Help guys....getting the wife in 'home invasion/protection' mode....mental motivators

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DualBerettas

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I've shown her armed citizen columns...she's read Combat Handguns, etc...i got her a Walther P22 which she keeps loaded...but only when i'm not around...when i ask her why...it's b/c 'you're here'...that's great but, is a 9mm and a .22 better than just a 9mm?

I'm trying to get her to take the gun out more and just handle it to be familiar with the controls...it's like pulling teeth. I told she keeps it loaded for home defense right (she has no CHL) so i tell her to get the gun and unload it (in front of me) so i can show her a technique i'm talking about...

To her credit, she is safe, she is very safe while handling guns, so she unloads it in front of me and OOOPS...no round in the chamber...just kind of look at her with a smirk on my fast...the embarrassing 'oops thought it was fully loaded'.

Now hearing posts about home invasions i want her to be ready, especially if i'm not there, she only has a .22, has not practiced fast mag changes (she has one spare mag that came with the gun), and doesn't get to the range a lot...(i think it's more peace of mind for her).

anyway...some input would be great...no caliber debates please...she's comfortable with the .22 and until she gets more practice, that's what SHE wants to stay w/ b/c she's comfortable with it.

Any things to be thinking about that would...'wake her up' so to speak.

I'm not paranoid about a home invasion, i just want her to be prepared.

Thanks in advance,
DB
 
I think my only comment (comments) would be .. she should carry ... certainly when on her own .... and be comfortable with that.

And .. tell her .. leaving aside any flavor of paranoia....

''Expect the unexpected''

''Don't assume''.

That covers a lot.:)
 
You can tell her abt my wife if it'll help. I've written before abt her coming home to a burglary in progress. The BG hid in closet understairs when she came in, and when she went upstairs to look around he slipped out thru garage entrance. Had she gone in thru the garage doorway as she usually does instead of the front door, she'd have walked right past closet door where the BG was. No telling what woulda happened if she had, as we later discovered that he was in the process of pleasuring himself over a coupla pics of her abt the time she hit the garage door opener as she pulled in the drive.

She completely ignored a) the fact that my tools had been piled on the garage floor in prep for the BG's buddy to come back with the car (same MO in other burglaries in the area) and assumed that I had done it for some odd reason), b) that the screen had been removed from a front window not 4 ft from the door she went in, and c) didn't pick up on the ransacking until she saw the master bedroom in a complete mess. Talk abt being completely unaware! sheesh! Until that pt she was totally uninterested in self protection, but shortly thereafter she got some training, got her CCW and a coupla CCW weapons. She now carries all the time, even while doing yard work, has learned to live in condition yellow, and is reasonably proficient with an AR in the event of a home invasion, and to which she maintains access if I'm gone in the evening. She got lucky the 1st time, but is not willing to roll the dice again.
 
I had a similar challenge and unfortunately it took a failed aggravated assault on her to wake her up and made her realise that it didn't just happen to 'others' it can happen to us as well.
 
There's no better mental motivation than real life experience, as treeprof and Island Beretta have illustrated. That said, let's hope that DualBerettas can get his wife's mind right without the dubious benefit of an unfortunate incident.


Once, I thought someone was breaking into our house at ~0200. In the end, we discovered that a suncatcher's suction cup had let go, thus creating a tremendous racket as it fell on and about the sink and a few pieces of drying crockery.

When it was over and the truth of the matter was discovered, my Anti-at-the-time wife looked at me and soberly stated that "(she was) glad that I had a gun." (Her assertion should have been plural, but I was happy with the little victory gained here.)

Prior to that experience, I'd receive weekly lectures on "having those awful things in the house." Now, the worst I get from her regarding my firearm inventory is merely....ambivalence. Usually, she just curious about when my next range date is scheduled to occur. And, when I place a box or three of WWB in the cart at Wal-Mart, nary an eyebrow is raised.

Thank goodness I'm here to relay this story to you.

TM
 
With my wife-to-be, I don't think that there is anything I can do to "make" her be more prepared. We've gone over it and over it... and she just doesn't want to talk about it... even though she knows two people that have been murdered in the last 3 years, one of them in her own home; and still ... "nothing". She almost took a self-defense class for women once, but since no one else she knew was taking it decided against it.

She "accepts" that there will be a loaded gun on the nightstand; there will be (at least one) gun with us when we travel and 9 times out of 10, probably on my person. But she still doesn't want to have anything to do with them. *** edited to add *** After reading the post directly above mine, I thought I'd better add... she was sure appreciative that there WAS a gun in the house one time whenI was out of town and the power went off. Apparently, when she went down to check the circuit box, she brought the gun and a flashlight with her. That at least was a little victory. *** end edit ***

She tolerates my shooting hobby and IDPA activities and is happy for me that I enjoy them, but wants nothing to do with them. I've asked her to come and watch one of my matches, but never has. She has gone shooting with me, but rarely. Once she gave me a Valentine's Day "coupon" for a day at the range with her. :) She is actually a pretty good shot with my USP 9C.

I've told her about how I do mental exercises when I'm driving in town, like asking myself where my "out" is when I get in heavy traffic or when approaching an intersection... that I leave enough room in front of me when stopped so that I can manuever around the car in front of me if I have to. To this day, when she drives she pulls up about 6" from the guys bumper like there's not a care in the world.

She says that she is more alert when we're not together, but I don't really believe her. I think she basically walks around in condition White all the time. So far, nothing I've said or done; or anything that has happened to other people in her life has changed her mind/mindset about self defense.

Some people might say she just doesn't "obsess" about it like I do.

I've basically given up on trying to push it at all and figure that if she ever comes around it will have to be of her choosing. As long as she doesn't give me static about my passion for the hobby, gun rights and politics in general, we're all good. :)

Mostly what I've learned is that I have to really filter the amount of "gun talk". I could talk about gun stuff all day long, every day. She can handle about 5 minutes of it and shuts down. Kind of like the way I shut down when she talks about decorating. ;)
 
seems that some women deep down know the realities about lethal situations and are honest with themselves enough to know the police are not omnipresent...but then i guess if they dono't think about having to use a gun for self defense then maybe, just maybe, it won't happen. Or they feel that condition yellow will alter their lifestyle...for my wife, a lot of her upbringing is still with her. She was open minded enough to accept owning guns and even owning machine guns...but she doesn't quite see why i carry.:rolleyes:

I don't know...

DB
 
My wife loves my 22/45. I am planning on purchasing her a pink pac-lite barrel to help her feel like it is more her pistol. I have found that pushing tends to make her push back so I don't rail on her too hard. I talked her into taking a basic pistol class this summer. The class we are looking at has 2 female instructors and 2 male instructros. I am hoping that the female instructors will help put her at ease. I am hoping that after the class she will think more about safety, and be more aware.
 
Not debating her choice of caliber at all, but I don't know if the autoloader's the best choice for her.

She sounds a lot like my fiance. My girl is good and safe around guns, however she just doesn't want to be bothered with all the controls and buttons and levers on a gun. She knows where the trigger is, and that's good enough for her. When we have gone out shooting, I normally load the gun up for her and then hand it to her. On a couple of my guns, she doesn't even have the physical strength to run the slide.

My solution is to get women like this a .22 revolver. Here's a couple of advantages to the .22 revolver over a .22 autoloader that I've thought of:

- Jams won't get her killed. Most .22 handgun's I've shot (autoloaders) jam quite frequently. Even some of the best ones will still have an occasional jam. While I can clear these pretty quickly, it's a complicated procedure. You have to lock back the slide, drop the mag, clear the jam, insert the mag, drop the slide, etc. With a revolver, if the round doesn't go off, the user simply pulls the trigger again to go to the next one.

- Controls. No safety, no slide release, no mag release.

-Simplicity. My girl or yours needs only to pick up the gun and pull the trigger. No worrying about rounds in the chamber, or mags not seated properly, etc. Reloading is fairly simple and obvious too. Not fast mind you, but simple. I don't figure most encounters will last long enough for multiple reloads anyways.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents, I've got a similar situation, so I've done a lot of thinking about this.

Good luck.

Shawn
 
Shawn I agree with what you are saying about the revolver being better then an auto. My wife lover her 22/45, but I told her that in most cases she would be better off with the .38 in a pinch.

I am looking at one of the S&W 317. It is a 10 shot .22 revolver that only weighs 15 oz!!! I am sure anyone women would apreciate a gun that is that small and light. You see size really does matter. :D
 
Tell her to Google something like "rape fantasy stories" so she can see that there are subhumans out there who really think that **** is entertaining. Extreme, but sobering.
 
When I took my wife to the range a few weeks ago to get her familiarized with the 9mm, I had her shooting at bullseye targets at ranges from 5 to 15 yards. She is definately not a gun person and leans toward not liking them, we've had discussions about CCW, and she basicly thinks that people have no right to shoot others. SHe was having a really good time until I hung up a silhouette target and put it at about 4 yards away. She got all jittery and asked if I normally shoot at such targets because they look like a person. I said yup, and for good reason. I explained to her what the COM is and why she should shot at it and told her to shootuntil there is no more threat. She looked pretty nervous, then I told her its 2AM, I'm at work, you wake up because you here noise in the house (she's a very light sleeper) you go into our son's room to check on him, and suddenly a guy who doesn't belong there shows up at his bedroom door. Not knowing what kind of freak the guy is, he might rape you, beat you to death, or slice you up slowly or kill the kid in front of you first. What do you do?


She knew what to do- emptying the the magazine into the middle of the target PDQ.
 
"Some thugs break in while I'm away, you try to shoot them and the gun clicks, oops the chamber is empty... they grab you and tie you up, and then no one can stop them from going after the kids. Guess you should have practiced more. I'm sure the kids will understand."

I gave this line to a very protective mama when she was on the fence about having a gun. She got fire in her eyes, stood up and yelled "NO ONE IS HURTING MY KIDS." She was at the range with me the very next day.
 
....Try to figure out where the line is between what you can reasonably convince your girlfriend to do, and what she will rebel against as being overly paranoid and 'nutty'.

For instance, you can probably convince her to go to the range once or twice, and to keep the gun loaded all the time.

However, if she is already balking at that, dont' even bother with fast mag changes, dealing with malfunctions, multiple targets, etc. because she will most likely just stop responding at all.

That is not to say that you can't eventually work up to that sort of thing, but you have to hit her with one step at a time, giving her a chance to get comfortable with each one.

Example:
My girlfriend, while by no means anti-gun, is not a gun person. I was able to convince her to go shooting with me, and we headed out to the local outdoor range for a day of plinking soda cans, etc. in a completely non threatening/non-combat oriented fashion. I also loaded up some super light loads for my Vaquero. She loved it, and wants to go shooting with me more often now. Since then, she has gone several times, and is quite comfortable handling the vaquero.

We recently moved in to a house in the country, and while I have a shotgun next to the bed, I suggested that we keep the vaquero on the dresser since she was not comfortable using the shotgun, and I was sometimes away until late. However, she did not want to keep it loaded until one of my friends did one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of.

I had told my friend Joe that he could crash at my place if he needed to, but he told me that he was going to go home. Later, due to some miscommunication, he went to my house, looked around, decided that I hadn't come home yet, and sits in his car for the next two hours waiting for me.

Apparently he had decided to leave, but passed me on the way and turned around and followed me home, causing me to freak out and go past my driveway, etc. but that's another story.

When I got home, Ally was sitting on the sofa crying, holding the pistol (pointed against the back of the sofa and in a safe manner). After securing the pistol, I asked her what was wrong. Apparently she was already a little spooked by being alone in a new house in the middle of nowhere, and then 'some guy' pulled into the driveway, got out of his car, walked around and looked through the doors and windows, rattled the handle on the front door, but never knocked :)banghead: ). This 'guy' then got in his car and sat there, periodically turning on his dome lights, etc. So of course, she was freaked out, but she had the presence of mind to get the pistol, load it, and sit out of sight quietly (we didn't have a phone hooked up yet) while waiting for me to come home. Of course, it turned out to be a friend of ours, who thought ally was still in town with me, and who was expecting me to show up any minute but she didn't know that. To her credit, although she was terrified, she didn't run outside or do anything to let the person outside know a young woman was home alone, or armed, and she prepared to defend herself.

We keep that pistol loaded now next to the bed.

The other day she asked how old you have to be to get a CCW, and said that she wants to get one when she turns 21. She also went to an IDPA shoot with me (although she didn't participate) and wants to try it sometime.
 
Have her watch the first half hour or so of the movie "Death Wish"! That should scare her! I used that movie to "motivate" a girlfiend into a heightened level of "awareness"!
 
Trying to scare her into agreeing with you is ... sorry guys ... plain stupid.

If your wife/gf has any spunk at all, she'll be furious at you for trying it. And you'll deserve it.

Try asking questions and listening to the answers. Don't try to "solve the problem." Don't try to argue. Don't try to make her see things your way.

Just ask questions and let her do the thinking. She's the one who has to think it through, after all.

pax

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. -- Katharine Hepburn
 
Back in the seventies in the Sacramento CA area there was a guy called the East Area Rapist. He would enter a home, terrorize the occupants for a few hours, then leave. He was not, to my knowledge, ever caught; as far as anyone could figure, he went door-to-door until he found an unlocked house, and then walked right in.

Tim
 
If your wife/gf has any spunk at all, she'll be furious at you for trying it. And you'll deserve it.
Click to expand...

Pax: good point.

On the other hand, my wife is extremely competitive in everything she does, and especially likes it when she outdoes me.

The other side of the story was that after I let her shoot a silhouette, she said "ok now you show me", I popped off a couple of doubletaps, and had a few errant shots that hit the neck and shoulder of the target. Her response to that was, "way to go deadeye, you winged him, if we have an intruder, I'M doing the shooting, you just keep on reloading those magazines for me"

:evil:
 
Guys, a lot of brainwashing and scare tactics has gone into this gun thing and as a result many people shy away from the gun or anything to do with it aka awareness, self-defense etc.

Their are a lot of people who believe that if they are passive, accomodating, polite, friendly etc. then no one will want to harm them.. the unfortunate thing is THAT IS JUST NOT TRUE!! We recently had an off-duty policeman who was held up in a pub and his personal gun taken. The robbers asked him if he was a policeman and he said 'No, he was a civilian'. They took his car key to make a getaway, went into his car and saw his police Id. They came back out of the car and went back into the pub and shot the policeman dead. :cuss:
 
ahem...

Maybe you could find a womens shooting group or at least a group of women that are pro-active with re: to self-defense/home defense...Better still if SHE finds them...there's the rub huh?
 
pax said it perfectly. reading this thread, that was what i was thinking the whole time.

my girlfriend owns & operates, and used to be averse to keep her weapon loaded until i was out late one night and she thought she heard someone come in - she'd just cleaned it, so mags, ammunition, and phone were all out on the kitchen table, and she was alone in the b'room with an empty peice.

since then, it's not been a problem; that incident reinforced things for both of us.



---------
the rest of that story, for kicks:

i was out with two roommates picking up dinner at the time;

she hopped on AIM and had a mutual friend give me a call from a few states over, advised me of the situation.

it took us about 15 minutes to get back, and we rapid-cleared the unlocked front door, having left dinner in bags out on the porch, only to find her comfortably back at her computer with all the lights on and doors open.

turns out that she just got tired of waiting, so she picked up my six-D-cell maglight and went to have a look herself; securing the dining room, she locked & loaded, switched to a surefire, and cleared the rest of the place herself.

"i do"
 
Nobodies tying us up with duct tape, we don't answer the door without heat,and look first. Our 120lb dog bites and patrolls 400 feet of drive way, I still have one college age son who is around when we aren't. The neighbors are shootin conservatives. We have loaded guns stashed thru out house , high enough to keep out of babies reach and not easily found by anyone but wife and I . Force me to open a safe, why sure, your gonna die. We have lived a long full life and would rather go out explosively repelling borders than in a convalescent hospital:D
 
Hmmmmm. Some folks learn from others, some learn from experience (the hard way), some never learn:rolleyes: .

While I agreee theat scare tactics, badgering, etc., is not a good recipe for success, perhaps a more subtle 'imersion' apporach would be more useful. People don't usually make great leaps in logic (the "Aha!") in a single bound, but rather from a series of exposures and experiences.
-Keep after her with stuff from the "Armed Citizen", teh local paper, Keepandbeararms.com, etc. See if you can find a copy of Paxton Quigley's "Armed and Female".
-Lead by example (which you seem to be doing.
-Get her into planning mode with stuff like, "Babe, what would you do if we had a fire?" "Are we ready for a Blizzard/hurricane/natural disaster du jour?" "What about intruders?" "what about any of the above when I'm not home?" And of course, "I bring this up because I love you and I want you to be OK when I do get home!"

You have got to get her to internalize the fact that bad things happen to good people, and that danger, like Domino's, sometimes comes to you. All these things can happen, and chance favors the prepared mind. Just as you don't wait for the stove to be ablaze to run out and buy a fire extinguisher. Have a plan, have a drill, practice periodically (gotta make sure the plan works, after all). Keep chipping away, good luck.
 
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