In the words of a stage performer; "I'll be here all week" "Rastafarian Kermit" we gotta be PC Do you know Kermit has a "Hollywood Star"?
Just because I'm stubbornly clinging to my childhood [squeakyvoice] Why not get a pretend shotgun that doesn't work and use it to scare them, and then, if they're not scared, hit them as hard as you can with it; so hard they fly through the ceiling and on to the moooooooooon! ?[/queakyvoice] You could always stick a picture of yourself outside captioned "Beware of Owner"
I think you have gotten some good advice for serious home invasion a gun and a dog. I am partial to german shepards any dog that isn't properly trained can be a danger to children. Just handle their ears and tails as pups and get them used to being handled in any way imaginable for a kid. never leave young children (under 3 around any dog) if someone doesn't get bit both will find ways to get in trouble. firmly establish the childs place in the house to the dog and the dogs place to the child (tolerate no excesses by either). Also as someone mentioned monitor the dog when other children are around as the GSD will protect your kids from threats. As a plus a german shepard has a sense of humor to. I woke up one night to get a drink and looked out the back window to see someone climbing over my fence. My silver and black GSD was watching him the whole time from a shadow near the fence (I took me a minute to find him and I knew what to look for) just as the guy got to the top of the fence my dog took off and hit the top of the fence vaulting the guy back into the alley snarling the whole time. The guy landed against the fence on the far side and every house in the neighborhood lit up. Think my dog actually found it entertaining to mess with the guy. If had intended to get to the guy he would have waited or gone over after him as climbing a 6' chainlink fence wasn't a problem for him :evil:
Cool story. Burglars often check the back yard of a house for dog poop. The bigger the dog, the bigger the poop, and therefore the more likely the bad guy will pick some other house. Best regards, -Mark
Wow, this has been 5 pages of weirdness. Bottom line, a baseball bat is a piece of sporting equipment, not a weapon. While it has a cultural status as a tool of destruction, and it is indeed capable of delivering massive impact, it's length and weight distribution make it impractical for fighting. You have to make big swings which are slow to recover from. Therefore, while great for delivering punishment beatings to already incapacitated people, not great against a mobile opponent or two. I've seen many people who've been hit with baseball bats in fights, and they've only ever had cuts akin to being hit with a bottle.
Of course, for improvised and commonplace weaponry you could always try this woman's approach - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/12/chicago_cop/
