Remember back during grade school, when you would have fire drills, or maybe tornado drills if you live in an area like Ohio that is subject to tornadoes? Or maybe earthquake drills if you live along a fault line. Or any number of other drills for some sort of disaster. Looking back you make look at such drills at pointless, or maybe at the time you were just happy because a fire drill meant you had 5 less minutes of class. There was actually a very good reason for having such drills, and that is because the human mind sometimes has trouble thinking coherently when confronted with a situation outside the normal circumstances, full of unknowns.
The purpose of such drills is it helps to build a known routine that your body and mind can revert to in case of such a situation. I remember one time during grade school there were funnel clouds in the area, and when the sirens went off, every student knew exactly what to do. I can only imagine the chaos that would have occurred had we never done a tornado drill. There is a reason that military and law enforcement constantly train for a wide variety of scenarios. In the military you have months or years of training before you are deployed to a combat area, and there is a very good reason for that. Because it helps your body adapt to adverse situations.
Similarly, creating a defense plan could be a good idea for you and your family, and is something you should consider, especially if you have others living in your home. That way it will take some of the unknown out of the situation if you ever have some sort of home invasion occur. The plan can really be as simple or as detailed as you want, actually, just having a basic plan may be the best, because it is most versatile.
Now, what I am not suggesting is that you hear a bump in the night, and the try to be Rambo and clear your entire home. That is actually the last thing I would suggest, unless you have extensive house clearing training and experience, and a team of people with similar training to do it with you. Clearing a structure by yourself is an extremely dangerous, and practically impossible thing to do. There are a lot of techniques that you need to know how to do, and unless you are trained in the proper ways to do it, I would strongly, strongly suggest not to do so.
A much better plan would be preparing your home and supplies in such a manner that they aid you in the defense of your home. Make sure you have good locks on doors and windows, motion lights, possibly a security system, and other physical deterrents that will help keep out all but the most determined attacker. You can never make a structure completely impenetrable, even the mightiest castles in history fell to sieges. But, you can harden the defenses of your home, for minimal fees, that will help make your home more secure.
Aside from changes to the physical structure, have your supplies ready to go, and a plan on how to use them. If you have others, like children living with you, have a plan to consolidate all of your family members into one room. I would suggest for children, to have them stay put in a safe spot in their room, until you come get them, so family members are not running around in the dark. Find a safe way to keep a firearm and ammunition around your sleeping area, just make sure that unauthorized users can not gain access to it. Three in the morning when something awry has just woken you up is not the time to be loading magazines. If you have other adults living with you, signing up for some quality team/partner tactics training would be an excellent idea, so that both of you would be on the same page.
Have a good flashlight handy so that you can see in the dark, and learn proper techniques for how to use one in a defensive role. Have your cell phone or home phone by your bed, so that you can call the proper authorities.
Reinforce the door of whatever your "safe room" is going to be, in order to create a barrier once your entire family is in the room. One idea that I have heard as well that I like is have a spare key in the safe room attached to a new chem-light. That way, after you call the police and the dispatcher tells you that have arrived, you can activate the chem-light and throw it out the window to them, so that they can enter your home and find any possible bad guys that may be inside. If anyone else has any unique ideas that they like, I'd love to hear them.
Just as I think every home should have a plan what to do in case of natural disasters or fire (a fire plan can be as simple as setting a rally point at a place away from the house where all family members should go in case of a fire, so that everyone can be accounted for), every home should have a plan in case of a man-made attack or invasion. It doesn't need to be elaborate or flashy, but everyone living in the house should know it. A person's home is their castle, and you should be able to defend it according to the laws of the area in which you live. Making sure you know your state's "Castle Doctrine" or other home defense law is also of vital importance. But, make sure you have a plan, its better to spend some time developing the plan and never needing it, than needing a plan and not having one.
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