Comment by smcin

I clearly said "violent home invasion", not just simple "burglary". "Violent home invasion" means both a) somebody was in the home and b) there was violence involved (whether simple assault, tying up, or (rarely) kidnapping); in some cases it was the occupant retaliating against the criminals. I never said this was a "a common tactic of [all] burglars"; I did imply that violent home invasions is a small but non-negligible subset. [2] and [6] below give examples.

Basic statistics: [1]: The US averages ~1 million burglaries/yr, 3,300/day, or one every 25.7 seconds. (Most burglars are unarmed; most properties are unoccupied when robbed; most burglaries don't involve violence; most burglaries only last <10min; only 12% of home invasions are planned in advance; 88% of burglars may be robbing to support their drug habit; 85% are not professional burglars)).

See [2] for an up-to-date dataset of individual incidents involving recent deaths or injuries in violent home invasions, listing no. of casulaties and deaths.

See [3],[4] for aggregate US statistics from 2017-2020, citing FBI/DOJ.

Some complicating factors in crime-tracking statistics [5]:"Elusive statistics":

> "The term "home invasion" isn’t standardized across jurisdictions, or universally defined; or necessarily used in crime-tracking data. Some jurisdictions use it and some don’t, but there is no universal definition or dataset. What would be called a home invasion is often reclassified as the eventual crime committed by the suspect — a robbery, a physical attack or so forth."

According to [4]

> 7. Only 7% of home burglaries involve violence. > A State of the USA report found that 7% of these (on average) resort to violence on a yearly basis; though, only a few (12%) burglars had used a firearm. The most common type of violence present in burglaries is a simple assault, with 36% of cases resulting in only minor injuries and psychological trauma.

I see little point in arguing about how "rare" or "common" this is; personally I know people this happened to. You could argue that when we subtract cases where the occupants shot the burglars, and exclude that some of the fatalities are homes of drug dealers or people who are known to carry large amounts of cash, that the overall number of injuries law-abiding-occupant home invadees who were threatened, injured or killed is "comparatively low".

For example, [6] reporting from ABC7 on a recent string of violent home invasions in South San Jose, CA; this sort of thing is admittedly rare:

  - *"5/31/2022 home invasion in the 600 block of N Capitol Ave: 5-6 suspects bound an elderly couple with belts, brandished a handgun, assaulted the victims and stole valuables.*
  - *The suspects, using a stolen vehicle, [then] committed a second home invasion in the 1000 block of Summerdale Dr, where they held a male victim and his 15-month-old child at gunpoint... threatened to shoot the child and kidnapped the victim, forcing him to go to his bank to withdraw money. The suspects also stole various valuables from the home."*

> what stops a home invader from cutting off the internet before the attack?

Nothing (other than speed, preparedness and competence; home invasion crews do not in general act like Ghost Recon). But that's missing the point; the truncated footage will still show when and how the home invasion happened, the number of criminals, their general description, may also show vehicles or weapons.

None of us are interested in debating strawmen; please just tell us your suggested best-practices in home security for self-hosted/non-cloud solutions.

[1]: https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/homeowners-insurance/hous... "Bankrate.com: Burglary statistics 2022"

[2]: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/query/2109008e-ddd0-4318-... Gun Violence Archive: Home Invasions [i.e. the subset of home invasions that involved a gun]

[3]: https://comfyliving.net/home-invasion-statistics/ "21 Important Home Invasion Statistics to Consider in 2022" (cites statistics from recent years)

[4]: https://policyadvice.net/insurance/insights/burglary-statist... 27 Alarming Burglary Statistics for 2022

[5]: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/oct/25/michael-mo...

[6]: https://abc7news.com/south-san-jose-home-invasions-robberies...