Article first appeared at Cheaper Than Dirt.

I just finished reading an article about a Mexican hitman who claims to have killed over 30 people. In the article, he talked about kidnapping people, torturing, and eventually killing them—usually with a gun. While there’s no saying if this interview was legit, this quote did jump out at me: “Each kidnapping starts with locating the target. The best place is at a home, early in the morning—when everyone is asleep.”

By Jason Hanson

Biometric safes offer easy access, but prevent children from getting to your handgun.

It’s well known in the security world that most kidnappings take place in the morning within three miles of someone’s home. The reason for this is because most people leave their homes at the same time every morning to get to work at the same time each day.

It occurs within three miles because people usually take the same route each morning and they have to take the same turns to get out of their neighborhood each day.

However, as noted by the alleged hitman, he prefers to break into a home in the morning when everyone is asleep and won’t likely see the kidnapping coming. Obviously, this is where an alarm system comes in handy, and why I recommend everyone have one to help thwart a home invasion.

But if the blaring sound of your alarm doesn’t deter the criminal, and you’re trying to gather your family members in a bedroom to keep them safe, you need to ensure that whatever room you end up in has the proper supplies to protect you until the police arrive… And that’s where the Crash Box comes in.

A large, centrally located closet makes for a good safe room.

A Crash Box is simply a fancy name for a safe that is in the bedroom (or in every bedroom) that has the necessary supplies to fend off an intruder. It’s a medium sized safe such as the Sentry Safe model SFW123DSB or the First Alert model 2096DF. It is not a gigantic gun safe that is going to take you forever to open.

Once you have your Crash Box (safe), it’s time to fill it with the items you need. These include a handgun and ammunition, extra loaded magazines, a spare cell phone, a flashlight, medical items such as QuikClot and a CAT tourniquet, a fixed blade knife, and whatever other items you choose to put in it.

If you ever do find yourself having to hunker down until police arrive, you need to be prepared to fend off multiple attackers for a good amount of time.

After all, unless you’re a politician or celebrity who is more likely to face a coordinated attack, most likely any home invasion will involve some local thugs who were looking to get drug money for their next fix. And once they see you’re well-armed and prepared to stop them, they’ll probably flee your house and go looking for an easier victim.

So, being that it’s still not that far into the New Year, now is the time to get and prepare your Crash Box if you don’t already have something similar. While none of us wishes to ever experience a home invasion, the people whom I know who have gone through it were grateful they were prepared, and especially grateful they had a gun to defend themselves.

While I always have a gun in a safe on my nightstand, the beauty of the Crash Box is that it contains another gun, which can be used by a family member or can be used by you if your “nightstand” gun suddenly suffered a catastrophic failure.

What’s in your Crash Box? Share your answer in the comment section.

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