The Things You Need in the Safe Room During a Home Invasion

During a home invasion or other emergency, circumstances might lead you to isolate your family and defend a safe room. This is a go-to home defense strategy which is based on the idea that it is much easier to defend a doorway than it is to go in search of an attacker.

Doorways make natural choke points and present a challenge for any intruder and an advantage for those who defend them. If your family is spread out you may not always be able to gather  them together but having a safe room on each level of the house is a good approach to creating safe places of refuge from threats.

Considering that home defense strategy I want to discuss some of the essential things you will need with you in that safe room if you are going to successfully defend it.

1. An appropriate firearm for home defense. This is a highly debated topic to be sure but you want to maximize ammo capacity and select a firearm that you are most likely to be able to make fast and accurate shots on target.
2. Secure Firearm Storage system. Since your safe room is a place for your refuge you need a firearm but since you should have multiple safe rooms and because you can't always control where an innocent child may be or where your attacker may be in the home; make sure that the firearm(s) in that safe room are secured in a safe or system that only authorized people can access.
3. Extra ammunition, preferably already in spare magazines or speed loaders. You don't know how long you may have to defend that safe room and you don't know how many attackers you will have or how true your aim will be. Don't run out of ammunition.
4. A cell phone. If you can not reliably count on your cell phone being with you, you may want to invest in a prepaid phone that is stored there permanently.
5. An extra set of house keys should you need to toss house keys out a window to law enforcement when they arrive on scene. The alternative is you having to leave the room and make your way to the front door to let them in.
6. The necessary means to escape out a window if needed. If you are on an upper level of the house you will need an emergency ladder. These also come in handy during home fires so best to have one in every upper level bedroom.
7. Light. A few strong flashlights with extra batteries as well as a firearm mounted light if possible.
8. Something to provide cover. An object large enough that you and the family can find protection behind it and which is strong enough to protect you from small arms fire.
9. Water. You can survive a few days without food but water is essential and even more so if you are sheltering small children.