Why does it seem like Americans are obsessed over home invasions? Do you have a lot of them?

Masturbatory fantasies of getting to kill someone with a gun, and then get praised for it

I've lived in cities in the US most of my life and I routinely forget to lock my door, I've never had anything happen. Nobody is desperate enough to go rooting through my dirty laundry, shoes, and old electronics for something of value.
It's just suburban psychosis
- I woke up from a nap to someone rooting through my shit in the living room in the middle of the day.
  The only time I've had someone do something like that it was my landlord, fucker was trying to show off my apartment while I was still living there

Full disclosure I personally support an an armed proletariat. That said my favorite thing to ask home protection people is, "when is the last time you had your fire extinguisher tested?"
Its a free service offered by most fire departments. Far, far more children are killed by fires than roving packs of murderers. Guns are much more likely to be used for suicide or domestic violence. If you own a gun but not a fire extinguisher you don't really care about protecting your family, you just want to kill someone
- This made me realize that I didn't even know where to look for a fire extinguisher because I've never noticed one in any store I've been to. Apparently they're mostly available in some section of hardware stores that I haven't been to often
  Meanwhile there was a prominent booth for buying guns in every walmart near me until walmart stopped selling them altogether
  
  Some grocery stores sell the smaller ones also. But yeah, Americans are super weird about safety. Taking a basic first aid course is going to help you save lives far better than shoving a pistol in your pants or learning krav maga
  
  Always make notice of fire exits when you enter a building. That will more likely be useful than carrying a gun ever will
  
  aldi and harbor freight sell some shitty little $20 ones
  
  They’re right next to the smoke alarms.
  Test your smoke alarms too btw
- An armed proletariat should probably take the form of an organized and coordinated militia, with everyone trained on how to use their weapons and checks on their health to ensure they're able. Randomly strewn about weapons purchased on credit for anyone who shows up to a gun store seems bad.
  
  Ideally, but under no pretext and all of that. I was mostly just stating that I didn't support blanket gun bans though I have to admit I don't really trust Americans with them
- Additional pro tip: don’t just keep a fire extinguisher in your kitchen. You need one in your bedroom, too (in the event there is a fire when you are asleep and you need an extinguisher to get out or get your kids).
- also kids don't kill people with fire extinguishers, but every year toddlers kill people with guns in the US so lmao
- They also make small extinguishers for your car. Though EV fires are nearly impossible to put out, so perhaps it’s not necessary anymore…
  
  Someone should design a tactical fire extinguisher with picatinny rails and shit to get chuds to fantasize about putting out a fire with. Then they could just fetishize those and own like 40 of them and maybe actually do some good with their lives

Sorta tangentially, many American suburban developments are arranged primarily to be as defensible as possible in a way that makes the people living there extremely paranoid. Suburbs often have one or two entrances / exits branching into one looping and some number of non-looping paths. As a result, there will almost never be anyone driving through the suburb without a deliberate reason to be there. Most often, it's because they live there. Neighbors will quickly recognize each other's cars and be able to identify each other's comings and goings. Seeing an unexpected car (or any person of color as many of these spaces are entirely white) will immediately raise questions on the neighborhood snitch app or text group. Also, neighbors are constantly spying on each other because the structure of suburbia highly encourages it. This type of suburban design was created explicitly because of and for the purpose of racist paranoia.
- Also people were compelled to root out secret "commies" hiding among them, as that was another thread of McCarthy era paranoia.
  
  When you say commies do you mean black people?
- Nextdoor.com and ring doorbells also enable techno-surveillance and maximum freakouts anytime a black guy walks through

I saw a documentary once about Americans who have a lot of guns, and there was one guy in it who kept loaded guns stashed all over his house so he'd "always be ready" if someone broke in. The interviewer didn't bring up that he was probably also leaving weapons everywhere for the burglar to use against him, and I wonder if he'd ever even considered why that might be a bad idea.
- burgler is going to the big cartoon safe in the freedom room, he ain't looking for rando rifles hidden under floor boards or false bottom in inflatable waifu

If you report a home burglary to the police they immediately assume that you're a drug dealer as they're not generally worth the risk except for the kind of target who tends to have cash and guns and drugs around

So is it? Does it happen a lot?
No, it’s the paranoid delusions of lead poisoned white Christians who’ve been told their entire lives that they’re persecuted and need to be vigilant against the masses that want to harm them
- In their defense, I would like to harm them
  
  Real
  
  Based

Americans always seem to think that everybody is out to get them all of the time.
- I think it's the inevitable end state of liberal ideology: "there is no society, just atomized individuals, everyone's in competition with each other, every man for himself."
- they have only one filter that they use to see the world "threat"

Closest thing to a home invasion I've ever experienced was an elderly couple that walked in on me taking a massive bong rip and asking if some guy named Jake or John or something lived here, turned out they were in the right place but the wrong floor.
- Lmao

Upper middle class white devils living in suburbs have a dim awareness of how their lives are situated on a mountain of corpses. Their imagination thus conjures for them an image of lower class rebellion against them. These suburban whites are already paranoid, since they're caught between two poles. They're not rich enough to be ghoulish, grinning bourgeoisie, and they're not desperate enough to identify with the working class. And these are the people who collect the most guns and obsess over home invasion. Not poorer people living in high crime neighborhoods, but sheltered whities in gated communities
So they're paranoid from two angles. With the capitalist class they'll concoct wild conspiracy theories about mind control or vaccines or whatever. With lower class people, it's just racist panic over black or Latino people existing.
A lot of the home invasion prepper types also claim they'll be prepared in the case of a tyrannical government takeover, but I seriously do not believe them. None of them are going to shoot a cop or national guard solider. I don't remember a single instance of that happening in the midst of covid curfews. Their criteria for when tyranny starts is ridiculous too. Tyranny is just gun control, and that's it. So long as suburban whitey still has small arms to play with, America is still apparently trucking along just fine.
- All true. I'd just add that nonwhite Americans in poor neighborhoods absolutely do own guns as well, mostly for personal protection. They just tend not to fetishize them or own dozens
- Damn you've just described my dad lol. I always thought it was weird that he seems to be aware that things are unsustainable and will collapse, yet at the same time he concludes that this will lead to "city people flooding into our neighborhoods to steal and kill everything", and seems to think the solution is to "prep" with food and supplies and fortify his house into a bunker to hide away from everyone, instead of like... working together with community to survive? The more likely thing to happen? But yeah I know now that it's just the racism talking.
  
  Preppers never made sense even by their own logic. If they're so worried about a sudden collapse and post-apocalypse raiders coming to steal everything, they're going to immediately go for stockpiles of food and guns. Yeah, it's got to be racism. Preppers see their potential enemies (probably caricatured as black/latino gangs) as less than human and less capable of making plans. They see other people as zombies or animals. They can only imagine a future where every single person on Earth is against them, but are also incapable of defeating a single old man in a bunker. It's a twisted mindset that could only have come from American suburbia.
  My uncle is a prepper type too, although he's slightly more community oriented in a certain way. He's convinced the apocalypse will be a religious war, with a coalition of atheists coming together to murder all Christians (also when he describes atheists he uses the same terminology and framework that antisemites use when describing Jews). He's convinced the local Methodist church to build panic rooms and long term storage into their community center, which otherwise just hosts school dances and basketball games. He teaches gun stuff through the church too, and he spends a lot of time gardening and doing carpentry, which he also says will be important. Honestly if the weird racist apocalypse stuff weren't involved, my uncle would have pretty healthy hobbies and a good relationship with people in his church. It's too bad he's also a racist, transphobic lunatic.
  
  I've always considered writing a post-apocalyptic story based around this. One where it's actually a group of survivors doing community outreach that manage to survive and have to deal with violent lone wolf freaks every now and again. Instead of the usual Burgerland story take where the community centred survivors are weak, small bean gentle folk who can't deal with the harsh reality of the wastelands.

Depending on the community it's being discussed in, "robber" might be short hand for "cop" since they do really like to do no-knock raids for the dumbest shit in America

I know a guy who constantly talks about the guns he owns and the ammo he uses and and how he'd kill anyone who tries to hurt his horses. He lives in bumfuck nowhere and, as far as he's told me, has never had any issues with his tiny handful of neighbors. It's like someone who lives in Colorado obsessively preparing for hurricanes.
- Or some boomer retiree fox news watching old fucker living in a Michigan townhouse on the lakefront worrying about ISIS and MS13 racing across the border of Mexico to personally kick down their door and eat their ice cream
  
  Literally half of the fucking state is like this

We did a genocide founded on "I live here now if you invade my home I'll kill you" and then followed those people to do it again, playing the victim the whole time
The crimes of this guilty land will not be purged away, but with blood.

It's really weird because home invasions are much more common in South Africa than the US, yet we don't obsess about it but nearly as much, even if most doors have security gates and windows are barred over here. Mainly some deranged chuds obsess about it, but not your average person, even those that have unfortunately experienced it. Here it's more a vigilance thing, lock the doors and gates, make sure your car is locked, make sure no one is following you home, etc.
- I thought y'all had like broken glass and debris on top of y'alls' stone walls.....
  Was this western propaganda?
  
  We do have spikes or barbed wire on the top of walls (and even electric fences in the richer areas), and when I say security gate, I mean similar to the kind you see at prisons. It's not entirely propaganda, South Africa is a very dangerous country. Crime is very bad, especially violent crime/robberies and gender based violence against women. But we don't have broken glass on walls, barbed condoms, or cars with flamethrowers, that's just fake news really, and that's the propaganda.

no. Closest thing is one time i had a black guy accidentally walk into our apartment while my tits were out and he just said,with his eyes wide as fuck "oh fuck, wrong place" and left. Bf forgot to lock the door, pretty much the only reason we do it ☠️ bf thought it was hilarious, but I bet that guy was fuckin terrified he basically ran

One answer that doesn't seem to be around is that it is/was literally in tv advertisements. Security systems and insurance companies love to run ads showing scary people dressed in black forcing windows open and shit, and chuds probably see a lot of ads.
- which is very stupid if you're going to rob a house it's just objectively better economy to wait till everyone's out way less jail time for the same gain
- There was a show on Discovery that ran when I was a teenager that basically had two guys go around and do "break-ins" where they'd talk to a random homeowner after they cased the joint or more likely just had a list of volunteers. They'd then have a guy break into the house, possibly while the person was in the house and rob them blind, or they'd do it when they all left, trash the place and take everything. They'd always have a bunch of insurance ads and security system ads running and in the end they'd install a super fancy security system into the house and act like they're safe now.
  As a child we got robbed, they really didn't take that much since we weren't exactly wealthy, just a rather crappy old mac computer got taken and most of the games I had. But the absolute mess of the place and the feelings of violation and vulnerability led to me being rather paranoid. Something that show played off amazingly and made it even worse. Most people don't have this actual experience, but they see shows like that and believe it's happening all the time everywhere and they're in constant danger.

people watch a lot of "true crime" shit. violent home invasion is also the major conflict in a lot of movies. honestly, if there was a list of widely-seen american movies where a violent home invasion happened and taken as a percentage of all widely-seen american movies, i bet that percentage would be considerably higher than the precentage of households that are ever violently invaded.
the only criminals i'm worried about coming through my door are cops. when they do, that's when the second, hidden steel door slams shut behind them and their problems begin.

In America it's easier and less like to be a legal hassle if you kill your working class neighbor instead of organizing a union and getting in a fight with your boss. We just want something to do.

Given how much American media amplifies the ones that do happen, I'm guessing it's pretty uncommon. Most people I've heard bring it up to fantasize about it are just hoping they get a legal excuse to shoot someone. Idk why they don't just apply to become a pig
I've heard fuckers talk about how they don't care if it's just a burglar trying to flee, they "should have thought about that before they broke in"

Every damn day! When I was growing up my dad told me the communists were coming, and they would knock on my door and say I have to share my home with this group of homeless people, and if I said no then they'd shoot me (true story). Sure enough, soon as I bought a home, they showed up! Now some scraggly homeless dudes who talk a lot about taxes keep walking in like they own the place, drink my milk from the carton and leave it out, leave porn up (and even upload their own home made porn) on my computer, "borrow" my tools and they never bring them back, ordered cable and I got the bill... I could go on, but I'm going to Walmart to get a gun and put an end to this nonsense. Bastards don't even take out the trash or mow the lawn!!
On a serious note, a couple years ago we had some people that would go around looking for unlocked side garage doors and stealing tools. I've got some things of value. But I'd rather them take that shit and file an insurance claim than kill someone, fuck that noise. Take all our shit, I've got my digital stuff locked down and it can all be replaced. If someone is breaking in to hurt us it's another story. I'm visibly queer and there's some seriously scary people in the suburbs, I keep a gun handy for those scenarios. However, psychotic right wingers in the suburbs seem to have this reverence for private property, so I'm honestly not too concerned.
- As someone that has shared their apartment with those that need it, they just want to be warm fr, some of the nicest people I met and they seriously kept apologizing to me for essentially existing
  Also if you give a hobo (his words) a good place to cook that fucker can stir some amazing food up out of nothing
  
  But they took my toothbrush and when I protested, they said "lol do something about it whitey!“. They mock me when I'm eating my beans too! 😭😭😭

other places where you see this specific breed of paranoia is among white south africans.
the active ingredients in this fantasy are a middle class of temporarily embarrassed millionaires and a racialized underclass lurking in the shadows of their minds.
- Even then the paranoia is amongst deranged chuds mostly. Most normal people are just vigilant and make sure to lock the doors at night, have barred windows on the ground level of a building, and install a security gate at the front door. If they're rich they can get private security/armed response with an alarm system or whatever.

Castle Doctrine is a legal framework for justifiying the protecting of your home with violence. I think boomers watched too many cowboy media when they were young. It basically informs their whole worldview at this point.
- That’s this whole country, it was founded on people constantly worried about natives trying to violently take what the settlers saw as rightfully stolen.

"This is an extremely primitive and paranoid culture." – Admiral James T. Kirk in late 20th century America, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Most of them are goofy because they live in safe areas.
Some people need guns because they really are in unsafe areas.
I think the most likely home invasion threat is a cop and unfortunately you probably shouldn't shoot them in that situation. They also do no-knock break-ins so you won't even know if they're cops at first.

A lot of people here have the mindset “it’s never happened to me so therefore everyone is being dramatic.” While I’m not too paranoid about people Breaking into my home in this neighborhood, I always hear gunshots and police sirens every few months. And I certainly would not leave anything unlocked a few blocks down from my street. I tend to be vigilant either way. I don’t have the luxury of being white or loving of America, so there are real threats out there, but I usually don’t expose my beliefs enough for it to be detrimental to my life.

All the Asian families in my grandma's neighborhood had glue poured in their locks during covid. There was also that one rapper who bragged about "only robbing chinese". Even if these people get caught they just get a slap on the wrist.
Look at what happened to that 7yo Palestinian boy. If you have a family and you're a minority in America it would be negligent not to have a gun.

- When Fallout: New Vegas made its post-apocalypse Wild West themed, it was just being more honest than most American media about the real fantasy behind the setting.

Not really, never happened to me and never happened to anyone in my social circle. It does happen but the people who worry about it (middle class and above white folks) are virtually never the victims of it. When it does occur, it’s usually done by poor people in poor neighborhoods, but even that’s not something that all that common.
As others have said, it’s just 100% racism. Went into a little more detail in this comment yesterday.
- Middle class white folk are far more likely to shoot delivery drivers or random people outside than defend themselves against home invasion.
  One of my coworkers actually did have a home invasion, but it was an elderly woman with a mental disability who was lost and confused. This guy still pulled an AR15 on her. No one was shot, but he tells the story like he's the Punisher.
  
  The only thing that can stop a confused old lady is a good guy with a gun 😎😎😎
- Do wish those home invasion people would realize theres a higher chance of good shit to do it to billionaires
- Well, that and a power fantasy by gun lovers probably
- but even that’s not something that all that common.
  idk, it seems pretty common in my area. i started working "poor people jobs" like 2 years ago, and ive already heard directly about 3 home invasions against my coworkers in that time, and also one of my coworkers at one of those jobs told me about some old funny stories from back in his own home invading days, before he went to prison, got out, and stopped doing that sort of thing (allegedly)

I was home invaded. Shit happens so fast that if you left the moment to go get a gun then you're fucked. That fantasy only applied to people with big houses and boring lives.
- That sounds intense. Have you ever posted about the situation on here before?
  
  The police said that it was likely a serial rapist that was breaking into homes. Luckily everyone was home at the time. He creeped in and peeked through my roommates door. My roommate thought it was me sleepwalking and walked over and he slammed the door closed. When my roommate realized it wasn't me, he did a loud shout and a few seconds later I hear a loud thud. I get out the bedroom door to see my roommate bleeding from the head. He was injured in the scuffle but the guy ran off. I ended up leaving the state a few weeks later because it was too hard to feel safe. This was in Norfolk Virginia.
  Thanks for asking, that means a lot to me.

a lot of states have laws where you can legally kill someone on your property in "self defense" or whatever, so the fantasy is that you get to slaughter people on your property with no repercussions because "self defense". its basically like a testing ground for whatever cool new gun toy you got, rich white americans fantasize about testing their new insane weapons on "home invaders" (usually just any minority stepping on their property) because its legal.

Like a lot of US crime, not the worst in the world, but not great, and way lower than it was in the crime peak of the 80’s and early 90’s. Also worth noting that most home invasions occur during mid day hours when people are less likely to be home because burglars aren’t morons.
- White suburban Americans think it's gonna be like the nazi werewolf bikers from An American Werewolf in London. Just hosing down everyone with uzis.

I don’t know why but home invasion is my biggest fear. I had nightmares for weeks after watching Gerald’s Game. For what it’s worth, in my nightmares, the perpetrator is always white, so I don’t think it’s strictly a racism thing.
I think part of it is we own so little in a capitalist society and it’s such a violent society, so your home can feel like your only safe space. Having that safety shattered would feel like the ultimate violation to me. And then as a woman, you add in the probability of sexual violence and it gets scarier. Also very afraid that people would kill my dogs, but cops would do that too.
I have moderate to severe anxiety and am pretty agoraphobic, so this might not be how normal people think.

I have like three people break into my house in the middle of the night, and in each case it turned out they were extremely drunk frat bros who were convinced that it was their friends house that they were trying to get to to crash at (I live near a university). I just tried to make sure they were alright and help them get to were they were trying to
- Bbb bbb but you had the legal kill! The legal kill was right there!!
- that's really funny that that has happened multiple times ha ha.

the home is the most holy thing in american society. it's what their entire way of life is built around, millions upon millions of single-family homes with white picket fences. its complete insanity.

I have never experienced a home invasion but my friends were murdered in one. In the US.
But instead of everyone just conjecturing based on their subjective experience, why doesn’t someone look at the statistics? Should be easy enough.

- Imma be real with you, that ain't gonna happen; toddler is small so +1 AC, night time and it's dark so total concealment 50% miss chance, and let's be real here you're a human with average stat distribution so no pluses on dexterity based attack roll, guns have a range of 20ft before taking minuses on the attack roll every ten feet so minimum -1, and without gun training you're not proficient so it's further -4 penalty to attack roll, and it's a surprise round anyway and going for your gun is a move action; imma be real I just don't see it happening.
  
  We've had discoposting yes, but what about Grognardposting?
  Please do more of this, it's great

Closest I ever got to home invasion was when a drunk guy wandered into my house from a street festival. When he realised were he was, he very sheepishly apologised and left.

Suburban paranoia

It's part of the rugged individualism and personal responsibility narrative. It feeds into the atomization of people in the US.
Nobody is going to help you and you don't want to rely on the government to save you. It's your neighbor who's going to steal everything you have if given the chance. Other people are jealous of what you have. If you don't lock your door or buy a security system, it's your fault if something bad happens.
And like others have said in this post, there's the fantasy of being able to use your guns in a legal way. You get to do acceptable violence and you prove that you were right for not trusting people if somebody breaks in.
But another aspect of this fear is whether you're part of a marginalized group. If you're Black in a white neighborhood, you can't rely on the police and you might not be able to rely on your neighbors to have your back.
There's a lot of fucked up unconscious things going on in US society.

A lot of people have lethal "main character of the movie" brain. Or it's a cipher for racism (conscious or unconscious). Often times both.

I had a coworker that was scared of this so he had tens of thousands of dollars in guns. He used to brag about it all the time. He was robbed because he had tens of thousands in guns that everyone knew about because he bragged about them all the time. Had he been home having a big pile of guns would have done him no good.
- Having lots of guns does nothing unless you have lots of hands to hold the guns which is why the prepper zeal for owning tons of guns in case things get crazy, is hilarious.
  
  When you die your soul travels down to belly of the earth. In it the god Crom waits in his halls to ask you the ridde of steel. You are judged by your answer. The followers of thulsa doom said that steel has no power. The power of steel comes from the arm that holds it.
- This is my favorite response to all the prepper types when they tell me I'll be screwed when society breaks down.
  Why would I be screwed you just told me you've got 10 years of rice and beans, an industrial water purifier, and 20 guns which you can only possibly use one of at a time.
  I'll just get 20 friends and we'll come take you're shit, you antisocial weirdo.

We ate absolutely terrified of an unknown black or brown person sitting in their car or walking through our neighborhood. Idk if they limit what you can view but you should check out nextdoor.com for some insight into the insanity.
Meanwhile I've left the door unlocked every place I've lived with only one exception.

I blame ring doorbells
Gotta love the surveillance industry

racism and fantasies of getting to kill said races

a lot of people say that a shotgun is the best tool for the job, but honestly what you need is armor piercing rounds. preferably in a handgun format since you'd ostensibly be dealing with the close quarters of a tiny apartment. honestly, if they don't have armor on you can probably just talk to them if this imaginary scenario happens at all.
- If somebody has broken into your apartment wearing armor they're a cop or soldier and you're not shooting your way out of this one. IMO a rifle (short carbine length ideal) is better than a pistol. They're much easier to aim under adrenaline. 9mm and 5.56 can both kill someone on the other side of a wall if you miss; I'm not convinced any choice offers meaningfully reduced overpenetration. You know your apartment's layout and a robber does not, so you shouldn't need to be rapidly spinning around or clearing rooms CQB style.
  More important by far is getting a weapon light 1) so you're not shooting blind 2) so, ideally, you dazzle whoever you're pointing it at and don't have to shoot them. Mine is physically-hurts-your-eyes bright. In the extremely unlikely event of a breakin by somebody armed, I can't imagine anyone successfully aiming at me if I get the drop on them with the flashlight. In the comparatively-more-likely event of a breakin by somebody unarmed, the weapon light helps me identify that and not shoot them.
  e: including shotguns. American walls are made out of paper and chalk, and also shotgun spread is not significant at sub-apartment distances like in video games
  
  (that's el joke) you probably aren't going to get robbed like that, but you "should" be "deadly" to armored fascists innit
  or you can take reasonable precautions like having barred doors / windows and a metal gate on your door like a normal person.
  
  Black tip 30-06 is both legal and fun

Lots of gun owners want literally nothing more than to have a justifiable reason to kill somebody.
In their mind somebody breaking into their house means they get to use any amount of force they can muster.
My old boss literally would talk about how he leaves his door unlocked because "if they get passed the dogs then they have me to worry about"
And I'd like to see what a burgler would do to an out of shape 70 year old who fell asleep drunk in his recliner at 10 o clock with fox news playing loudly on the TV.
- My old boss literally would talk about how he leaves his door unlocked because "if they get passed the dogs then they have me to worry about"
  Your old boss should read Sun Tzu:
  Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
  
  "Sounds like commie shit" - my old boss, probably

The idea of a home invasion allows Americans to fantasize about murdering the invaders of "their sacred property" and getting away with it. It also incorporates the idea of shooting someone to death as well for that added second amendment veneration.

When I was growing up, there was a couple a street over from me. Nice area too.
Definitely made me paranoid as a kid, but I'm also incredibly paranoid of a house fire. I genuinely feel like if all my important shit burned up I'd probably unalive myself over going through the hoops to prove I'm allowed to rent an apartment.
Also still paranoid about someone breaking into my place. I've got a handful of items that are irreplaceable and not that valuable and idk if I could forgive someone for stealing it then trashing it for an easy buck or two.
I did have a drunk guy walk into my apartment and fall asleep on the floor one time in college. That was weird but funny, very obviously another student. just sorta nudged him and he went on his way.

No, not really.
The closest I've come to a "home invasion" was these two girls in my neighborhood, around 14 or so, would target single guys in the neighborhood and walk into their homes and take whatever they wanted and then tell the dudes that if they said anything they'd basically tell everyone that they were there because the guy lured them into their homes to assault them. They did this to like, 2 guys, one being the guy who lived in an apartment next to my father's house. He was a younger Latino man, possibly an illegal immigrant so I can imagine him being freaked the fuck out by this with no recourse. This was about 20 years ago. IIRC I think they eventually fucked up and tried it once when one of the men had a girlfriend or something over and she wasn't about it. Not sure if they were arrested or just got slapped up a bit by a very angry woman but I just know it stopped.
Anyways, a gun would not have helped in this situation and while those girls were absolute fools and did not realize that their little scheme could have ended very poorly for them they wouldn't have deserved to die for what they did. Whenever I think about crime & punishment vs community-based solutions I always think there are a least a dozen community-based solutions to that issue that far outshine any traditional crime and punishment solution.
On the other side of things for new year's even of 2000 my friends and I had a fun psychedelic party at his apartment building. One friend about 3 hours after taking 4 hits of LSD walks out of the apartment. This surprised us because for the past hour he had been laying in a bean bag twitching and mumbling to himself and we only figured it out because suddenly he wasn't there anymore and the front door was open. The rest of us, also out of our gourds, go looking for him. Turns out he walked down the hall and into another apartment that was unlocked. He was just standing in the dark in their front room spaced the fuck out. We quietly grabbed him and ushered him out closing the door behind us. The people in that apartment never knew.
- The closest I've come to a "home invasion" was these two girls in my neighborhood, around 14 or so, would target single guys in the neighborhood and walk into their homes and take whatever they wanted and then tell the dudes that if they said anything they'd basically tell everyone that they were there because the guy lured them into their homes to assault them.
  Holy shit this actually happened? It reads like an MRA fever dream
  
  It did. I hate that is sounds like some incel fanfiction about how "femoids" are removed chaos dragons but it is what it is. It has no implications for the ethos of women at large this was just two shitty teens being shitty. I hope they are well-adjusted adults now, to be honest.
- while i couldn't condone a legal system that would allow it i would 100% have personally shot those two lol, thats some cartman-level deceitful evil. frankly with no witnesses to say otherwise their little plan would probably fall apart, they should not have a plan that incentivizes not leaving witnesses.
  
  Ummm yeah idk if shooting 14 year Olds is the thing to do. Really their parents should have been notified
  
  No. Bad dumpling. Do not shoot the children.
  
  Well, this was in south Florida so that's why I said I don't think they really thought their plan completely through. Either way it did eventually stop without any serious consequence to anyone. I think the stolen goods were mostly small amounts of pocket cash and some items from like 2 or 3 guys homes. I wish I had more details but this was 20 years ago and I wasn't directly involved other than talking to my immigrant neighbor who was a victim himself.

Not American so can't give any insight into this, but I do have a kinda funny anecdote about an attempted break-in if you want it.

Results from massive propaganda campaign to stoke fear and drive gun sales. It’s all about the $ Lebowski.

I did once when I was not even 20 when I lived on my own in a shitty neighborhood. I chased the scraggly dude out with a hammer. My house was then burglarized a few days later when I wasn't home, so I can guess who did it. I'll probably always be a bit paranoid about them because of that, but I still don't own a bunch of guns or turn my house into a heavily surveilled bunker because I know that it's extremely unlikely now that I live in a nicer area. I agree with a lot of the other posts, some people just fantasize about being able to legally shoot someone and there is likely some bonus racism in there.