Q&A With Chief Security Advisor at Boss Security Screens
Speaker 1:
Well, good morning. How is everyone today? Welcome to the Boss Security Screens. Uh, first podcast, we are broadcasting live, so we have some callers here today that we’re hoping we’ll be able to join in on the conversation. Uh, my name is Michael Johnston and I am the Chief Security Advisor here for Boss Security Screens. So today we’re gonna do some discussion, uh, some question and answer, and then hopefully get to know each other a little bit, maybe even explain how certain things work. Uh, a lot of questions usually come in around burglaries, robberies, and theft, and then of course, how to prevent those things. So today we’re gonna go ahead and get into some of those things. I’ve already got a panel of questions that were set to me already, but you as a listener, if you are here and wanna join in on the questions, please, um, go ahead and enter them into the chat and we’ll do the best we can to answer ‘em.
Speaker 1:
So let’s, uh, let’s just talk a little bit about who I am, where I come from. Um, so I am a originally from Nebraska, and, uh, I started my law enforcement career in 1989, and I worked for the Lincoln Police Department from 89 to 92, where I work primarily as a patrol officer. Then in 92, I moved out to Las Vegas here in the Henderson area, and, uh, subsequently was, uh, hired by the Henderson Police Department. Now, the first two years of my career, I, uh, did serve in the corrections facility, and that, of course, was as a COO and not as an inmate. So, uh, don’t get confused on that. Now. In 95, I transferred over to the patrol division, and I worked in pretty much every patrol division, uh, that we had. We had the east, west, north, and, uh, we also, uh, as I promoted through the ranks, uh, had the opportunity to work in nearly every specialized position that we had on the department.
Speaker 1:
Now, if I wasn’t in that particular unit as an officer, I spent a good portion of my time, uh, as a supervisor. Now my expertise lies in the Investigations division where I spent nearly half of my career, uh, working in some form of investigative capacity. So it’s, uh, it’s one of those things that, uh, I feel is my duty now, is to share the knowledge that I’ve gained over the last, uh, nearly 29, 30 years. Uh, I also run a private investigation company, and, uh, so that’s given me an opportunity to continue to work with folks after I retired from law enforcement in 2019 as a captain. So, with that being said, um, I think we have a lot that we can talk about today. And, uh, some of these questions are the kind of questions that I see pretty frequently. And, uh, as we, uh, dive into these questions, uh, let’s go ahead and just start talking about some of the basics.
Speaker 1:
Um, folks always want to ask questions about burglary, right? That’s, uh, usually the first thing that’s on their mind is, uh, how do I protect my house? Uh, what are the, what are the things that we can do and, uh, how do we make the security around our home stronger? And those are all great questions. And, uh, if you have been following on our webpage, we have a blog section that I have been writing for now for several months, and, uh, we have a lot of great content on there. Um, anything from scamming to theft to burglary, how to do prevention method methods to, uh, you know, beef up the security around your home. So, why don’t we go ahead and just tackle the first question and then see if that spurs any conversation from those that are out there, uh, joining us today. So the first thing that, uh, I usually get asked is, what’s the one thing that’s likely to stop a burglar from coming into your home?
Speaker 1:
And the answer is, it’s not one thing. Now, I can tell you that, uh, through my career, I’ve only seen one thing work a hundred percent of the time, and that’s why I’m here at Boss Security Screens. Uh, in terms of pure deterrents, uh, boss security screens, uh, outperforms every security measure on the market. Um, in terms of pure deterrence, when you see a home that has every penetration, meaning the doors, the windows, the sliders, uh, French doors, when those penetrations are sealed with something as secure as the boss security screen, you don’t have a fear that things are going to go wrong because those, um, due to the, the framing material, uh, the increased security that’s provided by our mesh, which is customized for your home and for our product, it makes it very, very strong and difficult to defeat. And if you haven’t checked out our website, you need to go to boss security screens.com and check out the videos that show exactly how strong our product is.
Speaker 1:
Uh, we have compared them to other products that are commercially available through outlets. And you can just see the difference in the quality, and you can see the difference in how they stop an intruder from getting in. But let’s just say for argument’s sake, that you do not have boss security screens on your house. Well, then the other, uh, options fall into something we call SEP ted. Now, SEP TED is the crime prevention through environmental design. And some of the SEP TED principles talk about how to keep your landscaping, how to develop your lighting, and then how to layer your security efforts so that you have additional protection built into your home that’s not standard. Um, I just put out a couple of new blogs, and if you go to the blog section at security, uh, boss security screens.com under blogs, what you’re gonna see is quite a few articles that are covering things like sliders, uh, how to increase the security of your entry doors, and then of course, how to handle your windows.
Speaker 1:
So under set TED principles, we wanna make sure that our landscaping follows the two foot six foot rule. And what that means is you don’t want shrubbery that’s going to stand taller than two, maybe three feet at the outside. And that’s because you don’t want something that is big enough for someone to hide behind. And the same thing goes for your canopy. You wanna make sure that all of your trees, all of your overhead shrubs, all are trimmed at six feet or higher, because that is, of course, the average height of, uh, of an adult male. And so when you are looking at making sure you can see those people from the street and be able to prevent a burglary, well then we wanna make sure we have that two foot six foot rule in place on our shrubbery. We also wanna make sure that we don’t have a lot of shrubbery that’s blocking our windows line of sight is very important.
Speaker 1:
I mean, how are you gonna know exactly what’s going on in your neighborhood if you can’t see what’s going on in your neighborhood? And what about your neighbors if they can’t see your house or see around your windows, doors and gates? How are they gonna know if somebody’s breaking into your home? So when we start to think about sub TED principles, uh, I wrote a series of articles for our blog that cover those principles in full. The other thing that’s in addition to your landscaping, we wanna make sure that our lighting is appropriate. Uh, again, on the sub TED principles and the blogs, we talked about how lighting can really actually blind you. And there’s some pictures on the blog there that show how you can have, um, a light source that is blinding you and creating a shadow for someone to hide in. And when that gets created, it actually can cause a safety hazard for you as the individual.
Speaker 1:
So we wanna follow good sep TED principles. Now, a lot of people like to think about dogs. Now dogs are not a bad deterrent. Um, but what’s the first thing that happens when a dog begins to bark, uh, which is his natural warning system to let the master know that there’s somebody in the backyard? Well, the first thing we do is we open the door and we yell at the dog to be quiet. Um, so they’re not disturbing the neighbors. Well, now what you’re doing is you’re defeating your early warning detection system. Uh, that is their natural way of letting you know something is going on. And if we are going to stifle that, well, then we’re already defeating our security purpose. And the other thing about a dog is, um, they can be a good deterrent if they are not easily, um, friendly, you know, if they’re not overly friendly.
Speaker 1:
And so, you know, when a would be burglar comes to your home and they come to the gate, if that dog doesn’t actually demonstrate some type of aggressive behavior, uh, towards that intruder, well then that if that intruder’s gonna know that there’s probably very little chance the dog’s gonna cause a problem if they commit a burglary or they can just open the gate and let the dog out, the dog can run free. So those are some things that we really want to take a look at. And then, of course, reinforcing our doors and windows. And I just got done writing an entire article on how to do that when we start to think about how we, um, develop the security around the standard door. Uh, if you don’t know how a door is built and how it is installed, when you take the white casing or the wood casing off around a door, what you’re gonna find is there is the actual framing inside the home, and then you’re going to have a sub frame for the door.
Speaker 1:
And then they use shims, which is little pieces of wood, uh, to put in between the gaps so that they can plum and tru the door to make sure that it’s balanced swinging. And, and then, uh, of course, uh, square. And then once they get done doing that, uh, then they’re gonna put that trim work that everybody sees. But the screws that hold the hinges that hold the door mechanism and the strike plate, which is that little plate where the door latch latches into it, uh, those are often held by, you know, maybe half inch to three quarter inch screws. And that does not go through the sub frame and into the actual framing of the home. So a lot of times what we recommend incepted is that we take those screws out and then we replace ’em with something as long as two and a half to three and a half inch screws.
Speaker 1:
Now what that does is it gets you right into the wood framing and it secures the door even more. Uh, it also helps support the weight of the door. So if you do those in the top hinges and put one in each hinge, now your door’s less likely to come loose over time. So those are some things that, uh, we can do to immediately stop a burglary from coming into your home. But then of course, there’s always some questions that come around. Things like, um, which houses do burglars, uh, try to avoid? Well, let’s just think of it logically. Uh, if you are thinking as a burglar and you’re walking down the street, which home do you think you would pick? Well, I think the answer’s fairly obvious. We’re gonna be looking for someone who does not have security measures in place. So again, obviously if you have no form of window and door covering, like security screens, sec, uh, security, you know, roller shades, those type of things are visual deterrents that let a bad guy know, Hey, this house is already covered.
Speaker 1:
It’s probably got some layered security in there. I’m not gonna go to that house because it’s already fortified. So when you have an obvious fortification on a home, that’s probably the number one deterrence. Now the other thing that is, uh, they’re going to look at is the landscaping, right? We just got done talking about it. So if you’re going to have landscaping that allows, uh, for concealment, it makes it easier for them to operate in the backyard. It allows them to jimmy the door or the window because now they’re hidden behind landscaping and the neighbors are never going to see. So we want to make sure that we are making our home, uh, less appealing to them. And we do that by having obvious, um, maintenance, uh, of our landscaping, the correct lighting, and then of course, any security measures that you wanna put in place and layer.
Speaker 1:
And when I say layer, we’re talking about security cams, we’re talking about alarm systems, and of course, um, security coverings over your doors and windows. So those are the houses that they’re going to avoid, but they’re also going to avoid houses that don’t look like they have something to steal. And so again, if you are publicly displaying what you own, uh, you’re only enticing somebody to maybe make an attempt, uh, at a burglary. Now the next question that came in, and this is an interesting question because it’s hard to answer the question, Do burglars hit the same house twice? Well, the answer is, there’s no set rhyme or rule to this. Um, has it happened? Absolutely. Um, but does it happen as a rule of thumb? No. And again, let’s go ahead and think about this. Logically. You get hit for the first time. Now you have been violated, and sometimes that violation when you come home.
Speaker 1:
Some people are continued, uh, continu to be afraid because once the sanctity of your home has been violated, it’s very hard to feel safe again. And so the very first thing that folks do is they go out and they start to beef up their security because they’ve already been victimized once. And so when you do that, we need to find, uh, a way to make ourselves feel better. And we do that, um, by starting with some of the simple items, usually camera systems, alarm systems. And then of course, if you are willing to do more investment, then you start to put some type of treatment over the windows that’s going to stop burglaries, right? And we start doing all the things that we’ve talked about. So generally speaking, if you’ve already started that process, the odds of that burglar coming back again is very low because you’ve already taken measures to prevent it.
Speaker 1:
But also think about the fact that they’ve been in your home, and so they already know what you have. And if they did a good job on the burglary the first time, they got everything they wanted and everything they came for. So why would they come back again? You know, again, um, when lightning strikes twice, uh, it’s generally never a good thing. And even burglar know that. So they don’t wanna be seen in the same place over and over and over again. They’re gonna move on. And so, uh, hopefully that answers your question in full there. So, uh, do we have anybody here on the, uh, on the, in the chat here that is, uh, willing to post a question? I’m more than willing to take anything that’s on your mind. Uh, we’re gonna get into some of the things that have been posted on the website, but I do wanna take a minute and just acknowledge, uh, some of our viewers and see if you have anything that’s on your mind. So go ahead and enter a question into the chat and I’ll do the best that I can to help you out.
Speaker 1:
Now, another question that came in earlier, uh, and we did take early questions, was, how did burglars break into a home at night without being seen or heard? Well, let’s talk about that. Um, entry into a home doesn’t always have to be forced. Uh, and this is why you need to do really good security checks prior to going to bed. Um, generally speaking, when there’s no signs of forced entry, then the homeowner or someone has left a door unlocked or they’ve left a window unlatched, and that allows free access into the home. And if you don’t have a security system or an alarm system in place, well that door and that window is gonna open very quietly, and that allows someone to sneak in. Now, um, when we are trying to avoid that, uh, again, we talked about a lot of different things that you can do to secure your doors in addition to your locking systems.
Speaker 1:
Um, in an article that I posted just a few weeks ago, there’s some additional, uh, security measures you can do that allow you to, um, secure those doors even further. There are some, um, doorknob braces that go from the doorknob to the floor. Uh, there are some platings that you can put into the floor, and then it locks the door. And then of course, there’s some, um, door kick style that allows you to prop a door open or lock it into place. So there’s a number of aftermarket things that make it easy to prevent those kind of burglaries from happening and those break ins. But when somebody is being or found in your home, uh, without doing forced entry, then generally speaking, we’ve left it unlocked. And the same goes for your vehicles. Folks always wonder, Well, I I’m sure I locked it well, if there’s no real signs of a forced entry, then odds are it was unlocked at the time.
Speaker 1:
And when we look at video, you know, back when I was in the investigations division and you start to check back on the video, what we end up finding is the door really was unlocked. Now, there are a few sophisticated burglars out there, right? Uh, let’s just be real. Some of these criminals are able to hone their craft pretty well, and when they do that, they do have methods like lock bumping, uh, lock picking, and then of course for doors. Um, if you’re really good with, uh, shimming a door, uh, you can open it that way. And of course, there is the ability to pull the door away from the frame that allows you to get down inside the door handle and then unlock it from the inside. Now those take some tools, you’ll see locksmiths, that’s how they get you back into your vehicle.
Speaker 1:
Um, so they have a number of things that they can use, but when they have those in their possession, we call that possession of burglary tools. So if we ever find a bad guy rolling around out there in the neighborhood, in the dark daylight whenever, and they have certain tools in their possession that are used for burglaries, um, we have to be able to articulate as police officers, one, their intent to how they would use those tools in a way to commit a burglary. And then of course, we need to tie them into the neighborhood or not into the neighborhood. And then you’ve got things like criminal history and a whole lot of things that go into that. But again, when we start to think about how people end up in your home, generally speaking, it’s because we didn’t do a good job of locking our residents down.
Speaker 1:
So hopefully that takes care of some of those concerns that we, uh, that we had. Um, we get into what the difference is, um, between the various types of crime. Uh, one of the, one of the questions that came in, um, was about burglary versus robbery versus theft. And I’m gonna take a minute and try to explain that. Now. Theft is really just the unlawful taking of somebody’s property without permission. And we have generally two levels there. Uh, anything over $1,200 is gonna be a felony. Everything under is gonna be called a pet larceny, uh, oral minor larceny. And so when we start to think about theft in terms of that, um, it’s really just taking somebody else’s stuff and, uh, converting it to your own purpose. Now, how does it become a burglary versus a robbery? And those are very, very good questions. So I’ve taken the liberty to go ahead and, um, taken excerpt from the, uh, Nevada revised statute.
Speaker 1:
So the definition for burglary can be found under Nevada or bio statute that is NRS 2 0 5 0.060. A residential burglary or a burglary of a business is when a person who by day or night unlawfully enters or unlawfully remains in any dwelling with the intent to commit a grand or petit larceny, assault and battery or any felony, and to obtain money or property by false pretenses that’s guilty of a burglary. So let’s think about that. Now, let’s say you are in a department store and you decide that you want to remain inside the building, and so you hide somewhere in the building itself, maybe in the bathrooms or in some storage area, and you wait until the employees close the business, and now you’re there alone and you feel completely comfortable walking around the store, taking the items that you want to take, and then you exit the store and leave.
Speaker 1:
Now, whether you trip an alarm or you don’t, uh, eventually they’re going to find that you were there after hours without permission, and you took personal property from the business, you have committed a burglary. And burglary doesn’t necessarily involve forced entry. Now we generally think of burglary as a forced entry, but it is just the unlawful entry. So let’s go back to the question that we just had, the one we just talked about, and that is forced entry. And how do people end up in my home? Well, if I check your doorknob and turn it and the door opens, I’ve not done forced entry into your home, it was open, or maybe the door was partially open and I just pushed it open. We’ve got a burglary. And so my intent was to go in and steal, which is right, committing a grand or petit larceny or any other felony.
Speaker 1:
And so if I was to commit another crime inside your home while doing a burglary, I have both crimes. So let’s say I come in and I commit a battery on you, and then I leave. I don’t even have to steal anything, but I’ve entered your home, which constitutes burglary, and then I committed a battery, or I injured you in some way. So now I’ve already completed the elements of the crime for a battery and for a burglary. And in law enforcement, we’re gonna charge both of those crimes even though they’re a part of the elements of a burglary. But simply entering that burglary or entering that building for the intent commits or completes the process for a burglary. So how about a robbery? Um, this question comes up quite a bit. How is a robbery different than a burglary? Now robbery, uh, under the same, um, definition from Nevada revised statutes, 200.380 a robbery is the unlawful taking of personal property from the person of another or in the person’s presence against their will by means of force or violence, or the threat of that force or violence.
Speaker 1:
So going back to our scenario, you are at, uh, one of the local department stores. You’ve decided to enter the building. Uh, so you walk through an open door and you go and select an item off of the shelf, and then you begin to walk out of the building. Well, once you get confronted by one of the employees, um, anything as little as a push is going to constitute force or violence, or if I threatened to use force and violence against that person, I’ve now used that level of force to continue the crime. And so by doing so, I’ve committed a robbery. I’ve taken what was a burglary and now committed a robbery because of the threatened use of force. Now, that force can be used against anyone. Uh, so let’s just say you and a group of friends are out and, uh, somebody comes up and intimidates, uh, you personally and wants your wallet, um, but you refuse.
Speaker 1:
Now they say they’re going to shoot or stab or hit one of the other people who are with you. That still constitutes the threat of violence or the use of force, even though it wasn’t against you personally. So again, it can extend to you your family members or those who are with you. So again, the distinction between burglary and robbery comes down purely, uh, to the amount of force that was used. You’re still taking property of another. It still constitutes some form of theft, but the manner in which it’s done is the distinction. So now we’re gonna take it just a step further, and there was some discussion about, well, what’s the difference between a burglary and a home invasion? Well, now when we start to talk about home invasion, again, we’re talking about force. So you would get an invasion of the home, and this can be found under NRS 2 0 5 0.067.
Speaker 1:
And, uh, the definition of invasion of the home is a person who by day or night forcibly enters a dwelling without permission of the owner, the resident, or lawful occupant. And whether or not a person is present at the time of the entry is guilty of the invasion of the home. So you do not need to be home, even though the statute mentions being occupied and present. Um, for someone to pry open your door or to pry open a window, uh, or break a window to make entry, that is technically an invasion of the home because they used force to gain entry, and it doesn’t need to be a lot of force. It could be as slight as, uh, or as little of force necessary to make that entry. So now you’re starting to kind of get a clear picture of what this looks like.
Speaker 1:
And so, uh, we’ve now gotten to a place where we can understand the difference. Uh, it was always funny in my career where I’d listened to people talk and they, they always say, Yeah, I got robbed. Okay, well, did you get robbed? Or were you burglarized? Because the definitions aren’t interchangeable, But in our minds, right, in the minds of a lay person who maybe doesn’t understand the law, yeah, you would say, I got robbed, but in, in fact, you were actually burglarized. Robbery again, can also occur. Let’s just, uh, use a scenario. You’re down on the strip, uh, you are carrying a purse and you’ve got somebody who runs by, grabs the purse, but you instinctually clutch your purse and hang on, and they have to physically rip the purse from you or push or shove you while doing that, we have a robbery because they used force and force or, or violence against you to facilitate that crime.
Speaker 1:
It’s not just a simple theft. Now, if that purse was sitting next to you on the bench and they ran by and grabbed it, we’ve got a theft. So that’s how this all works. That’s the difference between what we’re seeing and hearing. So now that you are educated in the difference, uh, you will too be able to, um, maybe correct folks in their line of thought when you’re having these general con uh, general discussions. So, uh, we had a question come in and it says that, uh, they’ve had some nightmares and they’re wondering about if someone is broken into your home, is it better to hide inside or is it better to run out back hoping that no one sees you? Or if they have a partner, they don’t see you? So this is a really tough question. Um, what is the best thing to do?
Speaker 1:
Well, the best thing to do is to prepare, right? We need to have an understanding, one of what we would do in a crisis situation. And as you read the blogs that you see on our website, we are, I consistently talk about preparation because if you are not mentally, physically prepared to react at the moment that you need to react, you’re not going to be able to function. You’re gonna be operating purely on instinct rather than skill. So let’s go back to what police officers do or al artists or any type of, uh, sports athletic, uh, type person, right? They practice, they practice, practice, practice, and they do that for muscle memory. If you’re a boxer, they’re always having their hands up guarding their face. The ones that get knocked out are the ones who drop their hands. And so that comes down to maintaining discipline and knowing exactly what you’re going to do in a given situation.
Speaker 1:
So if you want to feel better about being in your home, and after you have taken the opportunity to say, beef up the security around your home, and you’ve done everything that you can, now the last part of that preparation is saying, Okay, worst case scenario, all of my efforts in security have been defeated, and now someone’s in my home. What am I going to do? And this often comes around to that question of, what kind of weapon should I have? Well, that’s another difficult question, but let’s answer the first one first. Someone’s inside your home. Do you run or do you hide? Well, the question comes down to your safety and your preparation. If you feel that you have a secure hiding place, like a lot of homes now are coming with a safe room. And so you can immediately run to the safe room, you can close the door behind you.
Speaker 1:
It’s reinforced, it has reinforced walls, and no one’s going to be able to break in there. So if you have a safe room, that’s where I would tell you to go. Um, get yourself there, get yourself quick. Grab your kids, grab your cell phone. Make a way and a method for you to call the police. Once you get to your safe room. Do not come out until you know for a fact that it is an officer on the outside, because anyone can say, Hey, I’m the police. Open the door. How do you verify that it’s a police officer? Well, if you’ve got a phone or you’ve got access to your cell phone, make sure you call the local jurisdiction who’s responding. In this case, if you live in Henderson, you’re gonna call the Henderson dispatch and you’re going to say, Hey, I’m locked in a safe room in my home. You give them the address, they’re going to be able to tell you whether or not there’s an actual police officer standing outside your door. And when in doubt, you can wait for a supervisor, you can wait for verification. But generally speaking, once it’s been verified through a dispatcher, you can feel rest assured that you do have a police officer on the outside.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so now we’ve, uh, talking about whether you run or hide, if you have the ability to run, I also recommend that, and that’s for safety purposes because let’s just think about it. Um, if you are still present in the home, you’re hiding in a closet or you’re thinking that you’re safe, you probably are not because this gives the, uh, would be burglar or, um, perpetrator inside your home, still an opportunity and to have access to you. And so you wanna get out, just go ahead and run, find your way, move along, and you can then make a report once you get to a safe place. We don’t care about our personal property, it’s replaceable. Um, but once we are injured, uh, you can’t come back from that. So we wanna make sure that, uh, we don’t put ourselves in a dangerous spot. And that kind of goes along the lines of the training, uh, that I wrote about in one of our articles, uh, surviving a, uh, active shooter.
Speaker 1:
Now part of that is the run, hide, and fight, uh, model. Well, I think even in, uh, while it applies specifically to an active shooter, I think it also applies very appropriately to a burglary or a situation where you have someone inside your home. Um, again, if you are in a position where you can run while getting away is probably your best option. If you are trapped and you have nowhere to go, then do the best you can do and hide. Uh, but then again, if you are found, you’ve got one last option, and that’s to fight for your life. Don’t fit for a moment that, uh, every bad guy is gonna be kind and is going to let you go. Uh, fighting for your life is where you have to have that mental preparation and physical preparation to make sure that you’re ready to, uh, overcome any of the obstacles that would be present, uh, to help maintain and per, uh, preserve your life or the life of a loved one, you know, a family member.
Speaker 1:
So, uh, how do we, uh, guard against and protect ourselves, our home and our family against home invasion? This was another question that just goes along those same lines, and I think that this question has been covered pretty extensively in our blogs. Uh, you may want to consider, uh, getting a SEP TED review, and those sep TED reviews are free of charge to our customers. Uh, they’ll have me come out and we’ll do a quick evaluation of your home. We’ll look at your landscaping, your lighting, your doors, we’ll make recommendations. And then, uh, ultimately those recommendations are for you. They’re, whether or not you choose to use ’em or don’t use ’em, that’s entirely up to you. But having the information is what’s important so that, uh, you at least can make an informed decision, uh, on what you can and cannot do. Now, the question comes up about weapons all the time.
Speaker 1:
And, uh, I think if I had a nickel for every time I was asked about what kind of weapon I should have, or can I quote unquote shoot somebody that’s inside my home, I think I would be an extremely rich man because that is probably the number one question that people wanna know the answer to. So I’m gonna give you an answer. And of course, everything that we talk about here today is, uh, my opinion based on experience and best practices. We always encourage you to do your own research, speak to attorneys before you decide to act on any information. Uh, it is your responsibility to verify. But everything that I’m discussing here is based on criminal law. It’s based in the nrs. And so again, it is also based on best practices. And so we wanna make sure that we are doing things that make sense and that are safe, uh, for ourselves and for our family members.
Speaker 1:
So this is what, uh, we’ve got a question that came in, and I want to go ahead and answer this. It says, uh, when am I allowed to defend myself against a burglar? Well, let’s be, um, very clear about Nevada law. We have something called the castle law or the Castle Doctrine. And under NRS 200.120, the castle doctor and says, People in Nevada have the right to use deadly force to protect their occupied home or their occupied vehicle from an assault by a third party. Now, while it does give us that ability, we also have to think about some of the elements around the use of deadly force. You cannot simply pull the trigger just because somebody’s in your home. There are parameters that everything is going to be examined through, right? There’s elements of every crime. And when we start to think about deadly force, we need to think about four elements that it’s gonna be measured against.
Speaker 1:
And one is, does the suspect have an opportunity to hurt me? Now, let’s say you have boss security screens on every door, every window, and you have someone prying on them, but they’re not making entry. You cannot take your gun and shoot them because one, while they have the opportunity, they clearly don’t have the second requirement, which is the ability, because while they’re out there working on this, this, uh, this security screen that we guarantee they won’t break into you, you have time to call 9 1 1. You have time to prepare and you have time to take a different option. So you can’t just blast through the window and be justified in killing that individual. But if that individual’s in your window crawling through with a weapon and they are threatening you and you feel that you are in jeopardy, well then now you are entering into the realm of deadly force.
Speaker 1:
So let’s talk about the four elements that we just mentioned. One is opportunity. Every person in order to be threatened, there must be an opportunity to carry that out. Now, my mere presence gives me the opportunity to hurt you, but my location really dictates what level of threat you are in. So if I am a hundred yards away and I’m threatening to punch you, now, do I have an opportunity? Yes. Do I have an ability? Well, I gotta cover a hundred yards to get to you. Um, that’s probably not gonna rise to the level of that fear that you need to justify actions. Um, opportunity and ability are usually very closely related in proximity. Um, so when somebody from across the country, say on the East coast, calls me and says, I’m coming over right now and I’m gonna do X, Y, and Z to you.
Speaker 1:
Well, clearly if they’re in the East coast and I’m on the west coast, they don’t have the present ability, uh, to do that. So that’s a very important element. Now, the third and very important element in this is eminent jeopardy, meaning that I am fearing for my life. Those are very key words because if you are standing calmly, let’s go back to our scenario. You got a burglar out there working on the window, um, they’re not making any progress. They’ve been prying on it for a couple of minutes, and you’ve yelled through the window, Hey, I’m calling the police, Okay, this is elevating a little bit. They haven’t left. You’re telling them they’re calling the police and they’re still working on it. You are now starting to approach a new level of whether or not you are in fear for your life. Now, when you’re in fear for your life, you generally have nowhere to go, no other opportunity to leave.
Speaker 1:
We call that preclusion. That means you have no escape routes. So taking this scenario, you’ve called 9 1 1, the, the person has finally made some form of entry into whatever method, uh, or location. He was able to make that entry and now he has a weapon and is coming towards you. Clearly he has the opportunity, clearly has the ability, and you are in fear of your life, right? Imminent jeopardy because, you know, if you don’t take action, this guy can hurt you and you’re cornered in your own home. You have no means of retreat, nowhere. You can run nowhere to go. And so now you’ve met those elements of deadly force. Um, but just keep in mind, it, it, no one can tell you when you’re in fear for your life. No one can tell you clearly when you’re in preclusion because you may or may not have other opportunities to run.
Speaker 1:
All of these things have to be thought about at the time, which is why police officers receive so much training when we’re trying to establish the right thing to do. And you have to make those decisions in a split second, which is why police officers are generally in such a tough spot, because we have to evaluate a number of facts and circumstances that are happening in real time. And then we have to formulate a decision based on those. So for example, somebody pulls a toy gun from their waistband and it looks real. Listen, we have no time to evaluate whether or not that’s a real gun. We have no, um, opportunity to maybe run from that encounter cuz we are in close proximity. If it is a real gun, they’re gonna get shots off, I can’t turn and run. So now we are faced with a bad guy who has a clear opportunity.
Speaker 1:
They’re present, they have a weapon, or at least it appears to be a weapon. They have an ability to hurt me because I don’t know whether it’s real or not. And I am clearly in fear for my life and I have no way to, uh, end this encounter other than deadly force. So now those are the key elements that we have to process when we are thinking about that. And it’s no different for the average citizen, it’s just the average citizen doesn’t have that ability to be trained or to understand what that’s about. So, uh, when you are in your home, and again, going back to these scenarios, you have to really think about that. And this could be a whole lesson in and of itself. Uh, there’s probably not enough time to fully explain it and to answer the what if questions that I know a lot of you may have.
Speaker 1:
But knowing that it’s real and that it’s present, uh, gives us cause to really think about what would I do if I was in this scenario? So again, we have another question here that says, uh, let’s go ahead and assume for the sake of argument that we have justified or justifiably shot an individual who was broken into our home, right? They had an opportunity, they had a weapon that came at me. I had no choice. I pulled a weapon and I shot the individual. They are not deceased, they are injured, and they are on my floor. The question came out was, what do I do? Um, when I shoot a burglar who’s come into my home and then call 9 1 1? What should I do before the police arrive? Well, the very first thing I’m gonna tell you is you’ve all seen it in the scary movies, right?
Speaker 1:
They, they do something, they hit a bad guy and he falls or they shoot a bad guy and they fall and you think they’re dead or you think they’re incapacitated. And then as you walk away, next thing you know, you come back and they’re not on the floor anymore, and now you don’t know where they are. Listen, if you have had to take some type of action against somebody, you stay, you maintain cover and you watch that individual so that you can call the police and tell them where they’re at. Um, now some people may tell you to run away from the scene, and if that’s your best option, then please do. Um, but if you are standing in a place that you have nowhere to go and you are with this individual, you continue to cover that individual. And when I say cover, that means you continue to keep the weapon trained at the individual that’s on the ground until police arrive.
Speaker 1:
Now, if you have someone else in the home and can direct them to the front door, have them meet the police at the front door and get them in the house. When you’re on 9 1 1, tell ’em who you are. Give them a description of yourself, give them a description of the bad guy and then tell ’em where you are at and how you are armed so that they know who you are. When they get there, they may not know and they could mistakenly assume you for the bad guy and the person on the ground as the homeowner. So you definitely wanna make sure that you dispel any of the confusion because it is gonna be a confusing scene. Anything that has some form of deadly force is chaotic. It’s rapidly unfolding and it’s unfolding in real time. So we don’t have that luxury of going back and looking at it in 2020.
Speaker 1:
Hindsight, we are seeing it usually through some type of tunnel vision, uh, because we are really engrossed in what’s happening. So let’s go ahead and, uh, talk now, uh, about what happens if the suspect flees. So let’s go ahead and say that you have taken a shot, maybe you shot him in the leg or the lower abdomen and it didn’t incapacitate him, it didn’t make him go to the ground and they were able to flee the home. Now what you need to do is you need to get on 9 1 1 and you need to tell him direction of travel, suspect description, you know, height, weight, hair color, um, you know, uh, race, uh, weight. You want to talk about what they’re wearing. Sometimes burglars are gonna wear layers of clothes and they’re going to strip shirts off as they run. So they might have had a black shirt on, but now they’ve ditched the black shirt and they’re wearing a white one underneath.
Speaker 1:
Uh, they do that so that it can throw, uh, the police off. Uh, when they run away from in into the neighborhood. Now they’re just walking through the neighborhood, but they’re wearing different clothing. Maybe they throw a ball cap on when they didn’t have one. So they do that all in an effort to make sure that, uh, they increase their odds of getting away, but if they’re injured, uh, in any way, they’re, they’re gonna be likely more identifiable. And so you definitely wanna make sure that you give a good description. Now, after that suspect has flee, uh, flown the scene, you want to make sure that you are safe. So get everyone in your home in a safe location. Continue to call the police, make sure that they know where you are. Uh, if it’s safe for you to leave, do so. If it’s not safe, well then ride it out until the police arrive. Uh, there’s always gonna be someone who comes to the home to check on you while the remaining police officers are patrolling the neighborhood looking for the suspect.
Speaker 1:
So I hope that that clears up some of those questions. Um, it is a really touchy situation. Uh, the same thing goes for your car carjackings. Um, you are in the exact same position that you are inside of a home. Now, cars for all intent and purposes is a structure just like a home is. And so the same thing extends to a vehicle. You are not required to give up your vehicle or your safety for someone who’s attacking you. But again, you can’t just come blasting out of the car just because someone is outside your vehicle. Again, everything has to be taken into consideration with opportunity, ability, eminent jeopardy and preclusion. And so again, I would tell you to make sure in your own mind that these things are clear. Consult an attorney if you feel that that’s something you need to do. But always make sure that what you are doing is clearly out of self preservation and fear for your life.
Speaker 1:
If you are not fearing for your life and the situation doesn’t rise to that level of fear, you will be judged and just you will be judged the way police are judged. So just make sure that you understand that there’s a huge responsibility when you pull the trigger. And that comes to another question that, uh, I get all the time. And that is, is, uh, this question here came in and it says, Listen, I’ve never owned a firearm. Uh, but there’s been a lot of burglaries in my area. And as a single mom, I definitely think it’s time. Uh, what type of gun is recommended for beginners and where’s the best place for lessons? Uh, any advice would be appreciated. Now, I wrote a complete article on whether or not you should own a gun. Uh, it’s called to Own or Not to own, and it is on our website, uh, boss security screens.com.
Speaker 1:
Under the blog section, I would urge you to read that article, um, because it talks about the purpose of owning a weapon. Now the idea of having a weapon is great, but there comes a lot of responsibility with owning a weapon, and we wanna make sure that everybody truly understands what an obligation it is to own a weapon. Now, there’s a couple of warning signs in this question, and I hope you guys as the audience were able to pick up on some of those. One of ’em is, I’m a single mom, okay? That means there’s kids in the house. That always causes me a lot of concern because if you have small children and a weapon in the home, you have a recipe for a disaster. Because if you are going to have a weapon, uh, a weapon is no good to you unless it’s accessible.
Speaker 1:
And if it’s accessible, then children can find it. And then that results in what we’ve heard over and over again, Small children finding a loaded weapon and then accidentally causing harm to themselves or someone else. Uh, listen, a weapon is no good, It’s just a brick if it doesn’t have bullets. And so storing a gun without bullets is, uh, really not the best way to go. So you need to have a series of places that you can put it. Biometrics is a great way. Small safes biometrics. So fingerprints or easy accessible, uh, wall mounted hidden somewhere where you and only you can find it. Uh, but you wanna make sure those weapons are safe from small children. And if you’re going to choose a weapon, then there was some recommendations that I made personally, and this is based off not only my own personal experience as a police officer, but seeing people throughout my career who’ve gone the route of getting a gun.
Speaker 1:
Now, the very first time you go and get a gun, it’s a shiny new toy, you’re happy and you go out, you shoot it a couple of times and Oh man, this is great. And then you put it away. And then pretty mu a month goes by, two months go by. Now six months go by and you haven’t picked that weapon up. But now, in a moment of crisis, you expect yourself to overcome the fear, uh, to overcome the paralysis that comes into your muscles when you are afraid. And then you expect to manipulate a weapon. You are unfamiliar with under high stress conditions. It isn’t gonna work. Uh, it doesn’t matter how simple the weapon is, you’re gonna be shaking. You’re going to be, um, tunnel visioned. You’re hearing you might have some auditory, uh, suppression. And so you may not be fully functioning during a critical incident.
Speaker 1:
That’s why cops train. We train hours and hours and hours so that we can automatically pull our weapon, that we have automat muscle memory, and that we have automatic shoot no shoot scenarios so that we can train our body to see, hear, feel the situation, and know whether or not it’s the right time to pull the trigger. Well, the same thing goes for the individual. Now, in my article, to own or not to own, I made some recommendations. The first thing is, is why do you wanna own a gun? You gotta ask yourself the purpose. Is it for self defense? Is it for gaming, right, for sport, uh, or is it for hunting? Right? Because each of those purposes will drive the type of weapon that you get. Um, but we’re gonna talk about the type of weapon in a second, but we really need to understand why do you wanna own a gun?
Speaker 1:
Now once you’ve established the why, what we need to look at is your body type, because not every person can safely handle every gun. Now, if you have small frame, small hands, um, maybe not a strong grip, certain weapons are definitely not something that you wanna possess because of the kick, because of the size. Uh, a 45 caliber double stack, meaning that the, the bullets stack slightly staggered, okay? That’s gonna make the magazine wider than a single stack. That means the bullets are right on top of each other. A single stack will be more narrow. And so depending on whether you go with a single stack or a double stack magazine is gonna tell you how fat the grip is itself. And if you are having trouble gripping a large brained weapon, now you are bullet accuracy, right? Your shot placement will be off because now you’re having to squeeze the gun, pull the trigger in, and you’re either gonna pull the bullet and the round to the right or to the left, you know?
Speaker 1:
And so now you’re gonna have a problem that you need to overcome. So I strongly recommend that if you’re looking at a weapon, that you go to someone who is trained. And, uh, there’s a lot of quality people here in the valley, but I’m a little bit partial. So I’m gonna go ahead and tell you right now that this is a personal friend of mine. His name is Josh Nielsen, and he is the owner of Dark Horse Tactical over in Henderson off of Boulder Highway. Uh, I think it’s the 2100 block of Boulder Highway. But, uh, Dark Horse Tactical, Josh and Allie Ni. Uh, Josh is a former SWAT operative of mine and, uh, very proud of him. Proud to calling my friend. Uh, he operates a, uh, tactical store, uh, ammunition, weapons and training. Uh, I can’t think of anything better than to go to Dark Horse Tactical and get fitted for a weapon, uh, once you get fitted properly for a weapon.
Speaker 1:
He also has an indoor range, so now you can practice, but just know that there’s a lot of ranges here in the valley. There’s a lot of trained individuals, but you wanna make sure that it’s not just someone who got the certificates and the credentials to train that it’s somebody who’s truly skilled at training. So now, uh, now that you understand the purpose and the fit, you wanna make sure you get the right weapon for your purpose. If it’s self defense, it’s gonna be something probably smaller, something that you can conceal in a, in a place that’s easily retrievable. And in terms of familiarity, um, semi-automatic weapons are generally required, more training and more practice because they have more moving parts of revolver. Small frame is probably a little easier for folks. Uh, it, particularly if you get the right caliber so you minimize the kick.
Speaker 1:
But if you’re talking about a simple point and shoot weapon that is fully loaded and ready to go, then you can’t go wrong with a revolver because it doesn’t have all the moving parts on a semi-automatic. If you do what we call a loose grip, or if you don’t hold it firmly and the slide doesn’t come all the way back, it’s not going to rack the next round effectively, which then it’s probably going to malfunction. And what you have to do then is be trained mentally to know how to overcome that malfunction and the manipulation. So again, I’m gonna draw your attention to some articles and some videos that we produced with Josh over at Dark Horse Tactical. And then I’m also going to tell you that you should read the article on how, uh, to own or not to own the firearm. Now I think we’ve had a really great session today.
Speaker 1:
I really appreciate the questions that have come in. I hope you enjoyed it. Uh, we would like to build on this opportunity. We would like to have more questions come in. So the next time we have something available and we do in our next podcast, I’d really like to hear from the general audience, what are you thinking? What are you wanting to know more about? So feel free to put questions into the chat and, uh, let us know what you’re thinking because this is how we educate ourselves. Uh, preparation is about taking the time to learn about options. How do I present myself in the best possible way, and how do I prepare myself for the potential threats that exist in our world? So I think we’ve had a great session today. I really appreciate everyone’s time and uh, again, I would urge you to visit boss security screens.com and go
Speaker 2:
Into our blog section and, uh, check out some of the articles. I think you’ll enjoy ’em. Until next time, be prepared. Uh, my name is Michael Johnston and I’m the, uh, Chief Security Advisor here for Boss Security Screens. Have a great day.
