In military combat operations, it is known as hardening the target. Making it difficult to breach a protected position is also known as removing the opportunity or just making it “hard” to reach. A prospective criminal, or burglar, will select the target based on an opportunity to break, enter, burglarize and escape. Open doors and windows make easy targets. Barking dogs and outside lights signaled major obstacles. Home owner has a gun is the most perfect deterrent and it hardens the target.
The best defense against a possible break in by an intruder is a firearm. This firearm will do no good unless it is readily available, loaded and ready for use. All adult members of the household need to be trained and have practiced on a shooting range. Remember that the weapon has a safety; white showing means the safety is on and red showing means it is off. “Red, you are dead” is a good way to remember which color means business. The firearm must be kept out of reach of all minor children. This is hardening the target.
A nation is struggling with gun control after the Sandy Hook shootings and it should be. Those innocent first graders did not deserve to die, but can we, as a nation, ever prevent another similar occurrence?
Can the government “harden” the target? Will citizens accept the arming and training of teachers? Will parents accept armed guards in school? Here in Leon County, this is exactly what is being considered to harden the target – more police and deputy presence in the schools.
A New York newspaper thinks it is a good idea to let the community know who has a handgun registered in the state. The paper claims it is a freedom of information issue to let parents know if their neighbor has a registered firearm in the house. Since swimming pools and trampolines kill more children than guns, this information should also be published.
Potential burglars would love to know what addresses “do not” have a registered handgun. In New York, like in most states, rifles and shotguns are free from being registered.
Some handgun owners are willing to advertise that their homes are protected with a weapon, just as some display signs from security companies. Bottom line is that a home with a gun is not one to be burglarized and it is the home owners Second Amendment right to protect his home and family.
A perfect example is the recent shooting of an intruder by a woman in Loganville, Georgia. While on the phone with her husband as the intruder was about to break into the hiding place, her husband told her, “shoot like I taught you” and “shoot him again”.
The really sad part is that the taxpayer most likely will pay for the intruder’s hospital visit; he was hit four times and taken to the hospital. He also most likely has been contacted by a lawyer looking in to the possibility of charging the woman an unarmed poor defenseless homeless person.
If convicted of anything, the intruder will serve only one year with time in hospital counted as time served. This is the problem in America. The intruders are the problem in America, not the gun-owners.
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