CCW Doesn’t Stop At Your Front Door

By Kit Perez

If you carry a gun every day, whether open or concealed, then you can probably explain why. The right to self-defense, whether from tyranny or crime, is central to a life lived in freedom. By carrying a weapon you choose to take the ultimate responsibility for your own safety – and those around you. A threat can manifest itself anywhere – you could be at the mall, getting ice cream, grocery shopping, or even at your place of worship when something happens. As most gun owners will tell you, better to have and not need than need and not have.

At the end of the day, you might come home and put your handgun in a safe. Maybe you live alone or with another adult and so you leave your gun on the nightstand or in another easily accessible place. Either way, chances are you don’t keep your gun on your hip from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed … but you should.

According to the FBI, a burglary or home invasion takes place every eight seconds in the United States, or over 3.7 million times a year. During 28 percent of those burglaries, someone is home. That’s about one million times each year that a criminal with nefarious intent breaks into a home while a family member is there. In those cases, you need the proper gear and home invasion tactics to defend yourself.

Threats can happen at night while we sleep but they can also happen while we’re cooking dinner, or doing laundry, or reading our kids a bedtime story, or even taking a shower. We all like to think we are safe in our homes, but the truth is that sometimes we aren’t. The last thing you want is for the unthinkable to happen when you’re at home – and you’re in one room while your gun is in the other.

Certainly, if you have children you want to keep your weapon in a place where they can’t get to it – but you also want it where you can get to it if you need it, regardless of the time of day or what you’re doing. For some families, that may mean having multiple firearms in various rooms in the home, all secured in a way that keeps them out of little hands but makes them accessible when needed. In many cases, that might just mean keeping it on your person.

Our homes should be a place where we are safe, where we can let our guard down and relax. Situational awareness shouldn’t stop at your front door, however, and the ability to defend ourselves and our families at a moment’s notice shouldn’t fall by the wayside in the process. Sometimes, stopping a home invasion means knowing how to prevent it, but being prepared to repel it if needed.

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