Important Safety info for homeschoolers – Re: Breakins

I must agree with amama5.  I had a similar incident happen.  I had noticed foot prints around my window one winter. I thought it was odd but my sister-in-law and her kids lived next door so I brushed it off as the kids were seeing if we were home.  Then, the neighbor said their were some footprints in front of my bedroom window.  I thought this was odd because we had a queen-size waterbed right in front of that window and there was no way anyone could look in.  She thought they were trying to look in her window since she lived upstairs and her door was right next to our window. She was single so that made more sense.    I never gave it much thought after that but I did see a hispanic man driving a feiro by our house looking as if he was looking for someone. I own a feiro so I noticed this right away.  I just figured he was looking for the girl upstairs.  So, I didn’t give it much thought.  Until!

   We moved out of the apartment and my sister moved in.  a few months had gone by and she heard a noise on the back porch.  I had left a bag of recycling cans wrapped around my bicycle handle. The bicycle was right up against the back door.  I left the bike there in case she may need it to ride somewhere.  The intruder went on the back porch and tried to get in the back door. When he moved the bike to open the back door the cans fell and my sister heard him coming in the back door.  She ran out the front door.  She called the police and we figured out it was the man in the fiero but of course he said he wasn’t there.  He was visiting a friend that lived a few blocks away.   So, my advice is to not let the kids play to close to the windows and if you see foot prints near the window don’t shrug them off.  

  I also want to say that sometimes things happen and we know the people.  Recently, I had someone I knew stop over because “They didn’t know I was Home.” ????   Why would they stop over if they didn’t know I was home?.  You see… My husband and I usually go on vacation the same time every year.  This year I stayed home.  This person was surprised to see “I Was Home”  So, even if you are going somewhere sometimes it is best not to tell anyone.  Or don’t let them know that the whole family isn’t going.  He just kept saying over and over. I didn’t know you were home…   That also goes for facebook.  Let them know when you get back from vacation. Don’t let them know when you are going.  Even if you are leaving the house.  Don’t let anyone know you are going shopping for the day.  I was telling my husband that I want to set up one of those trail cameras right outside our house. This way, I know who and when they stopped by.  If anyone is really wanting to steal from you they will.  I just thought I would tell you guys that it isn’t always someone you don’t know. 

   Another article I had read… was about men going to homes while they knew the husband was gone to work during the day.  They would break in and rape the women.   Now, if you are in front of a window they know you are there.  If you are not home I would suggest putting on a radio when you leave. Then, they are not sure if someone is home listening to the radio or not.  IF you don’t have a dog you can just buy a big dog dish and put some water in the bottom.  Put a sticker or sign in your window “Beware of Killer Dog!!!”  This is suppose to deter burgalars.  You would be surprised at how many peeping toms come around at night when the whole family is there.

  Last night my husband was saying that in New York they put everyone on a list that owned guns. This list was publisized in the newspaper.  It was telling everyone in the area who has guns.  They were trying to say that the people who own guns should be treated like those on a sex offenders registry. Now, if my neighbor wants to know if I own a gun they can ask.  They don’t have to come to my house if they are scared if I have one.  I don’t think everyone needs to know if I have a gun. It is my right to bear arms. I am not going to shoot someone that I know.  That is against the law. That is why they have laws for that reason.  But if I have to protect myself from intruders foreign or domestic then they should have to wonder if it is going to be an easy take down or not.

   Now, for one I sure wouldn’t want someone breaking into my home stealing my hunting rifle. I am sure that it could go either way. It could say “hey! stay away from this person!” or “Hey! this guy has guns come try and steal them when he is away.” Either way I think it is wrong to put anyone on a list that owns a firearm. So, beware this is only going to target even more criminals to step up to try and see if you are home.  Even if you have a fire arm.  I think the element of surprise would be a little more shocking.  Even if the gun isn’t loaded.

   Hope I didn’t stear to far off the thread.  It just made me think about all the home security options going on out there.  🙂

      Blessings and I hope that if they come. you are prepared. whether, it be a radio on loud or your a packin! 🙂

Found this idea, and thought I’d pass it on to those who need a “guard dog” 🙂

http://thehomesecuritysuperstore.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/safety-tip-of-the-week-home-security-get-a-guard-dog-2/

Having lived in Great Britain for most of my life and having never seen a gun there…I do take issue with people making out that my country is now having major gun problems.  The British people in general have never embraced guns and the ban did not affect most citizens.  We have some gun crime but that is in the inner cities among gangs who tend to shoot each other with illegal weapons.  Gun crime in England is very, very low compared to here.  We have had 3 major incidents that I can remember and that is about it.  I will say I feel far safer in the UK than I ever have here – we have violence, but rarely with a gun outside of the inner city.  Gun crime escalated once immigration rules were loosened and we were forced to take in many from Eastern Europe and other places….guns smuggled in became more available to these and the inner city was the market for them.  Prior to that you rarely heard about a murder by gun,  and you still don’t, I think their were about 58 or so murders in Britain last year.  That is very low in comparison to here.  Most violence in England is either perpetrated in the home by a family member, or by drunks out late at night.  We do not have the crimes against women to the same extent that happens here and a lot of the video games and movies that are really violent are banned there. 

I appreciate the 2nd ammendment and what it stands for, but I am a little annoyed when the right wing press try to make out that we have such dreadful gun crime in the UK when there is relatively little by comparison.  This country has always allowed guns, and most Brits don’t wish to own one…different culture and background in the history of the country.  So Rachel I will respectfully disagree with you on this one…having lived in Europe for 45 years I know what it is like in Germany and England, and the gun crime is pretty rare – even our police only carry a gun on occasions, our regular police officers do not carry, that should tell you something.  The madmen off on a shooting spree is something that I think has only happened 3-4 times in the UK..and they are always terrible events, but please don’t make an argument saying our gun crime has gone up 30% when the ban had little to do with that, other circumstances did.  There will always be a certain amount of illegal weaponry around, and as a matter of interest knives are the weapon of choice in the UK…and nasty as they are, mass stabbings usually don’t happen often.

My husband likes the idea of guns, I don’t – my feeling is that if I need a gun to protect myself, then I am living in the wrong place…in my 45 years in Europe, I never ever felt unsafe, even when traveling at night on public transport and though we guard against petty theft, I never felt the need to own any kind of weapon.  I am shocked at the level of crime here, especially crimes against women and children, and a lot of that has to do with the acceptance of violence here in the movies and gaming industry…I never saw that level back home.  Mental health issues need to be tackled here as well as movies and gaming industry being a lot more sensible.  Gun control is not something I will speak on, because you have your right to bear arms, and that is something special to your country.   Anyway, I just wanted to put the record a bit straighter – all the right wing blogs (I am rightish wing) are trying to make out Britain has become so violent since the gun ban – this is just not true in the way it is put across.  Even before the ban very very few people kept guns – farmers did and sportsmen too, but not the public at large.

Hi Rachel, I am not well, so am not on the computer much at the moment.  I have a horrible back problem at the moment and cannot move about much – however I wanted to comment on this.

Crimes such as break ins and things have increased and in large part that is due to the lax immigration laws – we have many East Europeans who come over, have no job and start a life of petty and not so petty theft…it is a problem, prior to those lax laws coming into being, and it is partly due to the EU laws, our crime with our own people was pretty much only petty  We do not have the violent crime that you have here in the same way though.  I have never met anyone in my own country who has been the victim of a violent encounter with anyone and I know a lot of people and areas.  It just is a rare thing, we don’t have the violent home invasions on a regular basis, and we do not have the women or children being abducted and murdered at anywhere near the rate you do here.  So yes we have petty crime, some serious crimes in the cities and the occasional really heinous act.  We had a couple of young girls murdered by someone they knew, and there has been the odd murder, but it is not a huge problem.  Society has become unpleasant in many countires, but here there are few laws with movies and anything seems to go with video games, yet is Europe we do have bans against certain ones of that genre.  I imagine that would go against the free speech thing here, but to be honest I am glad we have banned those types of games and movies, you can still get some of course and the internet is a big problem and no doubt some crime is fueled in Europe in a similar way, but not in scope. 

I am used to seeing camera’s everywhere in the UK as well, but I consider them a blessing and an evil.  Many crimes do not get committed because of those cameras, but of course we give up a freedom to do that.  However I never really bothered about them and was glad in many ways that they were there.  We grew up with completely different outlooks to the US and it works for us, your system works for you, but they cannot be easily compared because of that.

I don’t think the immediate answer starts with Washington, because they cannot get their acts together anyway.  I believe it starts in the home.  I believe parents need to start taking responsibility for raising their children to behave from when they are little, to respect authority and to shield child’s eyes from violence on screen and computer.  I believe the education system needs to be overhauled, and I believe that money and greed need to be  embraced less.  I believe that life from the smallest insect to the largest man must be valued and everything in between…we cannot allow our children to show cruelty to anything, because then they grow up to be cruel individuals.  All these things would go a long way to help the vileness of the society we live in now…however it will not happen because not enough parents care enough, or know enough to do these things.  Growing up we haad 3 tv channels in England, and they were only on for a few hours in the evening, now there are channels everywhere and most of them rubbish, movies so vile, games revolting like the Wii murder, which is so graphic it is shameful and then phones and computers and children and adults can be bombarded with violence and smut every minute of the day.  The amount of children I see with smart phones and tablets, who text each other while sitting next to each other in full view of their parents astounds me – and these are not poor people, these are educated parents who see nothing wrong with the fact that their children can barely hold a conversation and cannot spell…we are becoming zombies and it is sad.  I am not in favor of a gun ban for your country, it would be wrong as stated in your Constitution – however I wish many times I lived away from a place where guns are held in such high esteem and that feeling will never change.  Culture is what needs to be changed, but I fear it is too late.  Now back to my ice pack….:))

Rachel, I don’t think most people who care about their kids allow the rudeness – like you, we have never allowed technology to rule our home, and our girls don’t have a phone and they are young adults.  They don’t want one  – they use my dumb phone when they need it, and are happy with that.  The do have simple i-pods, for their music, but they don’t watch tv, save their movie time for things like the Hobbit, and prefer to craft and be out at the barn.  I sometimes think we are in the minority now though – it used to be the tv that was the babysitter, now it seems to be phones and ipads – sad really when it takes the place of real living.  Technology is fantastic but not when it over shadows everything else.