InisBineest wrote:
I am wondering how it might go if one were to use a potent enough handheld torch to dazzle a would be attacker should they try to enter the home. Has anyone ever mucked around with bright torch to try this out (cause.. hey, people do some random stuff, who knows, may as well ask) as i'd rather not turn an olight into my face to check for efficacy!
Cheers!
Some of these lights now are coming with warnings they could cause eye damage on the highest settings. Some of the light output of these modern LED lights is pretty damn impressive. I would imagine an intruder at night would probably have their eyes adjusted to darkness so suddenly being lit up with 5000 Lumens would be an awakener. And they don't know what is behind the light.
Years ago I read some of the actual laws on the books in regards to self defense in Australia and basically to me in my interpretation, they value the attacker over the victim and essentially the attacker can have their way with you and you are totally in the wrong if you do anything about it. As part of my job we do all sorts of attack scenarios and they are kept as realistic as possible. Having been involved in thousands of these scenarios the thing I have learned is attacks of all kinds happen very fast and critical decisions are made within a second or two. I think at that point if your brain is cluttered with too much legal morass while someone is trying to kill you, then you will end up dead. My stance is always retreat if you can to avoid conflict but do what needs to be done if your life is in jeopardy and do it without hesitation. I saw someone mention if you used a firearm your licence would be revoked. Well, if the intruder has a deadly weapon and is in the walls of your home, I'd rather be alive and be dealing with licence revocation and legal action rather than being dead because when you are dead, you're dead and there is no reanimation.
The other critical thing I learned is the best way not to be attacked is to not be on the X when it happens. In your situation with such weak laws I think the thing to focus on is criminals like to prey on the weak. Make yourself a hard target. Trail cameras and security cameras are dirt cheap these days. Motion activated lights are cheap these days. House alarms are cheap these days. Add thorny brushes around the perimeter of your fence. Fence your front yard/driveway. Improve your doors or windows, make them more difficult to break down. When I was a youth, one of the houses I lived in had a storage unit behind it that kept getting robbed. This was the days when surveillance video was expensive and didn't work well at night. The city put a no s**t real city light in the back yard of our house and my dad and I planted thorny Russian olive trees to keep anyone from jumping our fence. These days on the rural property I live on I let blackberry brambles grow on the perimeter. No one wants to walk through blackberries even high on cocaine. So make your house and property look like you have a good security posture and make it look like they'd rather find a more soft target.
The other thing I learned from the world of surveillance detection is the vast majority of attacks and invasions are pre planned, even by druggies. In almost all cases a property or target has been surveilled ahead of time. Very rarely does any criminal pick a target totally randomly. It does happen but mostly they have identified a target ahead of time. So again improve your security posture, take note of any odd behaviors, record licence plates, take pictures.