When it comes to defending your family in your home, there have been some questions that come up. This article is a guide to the circumstances involved in using deadly force in your home.

Most states have a ”Castle Doctrine”. In some states it is referred to as the “Make My Day Law”. In those states, a person has certain protections and immunities and may in certain circumstances use force, up to and including deadly force, to defend against an intruder without becoming liable to prosecution. If you are in your home, and you reasonably fear imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm to yourself or a family member, you can protect yourself with deadly force. That is a right that every person has, to protect themselves and the ones they love, wherever you live. If you live in a state that has the Castle Doctrine, you may do so without the duty to retreat, and without fear of criminal prosecution or civil lawsuit. States without the Castle Doctrine may rely on case law instead of specific legislation, may enforce a duty to retreat, and may impose specific restrictions on the use of deadly force. Duty to retreat is simply that you have the duty to try to retreat before using deadly force. Part of your training regimen should involve knowing the laws of use of force and self defense in the jurisdiction where you live or travel.

Let’s go through a list of some things that you should do if you are involved in a deadly force situation in your home.

1.  Have a plan on what you and your family would do if someone forces entry, or enters your house with no reasonable grounds to be there.  If not, directly advise them if such a scenario ever happens, what you expect them to do.  Are you commonly armed inside your house?  If not, where are your guns stored?  Would your movement be limited, as far as protecting your family, if someone came in the front door, versus a side door.  Would the timing of the entry matter?  Develop a plan now. 
2. If someone forces entry into your home, or enters your home without force, but has no legal right to be there, you should immediately tell them that you are armed, and you are trained and willing to use that firearm if they do not leave.  Think of your positioning within your house, as far as  where other family members are, or may be at that time.  The last thing you want is to be in a position where you are forced to defend yourself, but other family members may be in the line of fire, or crossfire.  Some of this may fall back on your developed family plan.  
3. If you are in fear of your safety, or the safety of a family member, or great bodily harm, and you engage the subject, be aware that you will most likely experience certain physical changes, such as tunnel vision, impaired hearing, loss of certain physical movements or feelings.  Develop a plan now for things you might say, or yell as you are forced to engage someone.  By yelling stop, back, get back or other similar commands during an encounter would certainly be advisable.  Make sure that you and your family are safe.  If need to move to a better advantage point, move and make sure that your family is out of harms way.  Advise other family members, if home, to refer about your developed plan and to immediately call 911.  Even mentally preparing yourself or others on what to say when 911 is called is advisable.  Once that trigger is pulled, and the shots ring, everyone’s mental and or physical reaction may change.  If you are the one who has to call 911, try to remain calm and keep an eye and your sights on the intruder.  
4. Make it quick, but advise 911 that you were forced to defend yourself, and that you need help and medical response.  You want to maintain throughout the entire process that you acted in defense of yourself, or yourself and others, as police arrive and as investigators arrive.  Always ask for medical response.  Do not assume that the person is deceased, let medical professionals decide that and make that call.  Once you advise them, lay the phone down, but don’t hang up the phone.  Keep talking, advising them on gate codes, if necessary, description of what you are wearing, that you are still armed and that you are still in fear of the suspect.   Keep watching their movements if any, especially if they had or have a weapon.  Advise them on your precise location within the house.
5. When officers arrive, let them take over the scene  and move yourself and family members into a safe area.  Once you know they are on scene, secure your weapon.  Cooperate with officers by maintaining that you were forced to defend yourself, but also know that your memory will be distorted.  For you to give the most accurate account of what happened, you will need 2 things.  Time and sleep.  You should also have legal representation, even if it is within your home and you live in a state with the Castle Doctrine.  Today, it is common for police officers and agents to be granted up to 48 hours before they are interviewed.  This is because of these two factors needed to give the most accurate account of what happened.  So by simply telling them that you were forced to protect yourself and your family from an intruder, and that you would like to give an official statement at a later time, with your legal counsel, you should be allowed to give official statement at a later time.
6. Realize that you should not talk to anyone outside your family until the official interview is over.  Even after that, you should keep any conversation about the event to a minimum.  Realize that you may be separated from your family briefly in order to get statements from everyone.   This is common police procedure.

If you are forced to defend yourself in your home  very seldom will anything further come of it.  But, there have been cases that have had issues with a shooting inside a home, but were cases where the a subject had a right to be in the home, or was provoked or instigated to enter the home.

There are similar laws such as the “Stand your ground” laws that some states have implemented, which remove the requirement of the threat being required to occur on your own property.  However, any case outside your home may be looked at differently than in your home, even in the “stand your ground” law is in effect.  Due to the political climate of today, special interest groups and other external influences, this may be the case.  We will look at those instances more in depth in a future article.

For more information on the Castle Doctrine, and laws in individual states, follow this link.