House Clearing Tactics

Please note that says “House CLEARING” and not “House CLEANING”. (small joke)

As I sat to attack this article and began to outline the necessary knowledge and skills it takes to clear a structure I realized that many of the readers may not have a military and/or police background. Such can be handy when one is discussing tactics because certain outlooks are taught early on in training delivered to soldiers or law enforcement professionals. Indeed, certain outlooks are almost inherent to such people within one to three months on the job. So, I’ll have to share some of those with you, discuss tactics, talk about strategies and (hopefully) help you to understand better how to take on the high risk activity of clearing your house.

First and foremost I need you to understand that all of the following doesn’t only apply when you hear something go bump in the night. Except for the parts obviously dealing with low- or no-light conditions this article applies anytime you’re undertaking the clearing of your home. Lighting conditions change the circumstances only; not the risk or strategy. The tactics are certainly altered, but if you use your light correctly, they are immeasurably tipped in your favor. In other words, I’d always prefer to search a dark building instead of a well lit one.

The next biggest understanding we need to all have is the distinct difference between cover and concealment. In your own home you should be able to identify where each item is that can provide you cover. Cover will stop bullets. That means that if the bad guy decides to start shooting at you and you’re behind cover, the bullets will be stopped. What we cannot do is depend on the television writing pukes to give us an accurate list of cover. Contrary to popular television shows, sofas, beds, refrigerator doors and sheet-rock walls are NOT cover. Of course, most of those items will slow down projectiles at least a little bit and if it has to hit you then the slower it’s going the better off you are – but we’d all prefer not to get shot, right?

So what is cover? Some heavy wooden furniture may be. The whole refrigerator might be. Cast iron appliances (wood stoves and such) are. Some tubs are of coated-heavy-metal construction and would be. Walls that are made of brick or stone are. Most homes of modern construction don’t have much cover built in. If your house doesn’t have much cover or if you’re moving in between the cover that is few and far between you must depend on concealment. Concealment is only good to the extent that it functions. All it does is hide you. But…

Have you ever played hide-and-go-seek with a toddler? Every parent has. It’s just so cute when they hide their head or eyes and since they can’t see you they assume you can’t see them. This is how an ostrich hides from a lion: he puts his head in the sand and thinks everything is okay. These things are important to remember when you intend to use concealment as you move through your house. As you do so remember that you can hide behind an item; you can hide in the dark; or you can hide behind a wall of bright white light.

If you hide behind an item it must conceal you totally. How many times have you seen someone hiding behind a door or curtain but you could still see their feet? They aren’t concealed. If you hide behind a door, remember the gap at the bottom.

If you hide in the dark remember that it must be absolute – or at least far darker than the light level from which your bad guy opponent is looking. At night, after our eyes have adapted to the lower levels of light available that we usually call “dark”, we see in shades of gray and can do a pretty good job of distinguishing between total black and shapes that are gray and moving. Our eyes, day or night, are drawn to movement but because of the lower levels of light at night and the fact that the darkness leaves our brains hungry for any type of visual input, movement attracts our eyes even better in such circumstances.

If you hide behind a wall of bright white light remember that the “wall” is illusory. It isn’t really there. You are depriving your opponent of visual input excluding anything except your light. The down side of this is that he can now only shoot either randomly – which is very dangerous – or at your light. Most of the time you’re holding that light so the bullets are going to be coming in much closer than any of us would like.

Let me make a side note here: I know quite a few people who have mounted pistol lights on the handguns they have designated as primary for home defense. Their thinking, as it’s been explained to me, is that by mounting the light to the gun they only have to hold one item to search their house. That item is the gun / light combo. There are two problems I have with this:

First is that you might be searching through your house to find what went bump only to find out it was your wife, husband, sister, brother, mom, dad or family pet. Heaven forbid, it might also be one of your children. No matter which of those might have gone bump, if you’re searching with your gun/light combo, then when you find them you’ve done so by pointing your gun at them. That’s not something I condone or would ever feel comfortable doing.

Second is that if you are using that light to hide behind, as discussed above, and the bad guy starts to shoot at the only thing he can see – your light – then what’s right behind it? Usually your face and I’d REALLY rather not have rounds coming in toward my head. Please keep both those considerations in mind as you decide what tools you will keep at hand in what configuration for your home clearing work.

Now, with all those considerations brought forward, it behooves us to determine in advance a minimum of two things:

1) Our home emergency plan: the entire family must be in on this; informed, trained and practiced. In my house there is a specific location that my spouse will gather my children and take the phone with her. She’ll be on the phone with 911 while I’m doing what needs done.

2) What tools we need to have at hand and then insure that we have them safely at hand.

At a bare minimum I would recommend that you have:

• a quality hand-held size flashlight that produces at least 120 lumens of light;
• a handgun of good defensive caliber (9mm, .40, .45, 10mm, .357Sig, .38 or .357 revolver);
• a spare magazine of ammo for that weapon;
• a cell phone.

Before I go on, let me clarify about the cell phone. If you live alone – and therefore have no one to call 911 for you while you work your house – then the cell phone provides you a communication option wherever you end up needing such. If you live in a rural area and end up pursuing a bad guy outside your home (not something I necessarily recommend depending on your circumstances, training and local laws) then having the cell phone gives you comms at hand. In my case, I live in an area that is more urban than I really prefer, but I’ve also made the decision NOT to chase a bad guy out of my house unless circumstances are of a specific set. In other words, once the bad guys is fleeing out the door or window I’m not giving chase.

Looking at the other items:
When you go to the range it would be wise to train and practice with the flashlight at hand, in hand, dropped, used, pocketed, etc. It would be intelligent to practice a reload while you have your flashlight in your hand. The last place you want to have to do that first reload with your flashlight in your hand is while you’re under fire in your own home with your wife and kids in some room behind you as you’ve started to clear your house.

Now, many of us – in our mind’s eye – picture ourselves clearing our house and never consider what we’re wearing. Most folks I know sleep either in pajamas or underwear. Neither is designed to comfortably carry or holster a gun. This begs the question: when you need to put your handgun down, or put your flashlight somewhere as you go because you need an empty hand to open doors, etc – where will you put it?

I highly recommend a standard “fanny pack” that you can keep these items in inside your nightstand drawer. Obviously it would be unwise to store them perpetually as children and guests can easily access such. Each night before bed I take my handgun out of my gun safe and take it down to my bedroom. In my bureau I have a particular drawer that already has the spare magazine and flashlight.

The handgun should be JUST outside your reach from your comfortable sleeping position – so that you can’t reach it in your sleep. Before you grab that gun you should be fully awake and alert. Our judgment and perceptions are too cloudy to handle a handgun safely until we are fully awake.

Now, let me ask this question: what about those of you who choose a long gun for home defense? I know folks who use a shotgun, carbine and rifles of various manufacturers, makes, models and calibers. What changes?

Obviously it takes two hands to handle any of those long guns, so mounting your light onto the gun becomes almost mandatory. Maneuvering in your house becomes more complicated because you don’t want to lead with the gun through a doorway. If you consider it this way:

You want the barrel of the gun to see everything your eyes do at the same time. To do that, the barrel can’t “look around corners” before you do. In doing that you potentially tell the bad guy down the hall not only where you are, but how fast you’re coming along, and what kind of armament you have. It completely robs you of any advantage of surprise you might have and, in fact, may give the bad guy the advantage as he springs an attack on you based on the info you’ve provided.

Speaking of info you’ve provided… When you are searching your house at night, any use of light can potentially give the bad guy information about you. It can tell him where you are, how fast you’re moving, how tall you are, if you’re smooth or clumsy and more. Our ultimate goal is to give the bad guy ZERO information; to do that we have to use our light sporadically. Instead of turning it on and leaving it on as we search we need to flash it and then let what we saw in that brief flash take form in our heads. Practice this some and you’ll be quite surprised how much info you can get in a brief flash of light. YOU can get a lot while you give the bad guy very little.

Once you’ve found and made contact with the bad guy is when you turn that light on full power and hard in his face. Let him see the light and the gun and as little else as possible. Let the message be: “I’m here; you’re there; and I’m fully willing and capable of putting holes in you if need be. Now do as I say.”

Remember not to hug corners as you go and staying against walls in hallways isn’t wise. Remember to keep your handgun at close hold, pulled in against you and not sticking out where it’s easy to grab, as you search. Remember to keep your finger off the trigger and out of the trigger guard as you search. It would be a true shame if you were to be surprised by a family pet and, as you jump in surprise, squeeze off a round that kills that pet – or worse, a family member on the other side of a sheetrock wall.

The truth is that clearing your house after something goes bump in the night is a task that takes skill and calm. Your best bet may be to gather your family in a close location where you guard the door while your spouse or older child calls 911. If it’s your choice and a safe option, you keep yourself and your family safe while the police respond and clear the house. Either way, the time to make such a choice isn’t AFTER you wake up from something that’s gone bump in the night. The time to make that choice is ahead of time when you can discuss it with your family, make a plan, practice the plan and prepare for the eventuality.

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