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I live in Baltimore and we all know there have been recent car jackings by gunpoint, home invasions etc (lo aleinu). What is proper hishtadlus? Getting mace, a gun? What have you or those you know done for added security?
Davening more and with better kavana.
Pepper spray yes, for protection.
My shul’s calendar this year has an advertisement for a gun club.
gun of course requires classes & a gun license.
make sure for hishtadlus that you have a camera AND Alarm system in your home covering every room & wondiw with video recording so that you have backup proof if needed C”V.
Make sure your property is properly lit up at night & also always looks occupied even when you go out for a wedding & not only when you go away long term to have a system setup to make your home look occupied. this includes timers for your lights, mail picked up daily-& not once a week- by a neighbor etc….
After the terror attack in Har Nof Rav Asher Weiss ruled that anyone who has a gun license should bring it to shul. In my community those who have licenses were told by the rav to carry them and those who do not should carry some other form of defense (I personally carry pepper spray which I bought after a couple of confrontations with unfriendly dogs). I also heard that today’s cell phones are only uvda d’chol (I do not know the technical reasons) but so far as I have seen only paramedics carry them (at least openly).
pa -“What have you or those you know done for added security?”
Make sure you can’t get into the house (eg. window bars, etc.)
With car jacking, be aware of your surroundings!Anyone from South Africa wanna weigh in here?
F. W. de Klerk made South Africa a dangerous country with his surrendering of the country, allowing the criminal elements to take control.
as the house liberal, I don’t think anyone outside of law enforcement or active duty military in the US should have a gun.
Get a good alarm system with panic buttons, secure your doors and windows. We have 4 dogs, they bark like crazy when an unknown steps on the grass.
Our home is surrounded by motion detector spotlights (off on Shabbos and Yuntif).
We have a neighborhood watch.
The CTL compound is fully fenced and gated…necessary for carrying between the houses on Shabbos.
We don’t live in the city or a high crime area. We wouldn’t want to.Put an NRA sticker on your window. It is probably more effective than actually having a gun.
1. Move to an area where you see people leaving stuff on their porch or lawn, and where as you go to shul in the morning you can see women walking or jogging. The preceeding are true of all the frum neighborhoods in Baltimore.
2. Avoid anyone doing illegal drugs. They tend to attract criminals.
3. Check the crime statistics (usually available online) and compare your neighborhood with others. Ignore dire warnings from anyone who might benefit from promoting fear of crime.
4. Avoid countries having or recovering from civil disorders as they usually have messed up law enforcement.
It is prohibited to view women jogging.
It is prohibited to view women jogging.
Send your wife to scout out the place
1. How many carjackings and home invasions have there been? If there have only been one or two or a small handful, then it may not reflect overall crime trends. People have a tendency to make faulty judgments about overall facts based on one case.
As for the home invasions, did they occur when the homeowner opened the door to a stranger (as happened in at least one case)? If so, don’t do that and the chance of it occurring to you are very low. Home invasions are relatively rare. If there were home invasions on my block every week, I would certainly get a gun, but if the risk is far less than that, the risks may outweigh the benefits.
Overall, statistics show that people with guns in the home are far more likely to die from suicide or being shot by others in the house than to shoot an intruder. Think about it — even if you had a gun, how likely would it be that you had time to grab it during a home invasion, unless you wore it on a holster at all times (not recommended!) or had several guns planted in various locations throughout the house (not recommended!)?
2. Think about moving elsewhere — there are many frum communities with far less crime than Baltimore. Anyway, you can check the block by block crime stats — perhaps you’re already in a safe area of Baltimore.
3. Take normal precautions applicable everywhere, like always leaving your house and car doors locked, avoiding dangerous areas, not going out late at night, not getting in disputes with people in public such as while driving, staying away from places with people who are drunk or on drugs, etc.
Isn’t the “Baltimore” frum community outside of Baltimore proper? (Like the “Detroit” frum community is in Southfield/Oak Park rather than crime-ridden Detroit they they moved out of decades ago.)
You’re safer if your neighbors down the block have guns than if you have one yourself.
Joseph,
Isn’t the “Baltimore” frum community outside of Baltimore proper?
There is Baltimore City (what you’d call Baltimore proper) and Baltimore County, which surrounds the city. A lot of the frum areas are within Baltimore City.
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