Which would you perfer to have to defend your self ?

Again I get back to the term accident. You may teach responsibility but what about the grandchild who drops by unexpectedly, the niece or nephew, the neighbor with their kids. I have seen responsible gun owner argue about proper gun safety in the past. The idea that guns need to be fully loaded at all times is ridiculous. My father had dozens of guns and never kept a single one loaded or unsecured in the home.

 

I give you kudos for this post. I am a strong believer men and women have different roles in life. The man looks out for the family. He will lay his life down for them. The women's primary concern is for the children. She will lay her life down for them! The man is the first line of defense as it should be. That is how we are designed. I know the femi-Nazis are offended by that!

 

People really do not seem to understand the word accident. You may teach your kids perfectly but what about the parents of their friends? Kids have other friends over. Maybe they were not taught as well. That is why we have accidental gun deaths.

 

Guess we are just different. I have a Kentucky percussion rifle that hangs high on my wall. It was converted from flintlock. It's been in the family for generations. It was always fully loaded and hung over the door. I have since greatly updated so that rifle is not loaded.....but old habits are hard to break. I know of know gun accidents ever in my family dating way back.

 

How do they get past Bortan, my 125lb German Shepherd? or Cuddles, my 90lb Doberman? And the police are on the way since the my burglar alarm has called them already and a fairly good picture of what's happening is being sent automatically.

Just where do you guys live anyway? 5th century Bulgaria?

 

"Everybody knows that a child who couldn't hit a barn door with a Gatling Gun will take down a musket that's not been used since the Revolution and bag his grandmother" Mark Twain

 

By shooting them.

Which means you have at least three and as many as 60 minutes where you are on your own.

 

I'm not anti-gun, but I am liberal.

I think the counter is that this kind of incident is extremely rare, and to be prepared for what you describe you would need to have your gun ready to fire somewhere in your house that you have quick access to and not physically blocked by the intruders. Statistics would suggest that such a gun is much more likely to be used for a suicide, accident (especially with kids or idiots like my former neighbor while cleaning it) or homicide against an occupant of the house/neighborhood since it makes all of those things happen so easily. Therefore having such an arrangement would statistically increase your likelihood of death rather than decrease it, even if you live in a dangerous area and are responsible. Big dogs would probably work better if one is concerned. They also detect criminals to raise the alarm and deter them to a softer target.

That said, gun laws are only useful against people who obey the law. People who obey the law are the ones who you do want to have guns and you want the criminals to know it. Texas's reputation alone probably saves lives for that reason.

 

I think you need to go back to review the discussion. The old musket was only a minor part of the conversation.

 

Really?
I ask, because the rabidly anti-gun Violence Policy Center says guns are used at least 100,000 times a year for self defense.
That's about 10x more often that to commit murder, 2.5x more often that to commit suicide, and 200x more often than an accidental death.
What about this suggests the things you claim?

 

Tell them to rape her first and that should give you time to get your gun.

 

The 100,000 figure is basically meaningless. What does it even mean? Brandishing a weapon when you expect you otherwise would have been victimized in some way? Did it really save a life, or did it do nothing, or did it make things worse by escalating it?

My search for your number yielded this:

How Often Do People Use Guns In Self-Defense? : NPR

"Perceptions about the incident and an individual's role are important because much of the literature relies on self-reports: The respondent must have perceived there to have been a crime (or, in some surveys, a suspected or averted crime) and must consider himself or herself a victim rather than a mutual combatant. Even such stringent definitions, however, may not be sufficient to determine whether the event was lawful, legitimate, or desirable from a social perspective."

"...part of the reason experts are so divided on the number is the difficulty in obtaining reliable survey data on the issue.

The researchers who look at [Kleck's study] say this is just bad science," Hemenway says. "It's a well-known problem in epidemiology that if something's a rare event, and you just try to ask how many people have done this, you will get incredible overestimates."

 

Oh, I see.
A rabidly anti-gun organization put out an effectively meaningless number.
Who would have guessed.
If not 100,000/year, then how many?

 

The original study said something ridiculous like 2.5 million. Their response was 100k at most. My response is this variable has not been reliably measured for the reasons in my last post and so should be discarded from discussion. Even if it could be reliably measured, it would still be an apples to oranges comparison with the other stats you mentioned because using a gun defensively wouldn't reliably mean less death for victim or assailant. As I alluded to, in most cases the assailant does not want to kill the victim, and in some cases pulling out a gun may lead to an escalation, and in other cases it may lead to them backing off. It's such a messy variable, it's almost inherently unusable.

 

Too late to edit, but 'assailant' wasn't the best choice of words. Just criminals in general.

 

agree, but which would one want their child to find and play with, a gun or a cellphone

one has to weigh the risks and where one lives plays a big part of it

 

let me ask, ex-felons are not allowed to own guns

do they not have the right to protect their families in Republicans eyes, does the mother and daughter deserve to be raped because dad stole a car when younger

it's either a right or it's a privilege.... it can't be both

 

#1 You reach for your cell phone to call the police

I'd grab a land line to call the police and leave it off the hook while hiding it somewhere. Intruders would confiscate cell phones immediately but probably wouldn't think anyone still had a land line. The dispatcher can trace the call and hear everything happening while dispatching the cops.

#2 you reach for a knife
#3 you grab your base ball bat

I probably wouldn't choose a knife as a form of defense depending on physical characteristics of the intruders. Like any tool or weapon, one can be disarmed and have it used against them.

#4 You pray for help

God has me blocked so I wouldn't waste previous minutes doing that.

#5 you hope they dont kill you

Hope is not really productive unless one does something with it. Magic beans don't just fall from the sky by themselves.

#6 you pick up your gun and shoot them

I would have to determine if lethal force was necessary before I'd shoot to kill but I would do it to protect someone else faster than I would to protect myself.

#7 you wish you had a gun

A lot like hope. Means nothing if one doesn't have the wherewithal and self-motivation to reach specific goals.

-------------------------

In fairness, I'm a former cop and abuse survivor (and former abuse advocate). I'm trained in hand-to-hand combat and I'm not afraid of bullies. I'm slow to anger and quick to forgive. My ability to stay calm in a crisis is because I have complex-PTSD and I wouldn't invite anyone to live with that on the off chance they might find themselves facing your hypothetical situation. It is a battle every single day.

Statistically, home intruders are small time criminals and they are usually looking for money or something that can easily be taken to pawn or sell for quick cash. Some want to just get alcohol and/or drugs and others are thrill seekers. A few weirdos get off on instilling fear in others and aren't looking for more than that. Some petty thieves just want to buy something they don't have to eat from a trash bin.

Very few home intruders are violent sexual deviants. Rapists break into homes for that agenda, not necessarily to steal. Being able to quickly assess the *type* of intruder helps one know how to diffuse the situation but that's not something the average person knows how to do.

With all that said, I am still against everyone of legal age and sound mind having the ability to own weapons. Too many people think guns make them bulletproof and people that can't figure out how to throttle back and walk away from a fight or deliberately start fights because they have a weapon aren't the people that we want to have weapons. I believe our whole mental health and medical health system needs to be revamped to address the needs of people heading for crisis before it reaches that point. There is no reason for us to spend billions of dollars on prisons just to warehouse people that have nothing better to do than perfect their plans for future crimes and learn from other criminals. That's a formula that clearly doesn't bode well for society.

However, as with alcohol and illegal drugs or the sale of legal pharmaceuticals, the bad guys will **always** figure out a way to get what they want regardless of the laws. Laws only work on honest people.

 

You claimed:
"Statistics would suggest that such a gun is much more likely to be used for a suicide, accident (especially with kids or idiots like my former neighbor while cleaning it) or homicide against an occupant of the house" than for self-defense - in this case, while in the home.
For that to be true, there must be some number of times guns are used in self-defense.
Thus, I ask again:
If not 100,000/yr, then how many?
If you don't know, then your "...much more likely to be used..." claim has no rational basis.

If that's the case, your comparison, quoted above, is also apples/oranges, because you're effectively making the same comparison.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

Good dogs.

 

I'm a gun owner myself, but my dogs are my first and most reliable line of home defense. My newest, youngest one, Queenie, is a 70 lb pittie. She goes with me on my road trips. It's funny how she's sweet as hell to the Girl Scouts at the gas stations we visit, but it is always the huge tattooed guys who are terrified of her. I've caught her nuzzling kittens who made their way into the yard, but I have no doubt she'd take out anyone who threatened me or my wife . . . or either of the other dogs. She seems particularly protective of my wife's little elderly Chinese Crested.

 

If you only have seconds, you had better be confident in using your own two hands and go from there.

 

Also, if anyone breaks into my house like this, they better hope that I'm the first person who gets to them. I'll shoot. I'll strike. But I'll stop if I see you've been disabled and are no longer a threat. I can't say the same thing for my dogs or my wife.

 

That's where a dog's much sharper and faster instincts matter. They always know before we do, and can turn in a pico-second.

 

And people tend to freeze more around dogs. I've had someone threaten me with a knife and I've managed to mostly keep my **** together and stand my ground. I've been cornered by a Great Dane and that almost made me piss my pants.