Fair enough. In the places I have lived (a fairly affluent suburb of Chiacago, and a college town in the middle of nowhere), the hysterical response is very common, probably because there is no practical side to it -- people who want in will break in anyway and mostly everyone else keeps out.  Sure there is the occasional drunk college kid who is somehow lost and crashes on the wrong couch, but they are mostly harmless, and very appreciative when you don't call the cops.