Protecting your home rarely looks like it does in movies or on TV. There are realities of home defense that many do not understand or realize, making certain aspects hard to anticipate. In this article, I will take a realistic look at what to expect when it comes to defending your home and family.

A Look at the Realities of Home Defense

You are fast asleep in your bed when a sound awakens you. Opening your eyes, you lay there silently, trying to decide if you really heard something or imagined it. Was it the cat? Was it someone walking down the sidewalk outside?

You lay there for what seems minutes, and you hear it again. As your brain scrambles to define the sound, you hear a muffled voice. At that moment, your blood runs cold as you know someone is in the house.

Your heart begins to race, and your hands get cold. You must focus on staying calm as your breathing gets shallow and rapid. While part of your brain wants to believe this isn’t happening, the now continuous sounds tell you otherwise. You are in the middle of a home invasion, and your life is in danger.

This is a horrifying scenario for a multitude of reasons. This is your home, your safe refuge from the outside world. And now, that sanctity has been violated by criminals. The hundred-dollar question now is, “What do we do?”

Well, this is where a firearm becomes more than an enjoyable item to plink with on the range. It now becomes a force equalizer and tool to protect your life. Beyond the gun, we now must decide just what our course of action is going to be. Do we call 911 and hide or do we grab our blaster and head out into the house?

This is the exact topic we dissected in great detail at a recent event hosted by SecureIt Gun Storage.

Training with Paramount Tactical

Several fellow writers and I made our way to Summit Mount, West Virginia. There we would spend the next couple days training with Paramount Tactical on defensive handgun and home defense.

Our home would be Summit Point Training facility and it was incredible. SPTF is a 786-acre multi-purpose facility that provides a complete solution for a myriad of training. From a track for a driving course to explosive breaching and shoot houses, the facility is exceptional.

The training would be led by Gary Melton, a professional instructor and prior Special Forces. Together, this promised to be a very educational event.

Like any good class should, the instruction began with a focus on marksmanship.

Walther Firearms was one of the event sponsors, and we were able to run a variety of its PDP pistols. Trijicon joined the event and outfitted each gun with its SRO red dot optic. This would prove to be an exceptional pairing.

We practiced fundamentals and added movement, cover, and concealment. While this was enjoyable, it was just a prep for what we would face on day two—home defense tactics.

With rain rolling in, we were thankful to be indoors for this final day. Our training base today would be an extensive shoot house with multiple rooms as well as a catwalk for observation. Soon, the discussion began, and the age-old question was asked. During a home invasion, do we stay in place and call 911, or do we clear our house?

To help us make that determination, we ran multiple home defense scenarios in both lighted situations as well as complete darkness.

Running Home Defense Scenarios

The scenarios gained a little spice when we dawned protective gear and began using UTM training rounds. With this setup, you would find out quickly if your marksmanship and tactics were sound.

The scenarios were complete in design. They positioned us in a room, and following a “bump in the night,” we moved to get our weapon from a SecureIt safe. In fact, the entire home defense program was based on SecureIt’s “Beyond the Gun” training curriculum.

The curriculum makes you look at your gun safe in a completely new way. Gone will be the days of a single giant safe parked in a back closet or garage. A safe that you open and have to dig through to find what you are looking for.

Karen Hunter, Business Development Manager for SecureIt, shared with me, “It is important that we consider everything when we place our safe as well as set it up. If you put it in a closet, will you need to clear away garments to access it?”

She continued to share that everything about your safe needs to be carefully planned out. An example of that is how your safe is organized inside. If this safe is purely for a defensive firearm, it should be organized in a way that allows you easy access. This could mean, for example, that you place a handgun peg at a certain height, so it is easy to reach.

This material also provides an opportunity to better understand decentralized gun storage. SecureIt has been the industry leader in this arena and is quick to share considerations when placing safes around the home.

SecureIt Home Defense Solutions

While I have always been a fan of SecureIt products, the company truly shined in this event.

When you need your firearm in a home defense situation, you need it now. You do not have time to fumble with a combination or keys. We used three different safes during the training.

In the bedroom scenario, we used a Fast Box 36D, which fit under the bed and had a pull-out drawer. This was very easy and quick to access, making our defensive setup speedy.

In an office setting, we used a Fast Box 20 set in a vertical orientation. Like the 36D, it worked perfectly as everyone recovered their gun in the three-second range. 

The last scenario was the most challenging and included multiple rooms. In this scenario, we used the Agile 52 safe. This was the newest model that included an advanced six-button keypad featuring a biometric operation option.

The keypad is designed to give the user options and allows three different user codes, all programmed by the user. Likewise, the biometric pad can hold up to 30 different fingerprints.

SecureIt understands that some users may not prefer a biometric option. With that in mind, they have given you the ability to disable it. Other options include the ability to turn off the backlighting of the keys, as well as the sound. The Agile keypad system is one of the most advanced in the industry. SecureIt has worked hard to make the safe as secure and user-friendly as possible.

To help manage power for the safe, the company has included a low battery alert light on the keypad. Correspondingly, the safe is designed to be powered by an external battery connected to the USBC port on the bottom of the keypad. It really is the best of both worlds.

Final Thoughts

With everyone taking turns being both the defender and invader, a clear theme began to come clear. While you may be forced to leave the security of your bedroom, should you need to retrieve a child or loved one, it is dangerous.

Without question, the best option in a home invasion is to set yourself up in a defensive position in your room. Retrieve your firearm and position yourself where you have a clear shot at the door coming into the room. An ambush setup like this provides you with the best tactical option.

Call 911 and prepare yourself should an assailant come through the door. While it sounds good on paper, we experienced it firsthand in the shoot house. By the end, as home invaders, we lost our motivation to break into a room. Simply because we knew that we were going to be shot multiple times.

The entire event was well-organized and educational. We received exceptional training and learned more about SecureIt’s new curriculum. My ultimate takeaway was to take a defensive position and ensure I have a performance-centered safe like one from SecureIt.

For more information, please visit SecureItGunStorage.com, ParamountTactical.com, and SummitPointTraining.com.