Burglars-Armed Home Owners and Firearms...Your Choice

Burglars, like all criminals, must assess risk before engaging in a particular criminal activity. Some are dim bulbs and get caught rather easily. The smart ones become quite good at-risk assessment and run for a long time period before they are caught.

Breaking into a residence involves significant risk. How much risk? That depends on a wide variety of factors, including the physical security level of the house, whether it will it be easy to ingress and egress without being seen by neighbors, cameras, passersby, and whether the homeowner is home. Above all, they would like to know if there is someone in the home with a gun. That would constitute an extremely high risk break in. Criminals are rarely suicidal, and there are countless cases where a criminal has broken in (alive) but came out dead in a body bag. We know it, and they know it

If you have not heard of the Knoxville study, you should. Here it is:

Today burglars fear the homeowner much more than the police. They know the police cannot shoot them for crimes against property and cannot chase them if they flee in a vehicle. When was the last time you heard of the Supreme Court handing down a ruling in favor of the victim and their property or more authority for the police to apprehend?

Burglars are familiar with how the criminal justice system works to their benefit from slap-on-wrist judges who hand out probation five or six times to sympathetic jurors who view a burglar’s drug addiction, abusive father or alcoholic mother as a valid excuse. They are also aware of jail overcrowding and budget cuts which lessens punishments for their crime.

Hardly a day goes by that a team of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, behaviorists, criminologists, etc. aren’t doing Q & A surveys in prisons and jails seeking answers to antisocial behavior.

The most profound and undisputed survey I reviewed was asked of convicted burglars by an FBI behaviorist:

1. Would you B&E (break and enter) a home if you thought it occupied?

A. No — 88 percent (the other 12 percent are hard-core burglars).

2. Would you B&E a home if you knew the owner was home and maybe had a gun?

A. No — 95 percent (the other 5 percent are called cat burglars)

3. Would you B&E a home if you knew the owner was home and did, in fact, have a gun?

A. No — 100 percent (I told you they fear the homeowner).

So, to answer the question, no, a gun (a metal tool) in the house without an operator has no effect on keeping the home “safe.” That same gun in the hand of someone who is willing to use it to protect him or herself is very different matter.