Two stories this week about answering the door.
In this one from Menifee, California, a man narrowly dodges some bullets that police fired at him after he answered their knock on the door with a gun in his hand.
In this one from Owen County, Indiana, a homeowner was killed in a shootout with home invaders. Police found him outside, in front of his house, but it was too late to save him.
A gun is a useful self-defense tool. Especially in the home. But the easiest gunfight to win is the one that you never get into. With that in mind, we’d suggest that at least as a default orientation, if a particular knock on the door is so questionable that you want a gun in your hand to answer it, you’re better off keeping the door closed.
This isn’t to cast blame on people who’ve been hurt or killed while defending themselves at home. It happens, and it’s terrible. For example, in “OSD 74: How many times do you get to say oops?“ we covered the case of Ryan Whitaker, who was shot dead by police when he answered their middle-of-the-night knock with a gun in his hand. The culprits there, and in cases like it, are not the people who wound up dead in their own house.
This is just to say that as a gun owner, one of the never-ending quests is to look for ways to be more tactically effective. And one of those ways is that if you’re nervous about a knock on the door, the best course is probably to not answer it.
More on this, with some sweet VHS vibes, from Mas Ayoob:
This week’s links
“B&T TP9, the ultimate PDW that still sucks”
It’s still real to me dammit.
Milwaukee’s police department is moving off of the Sig P320
Here’s a good giant forum discussion on the P320’s safety issues. The posts kicked off in 2020 and run up to a few days ago.
Nice Glock print from @chairmanwon
Cool stuff.
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How is "don't answer the door" the advice here? Do you think the cops are just going to go away if he doesn't answer? Is there anything else you could recommend, or is "pray they don't kill you" really it?