halligan bar / axe combo used by firefighters. All of which are very noisy. Outside-facing hinges can also be secured with hinge security pins, a very inexpensive and clever solution which lock them together from the inside and makes brute forcing the hinge far more difficult. For a garage side door or a back door, you might want to consider installing a door that swings outward, and so cannot be kicked in.

– Thoreau; editor from www.prep-blog.com

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