My mom got really paranoid when they installed a speed bump in front of her house in the lower-middle income neighborhood she used to live in because it would make all the thieves drive by slower and think about all the stuff inside that they could steal.

One of my coworkers tells me he always pulls out his Glock to check the corners when he comes home in the evening. Another has a CCTV system and an AR15 by his bed.

these people should be removed from society and helped
that is a dangerous level of paranoia

Yeah, my sister.

She lives in an "upper middle class" yuppie suburb where we grew up, but I moved away years ago.

She gives me updates on what it's like, and she describes it like it's mad max now. She says there are bands of roving weirdos, and there are now no-go zones that the police have declared lawless.

I ask my brother what she's on about, and he has no idea. I went to visit recently and it seemed same as it ever was lol

Conservative media really do be melting brains

One of my coworkers tells me he always pulls out his Glock to check the corners when he comes home in the evening

Propagandizing yourself daily lmao.

The only thing I worry about is if shit ever hits the fan and THEY have weapons while I don't. But I also do not trust myself to own guns.

My house actually was invaded once though....... By a 5 year old autistic child

I am absolutely serious about home defence, that's why I've fortified it using a defence in depth strategy. While any intruders are mired in the landmines and barbed wire belts strewn across ~~the street~~ my outer perimeter I can launch flanking counter attacks from my neighbours garage which I have annexed to improve my defensive posture. Should these counter attacks fail to repel the intruders I am prepared to fall back to my second line of defence in the entryway, ready to call down artillery on the pre-sighted grid squares in my front lawn. My final line of defence is centred around my garden shed, which I have fortified and surrounded with further minefields. I have attempted to expand my defence lines into the park behind my house but lack the force necessary to confront the city in open battle.

I know a couple people personally who actually got home invaded.

One was a nightshifter who was asleep when people were robbing empty houses midday. He woke from dead asleep, was too tired to figure out how to fire his rifle, and just ended up clubbing the guy with it.

The other one was a dealer and his gf. He wasn't home, but would have been armed. She was home and got the shit beat out of her.

If he had been home, i'm convinced both of them would have been shot dead. Because the 6 guys who showed up definitely had a plan, were organized, and I saw them run off and they were all strapped.

Which is all just to say, it doesn't really go down like you expect it to. You're alllways gonna get caught backfooted because the invader will be prepared and you won't. The guys who fantasize about that never seem to get that reality.

Edit: also, so many of the steven segal wannabes who fantasize about this aren't even living in the sorts of areas where this actually happens.

It's something I'm worried about but specifically I'm worried about people thinking I'm too gay looking or something and trying to lynch me. I've had some weird and scary interactions with people up on the mountain where my parents live.

My dad installed a CCTV system that cost several hundred dollars.

He lives in a gated community.

At the end of the street, with other houses that have boats outside while my parents' has nothing that would call the attention.

yea, my dad my entire life lol. He has one of the most advanced cases of suburban psychosis i've ever seen. He came to help my partners mom with some stuff and they live a normal lower-mid middle class neighborhood and his ass was freaking out like someone was gonna just walk up and break into his car. (we've always been poor btw, their neighborhood is way nicer than anything i grew up in)

When we were growing up he picked a closet and removed the doorknob and replaced it with a deadbolt and would stash shit in there. Anytime we went anywhere hed make me put all my guitars in there lol.

He didn't keep an ar15 by his bed but he did have a 22 rifle.

The last house we lived in together had french doors that he'd always bar with wood and i remember him yelling at me up and down bc i left the house one day without setting up his elaborate jerry-rigged system of wood boards to keep people out 🙄

Oh yea my last boss was one of the biggest dumbest chuds I've ever met. Legit thought my coworker wasn't coming back when he took a vacation to Mexico.

He always talked about how he leaves his door open because he hopes someone tries to break in cus "then they'd have to deal with him"

Really don't think they'd have too much trouble dealing with the 60 year old guy who went straight to the bar after work before going home to fall asleep drunk in his recliner watching fox news at full volume.

The news wouldn't shut up about youth crime so now my boomer parents think they're going to be broken into all the time

My house was invaded by a cute kitty once

Most burglaries are done during day time when people are at work. And a lot of them are targeted based on external factors like car decals and home accessories (signs, flags) that scream “GUN HERE!!”

I do have a home security system (currently a corpo cloud crap, trying to experiment with FOSS solutions) but it’s mainly because I’m not going to walk to me peep hole to check who’s ringing only to walk away because I don’t know them. I rather just check on my phone while in bed. There have been about 3 instances where guys were trying to scope out my place and even walked into my garage to look around. But no action was taken by either of us

Sometimes when I driving home at night I do get a bit paranoid when I see the same car on my tail the entire time, so I’ll take some detours to see what’s up. But that’s mainly because I’m more afraid of zionists and the feds and not some crip breaking into my home.

So I know that the real answers are about, like, liberalism, castle doctrine, yeomen fantasies, racist fearmongering in the news and popular culture, the extreme normalization of violence through many facets of society, etc., but you made me remember about how there's a genre of home security system ads (mostly from the same company, formerly Brinks, now Broadview) that are incredibly exploitative.

And here's an SNL parody of the same ad that I wouldn't call "good" because only one episode of SNL in the last decade has had good skits (and even that episode had more bad skits than good ones), but the video in question does at least do a good enough job of drawing the viewer's attention to how fucked up the original ad is.

Childish "shooting bad guys" fantasies aside, i feel like these people rarely think about how much it sucks to clean up blood. God help you if you have carpet or if the laquer on your wood floor is worn through. Never getting your deposit back.

I literally have nothing to steal, my phone is years old. My laptop is even older. My tv in my kitchen is from like 2010. I'm poor as fuck all they could steal are some grocery gift cards.

My house has been invaded over 700 times. I have in my mono-armory : self-dense uchigatana, self-desfense aluminum bat, self-defense battle sledge (30 lbs.), self-defense double-cannister bear spray, and the much-needed self-defense flamethrower.

I do have a home invasion plan, but it's mostly a really bright flashlight and telling people "Hey we don't call the cops here but please don't break my stuff". I do need to re-up my pepper spray, though. It's past it's sell by.

Folks are much, much more likely to hurt themselves in a firearms accident than they are to ever stop a home invasion with a gun. And in almost every situation pepper spray is better at convincing people they don't want to be in a fight tonight than guns are.

One of my coworkers tells me he always pulls out his Glock to check the corners when he comes home in the evening

deranged as fuck. I wouldn't trust this person with anything.

If you have a gun by your bed, but not a fire extinguisher...

Really just get a fire extinguisher by your bed.

I'm obsessed with invading homes, do you want to see my kit?

I know one guy who I think only does it to try to convince others he's a badass.

True chads just have imaginary anime fights in their heads while looking out the window.

i am non-straight in an american suburb, i wish i had a gun, not for 'home invaders' or 'druggies' but to give the local neo-nazi groups (there are several nazi groups where i live, expecially traditional catholic youth workers party or some shit has buildings everywhere in a nearby city) and cops (same picture i know) something to consider if they start thinking about rounding up the gays and leftists. i've had transphobic marches outside the gas station convenience store my friends work at. other of their coworkers have had stalker problems. i personally have several ex-friends who turned out to be abusers that i cut off contact with, and i worry one of them will come after me someday after something doesn't go right for them.

i don't think i'd be john wick though, i just want to take one with me and put the fear of death into the nazis or cops if they come after me, give them a reason to hesitate at the next door they kick in.

I once had a really drunk guy bang on my door at like midnight thinking there was a party or something. I said there wasn’t anything there for him and he started getting really aggressive trying to shove the door open but luckily I was wearing shoes and just blocked it with my foot. If he hasn’t been being so unpredictable I’d have offered him some water or food but I just closed and locked the door. He banged on the door for another 15 min or so before getting bored and leaving. I didn’t call the cops or anything. I have a 2 1/2ish foot aluminum tee ball bat near my door though but I’ve never even had to consider grabbing it before.