What would you do if a parcel delivery staff and three confederates suddenly pushed past you and overpowered you when you opened the door?  What would you do if a lunatic neighbour broke into your house armed with a hammer and started attacking your whole family?  The recent deaths of 90 year old Kinuyo Oshio during a home invasion by the Luffy Gang and hearing about long-time Tokyo resident and friend, Bill Bishop and his entire family being killed by a lunatic neighbour, make this a reality we haven’t had to confront before.  We are leaders, so how should we lead our families to protect ourselves from this type of crime?  If you are quite a logical type and think that statistically, this would never happen to you or if you are squeamish about handing out severe physical violence to home invaders, then stop one now. It is a choice to defend yourself and your family or to submit to being tied up and robbed. For those who are wondering about options, based on my 52 years of karate training, here are my ideas on what we can do the protect our families.  The Luffy gang weapon of choice is that razor sharp, box cutter.  They look for older, weaker people living in mansion buildings and individual homes with no parcel locker system.  If you cannot install such a system, here are some alternatives.  Install camera systems at the entrance to you house, so that the gang know they are being recorded, to dissuade them from choosing you as their next victim. If that can’t be done and it is just the door protecting you from the criminals, don’t open the door.  Tell them to leave the parcel in front of the door and you will retrieve it later.  If they say you have to sign for it, tell them to leave a slip with the delivery company name and phone number on it and you will arrange for the parcel to be received later.  If they are legitimate delivery staff this will be simple for them and if they are criminals, they will give up and go find someone else to rob. The Luffy gang technique is to recruit amateurs unknown to each other, have them burst through the doorway en masse and overpower you.  They tie you up, threaten you or actually cut you up with the box cutter to find out where the valuables are located and then ransack your house.  The gang leader Luffy has also assured them they can kill you if they need to and as we see, this is what happened with Oshio san. Guns are obviously out of contention in Japan, so what can we do?   Some self-defense weapons I like are a not too heavy hammer, nunchaku and a Bokuto or heavy wooden sword.  The Bokuto and nunchaku are distance weapons, which help against assailants armed with knives, boxcutters or hammers.  The nunchaku is very compact and can be used in close quarters, whereas the Bokuto needs some space to wield. For the nunchaku, the primary target should be the outside of the knees, so that you both deny them mobility and you place them in a large amount of stress and pain.  The ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) is what we want to damage, so they cannot stand.  We go after both knees too, so they are taken out as a threat until the police arrive. For the Bokuto, the wrists and forearm are the initial target so that they cannot hold their weapon and the secondary target again is the outside of the knees.  The hammer is a close range weapon and the primary target should be the sternum, that part of the chest from the solar plexus up to the throat.  A hammer blow to the sternum is extremely painful and they feel it every time they breathe. This will stun them long enough for you to hit them in the secondary target, which again will be the outside of the knees.   I don’t recommend the face or temple for attack, because there is a good chance you will kill the assailant and find yourself in the dock facing a murder charge.  That target zone is also high and they may be able to avoid the swing, absorb the blow on their arm or lean back out of the way, because they have good vision of the trajector