The Default State Is Broken

So last night, while I was out for a social gathering and my partner was out of town, someone appears to have tried to break into our house. They did a moderately good job of disassembling the door handle on our front door, but didn't get any further than that, thanks to the deadbolt lock on the door and the two loud dogs in their beds next to the door. Last night I was pretty upset about it, and I was also being critical of the door handle, but the more I think about it the more I think I'm wrong. I am beginning to think that the door handle itself was really quite brilliantly designed -- it was designed not just to work, but to fail gracefully. When I got home I found the front door handle had been jimmied somehow, and was loose in the door itself; in addition, the interior handle part had come completely off the door. So I was mildly upset about this, thinking that first, someone had tried to break into my house, and second, that I would have to replace the door handle (at