I'll defer the self-defense suggestions to you: I live in a "carry is strictly a political favour" county, so I haven't looked at cary molds of 1911s... I think

I'll defer the self-defense suggestions to you: I live in a "carry is strictly a political favour" county, so I haven't looked at cary molds of 1911s... I think you're probably far more familiar with this than I am. I don't, however, think that a normal Stainless Kimber is better (tolerance-wise) than the Target model. The only distinction (afaik) are the adjustable sights (which are actually amazingly sturdy for adjustable sights, to my surprised). You clear know more self-defense than I do -- so I'll defer to you (especially re: shotguns, etc...) Re: other suggestions-- I was not covering the "I have a determined nutcase after me" scenario, I was covering the "increase in violent crime" (armed robbery, home invasions, etc...) scenario. I've had these questions recently because (for many reasons) San Jose has had a drastic increase in crime: moving to Saratoga/Cupertino/good part of Sunnyvale or to Fremont seems like a good long term strategy anyway. To clarify re: dog, I wasn't suggesting having the dog attack the assailant, but more in the sense of having a dog wake me (and the immediate neighbors) up if a stranger is around at night. Of course this is not a very reliable strategy, being in a safe neighborhood (with trustworthy neighbors), and having a firearm are far more important. However, it's useful: an alarm system only works if it's tripped, but a dog can smell from a distance. So far, the only times my dog has waken me up at night, was literally when there was a stranger directly in front of the downstairs living room windows. Not in any way perfect, but sufficient to alert the neighbors, scare away a robber that has purely financial motivation, let me call the police, etc... before they attempt to break in (best confrontation is one that never has to happen). I agree that the trend of police shooting family dogs is absolutely disgusting, but so is the trend of paramilitary police raiding family homes on shoddy evidence.