Car Break Ins

pinchvalve wrote: (yes, shooting is extreme. But I have a garage-door opener in each car and kids in the house. I don't know what your motivations are so I will be carrying when I go to investigate a noise in my driveway.)

A suggestion - take the garage door openers out of cars that don't sit in the garage. If you're concerned about people easily getting into your house, this is one of those low effort, high reward solutions.

Maybe set up the Homelink button if it's tied to the ignition power, or mount an external keypad. I do the latter, so I can punch in a code and open the door regardless of how I arrived at the house. Turns out it's quite useful.

Drive a convertible as a DD for your formative years. You learn to not only leave the doors unlocked, but the glove compartment open.

I never locked my car doors growing up, rarely rolled the windows up if it was nice out. Until someone set my center console on fire with a sparkler.

I still hate locking my doors.

Wife's car is kept in the garage and mine sits under the carport in front of the garage. Mine is usually locked but I don't worry about it if I forgot to lock it.

At night no one can get within 50 feet of the house without a spot light being shined on them and lights going on in the house. If they do ignore the light and get under the carport they also get an alarm horn blasting at them.

WildScotsRacing wrote:

Appleseed wrote: Killing someone for messing with my car? Don't think I could do it. But causing severe pain for several months while the perpetrator heals and reevaluates their life choices? Most defiantly.

And, which of those two scenarios to occur depends entirely upon the aggression level of the perp. Attempting to escape after I have caught you will merely get you damaged; the instant you either reach into a pocket after I have instructed you not to or you charge at me will get you a permanent solution. If you don't know how to make a correct running tactical assessment, then you are better off being a victim. My life is in fact worth more to ME than Mr. Bad Guy's is.

I think if I caught someone breaking into my car I would hope they run away. I don't want to detain anyone. Seems like after they get out of jail they will come back and burn my house down or something. Realistically if I heard someone breaking into my car I'd just chill inside the house and call the cops. Nothing in my car, or house, or anything besides my wife, family and cats are worth hurting or killing someone over. For one, even if totally justified I don't want all the legal trouble of it, and two, I don't want it on my soul that I killed someone. We are all just one or two bad choices away from stealing to get by. And before anyone thinks I'm some anti gun weirdo, I carry nearly all the time. And I have plenty of guns. Not sure how many actually.

Same issue here. Unlocked vehicles get robbed all the time. It amazes me that people have such a hard time locking their cars when it only takes pushing a fob button. One lady even left her purse in her unlocked car.

it depends. One time last week, I walked in so exhausted I not only forgot to lock my truck, I left the keys in the ignition. Didn't notice till 5am the next morning when I went to go to work and couldn't find my keys

mtn wrote: Ok, now that my life is in danger, I really don't care about my things. I want to eliminate the threat. I've fired handguns. I've fired what the media thinks is an assault rifle. And I've fired shotguns. The best firearm for close range damage is a sawed off shotgun. Why the handgun? I can't see well enough in the dark. They're horrible for aim. Why not the shotgun? If and only if I think my life/health (or my wife's or whomevers) is in danger.

Your call. Shotgun is a good choice, and has less overpenetration of walls, etc. That said, if you have handguns, investing in night sights for them makes an AMAZING difference. Plus practice time... that goes for any hardware :)

bigdaddylee82 wrote: During our "Monday morning quarterbacking" of the situation, we realized that I'd left SWMBO defenseless when I took off with the pistol. Sure we have other firearms, but they're all securely stored away, unloaded, etc. No quick or convenient way to get to them in a panic situation. Now we have a his and hers, the pistol and a "tactical" shotgun that reside in our bedroom.

MMQB is a great follow up to your incident. Free advice - make sure you have good communication so a) you don't harm one another by accident, and b) you have some sort of code word/phrase to let the other person know you're under duress.

joey48442 wrote: I think if I caught someone breaking into my car I would hope they run away. I don't want to detain anyone. Seems like after they get out of jail they will come back and burn my house down or something. Realistically if I heard someone breaking into my car I'd just chill inside the house and call the cops. Nothing in my car, or house, or anything besides my wife, family and cats are worth hurting or killing someone over. For one, even if totally justified I don't want all the legal trouble of it, and two, I don't want it on my soul that I killed someone. We are all just one or two bad choices away from stealing to get by. And before anyone thinks I'm some anti gun weirdo, I carry nearly all the time. And I have plenty of guns. Not sure how many actually.

This. This is it right here.

I just don't see the point of putting myself into what is presumably known danger. Everything I have is replaceable--even the most irreplaceable of my cars.

I'd like to think that I'm zen enough to "just stay inside and be cool" but I know me, my intolerance of thieves, and how irate I was last summer when jaggoff scumbags broke the rear window of my late Fathers' Ranger just to rip (literally) a cheapo Sony stereo out of the dash and steal the change from the ashtray.

I seriously considered staking the place out (rental place where the truck had sat overnight) for the purpose of smashing the fingers of said scumbags. IMO, the gun is just there to keep them still while you close the distance for the punishment that's coming.

Too many people have let thieves slide and excused their behavior as society's fault. Nope, each individual is responsible for their actions. Don't make stupid choices.

KyAllroad wrote: I'd like to think that I'm zen enough to "just stay inside and be cool" but I know me, my intolerance of thieves, and how irate I was last summer when jaggoff scumbags broke the rear window of my late Fathers' Ranger just to rip (literally) a cheapo Sony stereo out of the dash and steal the change from the ashtray. I seriously considered staking the place out (rental place where the truck had sat overnight) for the purpose of smashing the fingers of said scumbags. IMO, the gun is just there to keep them still while you close the distance for the punishment that's coming. Too many people have let thieves slide and excused their behavior as society's fault. Nope, each individual is responsible for their actions. Don't make stupid choices.

I just feel like if I beat up or hurt some kid who was breaking into my car I don't think it will teach them anything other than "im going to come back when that old berkeleyer isn't home and burn his house down" If some kid broke out the window of my ranger I guess that's a good chance to order a sliding rear window and install it. Some kids got into all four of our cars last summer. All of our glove boxes were open. Stuff strewn all over but the only thing missing was a dollar bill my wife kept in her car for the vending machine. (Emergency use only, she doesn't usually eat that crap) The weird thing is that she had forgotten her purse in the car. They pulled it apart but didn't take anything. Including credit cards. They pulled out her drivers license. Which freaked out Jamie that "they know where I live!" I was like "no E36 M3, they were in our driveway lol"

WildScotsRacing wrote: What then, would be your opinion of quarterstaves, which have no parts to malfunction and have unlimited "ammo", particularly in the hands of a trained practitioner?

All fine and good until your opponent pulls out a buck and a quarter staff.

Appleseed wrote: An extra foot never stopped 6 feet 190lbs of walking, talking, PCP.

I have a buddy who is a police officer. He went to cuff a guy on PCP and the guy literally picked him up and broke his back over his knee. I'm not confronting anyone on drugs.

In reply to patgizz:

And here is where the staff comes in handy. The perp is within your range, but you are not within his.

Living in the city the amount of broken car glass as you walk around can be quite amazing to see. One particular stretch of street/road/parkway connecting east-west is perfect for not being caught always had a rash of break-ins around the start of summer. Literally I'd walk home past at least a dozen little sparkly patches at night every year around the same time in the distance of a block. Walked by a guy with his ass hanging out of an Audi a couple of years ago. Raised my voice after hearing a window being punched with a screwdriver a couple of blocks away to see comically fat Latina pump her fat ass away from the car without anything stolen. Sucked for the owner of the Latino stickered car she busted the side window on though.

Also my two 200sx cars are right outside my building and a school and haven't been broken into yet. People comment on how clean the interiors are kept. Maybe being clutter free and clean and with crappy exteriors make tea leaves think there's nothing of value in there despite both trunks holding stuff worth stealing.

In reply to nutherjrfan:

I've had my windows broken with nothing taken. I've also had dog E36 M3 wiped under my door handles so I'm thinking it may have been about something other than petty thieves.

Your friendly neighborhood prosecutor recommends that you stay inside and call the cops. As soon as you venture outside it becomes a no win situation for you. Several years ago we had the exact situation you're talking about play out locally. A large, strong, college kid went out to confront a couple of teenagers breaking into cars at his apartment complex. As best we can tell, he was able to sneak up on them. We don't really know if it was a calculated assault or just a startle response, but one of the kids swung a screwdriver at him which entered his eye socket and killed him instantly. Changing it up a bit, if he had seen the threat coming and shot and killed said kid, he would have ultimately found himself being grilled by some smarmy P I lawyer about why he shot a kid who was inevitably "just getting his lift back together". There aren't many positive outcomes for self appointed crime fighters, unless your last name is Wayne.

Thieves don't come back that I have ever seen. I catch around 300 a year so I think that is a pretty good representative sample.

I can't tell anyone what to do if they find someone violating their property since everyone here is an adult and will deal with their own consequences. But shooting someone is the kind of thing you can't ever take back and you won't ever be free of it.

In reply to Ojala: 300 a year? That's great!

How many of those are repeat offenders? If it's more than one I think we may have identified the problem.

In reply to KyAllroad:

Last year 235, about 78%, of our arrests had prior arrests for either theft or burglary.

Helluva catch and release program you have there.

And people say we have the best legal system in the world.....apparently it is if you're a criminal.

In reply to KyAllroad:

Ha! my partner and I had 14 "repeat customers" last year. The rest of the arrests with priors picked up their charges somewhere else or years prior. But for better or worse, criminal convictions follow forever.

My roommate is a detective and about 2-3 years ago some little white girl in our building let some smelly E36 M3head follow her through the front door whence he went to the gym and stole the two flat screens. Well going over the video with another detective identified the perp and he was charged. He plead guilty to a total of 7 different burglaries and the Judge let him walk. Walk. It's no wonder when the Police Chief left last year she took a swipe at the prosecutors office although an uppercut for a judge like that would have been good too. Oh and the thief was seen outside the building shortly after but a very strongly worded warning to stay away. However last year someone took an angle grinder to the laundry rooms two cash/card boxes - Sheesh. :what the: My last building someone took a blow torch to the coin boxes in the laundry room. And I wash my laundry typically between 2 and 4 am how do I back out of walking in on that in the basement of a building?