Here is a link: http://www.click2houston.com/news/2698127/detail.html The article doesn't say anything about their alarm being turned off but I'm sure I heard it on the news.
It turns out that in the real world, it's really easy to miss someone with a handgun, especially when you are charged up with adrenaline. You would think that you wouldn't miss from 12 feet away, but you can. Now a shotgun? It's pretty much a given that you will hit your target.
Guys, the best thing is to utilize a principle called "Depth of Defense". There is no one thing that will deter a robber, but if you employ many, small things they can add up to a house that a criminal decides to pass up. For example, a dog alone may not deter someone but a dog, along with an alarm, motion detector lights and a well-lit perametar all add up to a house not worth messing with. Of course, if you have something specific the criminal wants pretty much nothing will stop him/her.
If I shoot in any way similar to how I fire guns when playing first person shooter games, I'm going to need a bomb, not a gun.
its illegal to booby trap your home, I would think that an alarm that auto-kills would fall under the same law ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!
I hear your point but I doubt we'll get any true data here. That is why I'm asking if anybody can give us their first hand account. I want more than "peace of mind." I want some facts. But basically, we still have not heard one first hand account of how an alarm saved anybody. We have heard several stories of how the alarm scared the crap out of the home owners, however, and even resulted in slipped disk.
The problem is that you can't get true data since you don't seem to place value on the deterrence factor. It's like saying adding a stoplight at a new intersection can't be proven to reduce accidents because no one can prove how many accidents would've happened if it hadn't been installed. I don't know about you, but there are people saying they get monitoring for $13/month in here. I can spare eating out 1 or 2 times a month for that "peace of mind" you don't place value in.
Everything I have seen/read indicates that the signs and stickers are just as much of a deterrant as the system itself. The deterrence factor isn't a major sticking point for me. Difference being is that these systems are sold to us by indicating that we'll catch thieves in their tracks. (Action/Reaction...not deterrance.) I simply would like to know if this ever happens. If it doesn't, they are telling us lies when they sell us the systems. It doesn't give me ANY "peace of mind" knowing that nobody can give us a story about how a theif was captured. Oh well.
what kind of crappy ass ninjas need assault weapons? maybe you need to do a little studying up: Ninja Lesson
One of the problems is that it's diffcult to know whether it really helped or not (a thief being captured can't be the standard because it'd have to be a really stupid thief to hang around while the alarm was going off. Even if the police responded quickly, the thief would have a heck of a head start). When I was growing up, our alarm went off a few times when no one was home. By the time the police showed up (and they showed up pretty quickly back then), there was no one there. Usually we'd find a door open, but couldn't tell whether it had just blown open or if someone had actually attempted to enter the house (as far as I know, there were no signs of forced entry, but the step-mother at the time would sometimes forget to lock various doors, so who knows. Heck, there were probably instances where she set the alarm after having left a door wide open). I don't recall any false alarms when no one was home once Dad married Wife #3, so I kind of figure it was something Wife #2 was doing incorrectly that was setting it off.
I used to work at an alarm company a few summers ago, and what I've learn is that they like to trick customers with an old trick that goes like this; The alarm company has sales people that sell the companies product but are not directly associated with them, so when you try and contact the alarm company about any questions you have, or any problems you have, they will say that the person that sold the alarm should take care of the problem or answer any questions you might have, the problem is that the seller doesn't know anything about repairs so they will tell you to cal the alarm company back, so they will do that back and forth till you can't take it anymore. In my time at this company i heard some very angry customers yelling at the "customer service" people. I worked as an IT so i had nothing to do with the customers still i felt sorry for them. Just in case someone doesn't believe me the name of the company is or was A-Link, I don't know if they still exist, I only worked there in the summer. All I'm saying is to be careful with the company you hire. Make sure it's not this one.
