Billy Joel Warns Burglars: I'm Armed Now, 'Bring It On!'

Music legend Billy Joel has a message for burglars: Break into his house again, and he will take a big shot at them.

The singer/songwriter’s house on Long Island was hit in January by intruders, who damaged a dozen motorcycles and trashed a home office.

According to TMZ, the burglars got in by breaking a glass door.

Nothing was stolen, but the possibilities of what could happen if he had been at home probably came to mind.

Now, Joel is prepared.

During a concert Feb. 20 in New York, he told the crowd, “Welcome, Madison Square Garden. Last time I was here they hit my house. I guess everyone knows I’m not home.

“I got dogs, lights, guns, everything at the house now.

“I’m hoping they try it again. Come on, come on! Bring it on!”

The guns, dogs and lights might prove to be a wise investment.

When a homeowner is absent, dogs can be a very effective deterrent against intruders — and if the deterrence effect fails, some of them can be formidable opponents, especially with the right training.

Firearms also are an extremely effective measure against crime.

A 1995 study by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz estimated that firearms were used for self-defense at least 2.2 million times per year.

In the vast majority of those instances, no shots were fired.

A 2013 report for the Centers for Disease Control said, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

Even though the National Rifle Association notes that New York has some very strict gun laws, people in the Empire State have been known to use their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves.

The Piano Man should consider joining the NRA to help protect those rights from further erosion, particularly in the state of New York.