I am at college, and often go home on the weekends, and live at home during the summer and am concerned about the way my mother secures the house. To start out she is/used to be adamantly against guns, but has come a surprisingly long way. When I am home I keep a loaded shot gun in my room, and she knows this and allows it which is quite amazing compared to what she would have done to me a few years ago for even brining it to the house.
We have an alarm system that she turns on when she leaves during the day, but at night it is never activated. I have made a scene about this before, and when I turn it on she becomes upset because she doesn’t want to be woken up by false alarms. It should be noted that the system has never had a false alarm that wasn’t a direct result of one of the occupants doing something negligent in the first place (Like my brother comming home at three AM). She is pretty good about locking doors, but not so windows and the other members of the house hold are moderately good at locking doors.
This behavior basically stems from the fact that she doesn’t believe that break-ins occur when people are home. She bases this from the fact that you very rarely hear on the news of someone who was shot and killed by a home owner during a home invasion. I point out that you hear weekly of some one being found dead/murdered in their home, and even more often of a string of burglaries in an area (this point was during a recent conversation and I haven’t had time to gauge its effect on her yet).
I believe that there are many more break-ins that are not reported in the news because no one was injured (some one broke into the house, and a homeowner/occupant confronted them with a weapon, and the intruder retreated).
I would be interested in stories that fall down these lines, if you don’t mind sharing. I believe that other peoples experiences would have more effect with her than impersonal statistics. Also have you been in a similar situation with a family member/loved one and how did you go about trying to get them to take protection more seriously?
Thanks,
David.
We have an alarm system that she turns on when she leaves during the day, but at night it is never activated. I have made a scene about this before, and when I turn it on she becomes upset because she doesn’t want to be woken up by false alarms. It should be noted that the system has never had a false alarm that wasn’t a direct result of one of the occupants doing something negligent in the first place (Like my brother comming home at three AM). She is pretty good about locking doors, but not so windows and the other members of the house hold are moderately good at locking doors.
This behavior basically stems from the fact that she doesn’t believe that break-ins occur when people are home. She bases this from the fact that you very rarely hear on the news of someone who was shot and killed by a home owner during a home invasion. I point out that you hear weekly of some one being found dead/murdered in their home, and even more often of a string of burglaries in an area (this point was during a recent conversation and I haven’t had time to gauge its effect on her yet).
I believe that there are many more break-ins that are not reported in the news because no one was injured (some one broke into the house, and a homeowner/occupant confronted them with a weapon, and the intruder retreated).
I would be interested in stories that fall down these lines, if you don’t mind sharing. I believe that other peoples experiences would have more effect with her than impersonal statistics. Also have you been in a similar situation with a family member/loved one and how did you go about trying to get them to take protection more seriously?
Thanks,
David.