DUer's who own a gun for home protection...

[cynatnite]

I'm curious as to why you feel you need it for home protection. Have you been in a situation before which required it? Or was it someone you knew? Another reason?

My husband is a truck driver. He's gone for weeks at a time. It's just me and my son at home while he is out. We do own a hunting rifle and it sits at the top of the closet. The ammo sits at the top of another closet on the other side of the house.

I lock the doors at night and our little dog will bark if he hears odd noises.

At times I do get very nervous being home alone at night. When I think about having a loaded gun, I become even more afraid. What if it's one of my daughters who don't live at home? What if it's the dog making noise? What if it's just my over-active imagination? I could hurt or even kill someone unintentionally.

I do have experience handling weapons. My dad taught me to shoot the shotgun and the rifle. I was in the military for several years and fired various weapons. We were taught self-defense and I can shoot pretty well.

Also, I've never had a home broken into. I've never been threatened unless you count my bastard of an ex-husband that I haven't seen in years. He's halfway across the country. We live in a modest residential neighborhood and we are in a small to mid-sized city that doesn't have an overly high crime rate.

I accept that others will have entirely different experiences which might compel them to have a gun. My aunt's home in Oklahoma City had been broken into 3 times in the years they lived there. The last time the burglars tore up the house and wrote threats on the walls. It was very disturbing to my aunt. It never crossed her mind to get a gun.

In the end, I don't feel compelled one bit to get a gun. I've thought about it a few times very briefly and decided it was something I did not need.

So, if you bought one for home protection, what compelled you to do it?

[SheilaT]

1. I don't own a gun,

and I have never felt the need for one.

I live alone. I'm 64 years old. I've never experienced a home break in of any kind.

I do take very seriously the statistics that show if there's a gun in the home there's a hugely greater likelihood of someone in the home being injured or even killed by that gun.

I can't imagine ever feeling compelled to get a gun.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. I teach shooting mostly to GLBTs who are almost uniformly first time buyers and doing it for self

defense. Its a big step. Firearms ownership is a larger stigma in that community than the nation as a whole. Being the victim of an attack or intimidation sees to be what changes most of their minds.

After the weekend classes, some students decide that they are not up to the responsibilities that gun ownership would entail. I congratulate them for that decision. Its a personal choice, that IMO should be respected no matter which way it goes.

I would point out that hiding something in a closet is not properly securing it, and it really should be locked up.

[Mojorabbit]

3. My good friend who lived a few blocks away

was shot and killed by a burglar in his own home. Twice now the police have chased a bank robber across my back yard. I also am home alone a lot and I am disabled. I was raped a long time ago. I am comfortable around guns and am
comfortable having one by my bed when my husband is out of town.
I doubt I will ever have to use it but it is there if I do.

[Xithras]

4. You know, I've debated discussing this a lot in the past few days.

As one of (presumably) very few DU'ers who has had the misfortune of having to shoot another human being, I have rather solid opinions on gun ownership. I stopped talking about it years ago (the victim asked me to stop discussing it with people, even online), though (very) longtime DU'ers may remember some of the discussions we had about it long ago. In fact, there was a time when several other posters "wondered out loud" about whether the incident affected my sanity, simply because my position on guns was so out of whack with the rest of my views...I'm an admitted socialist, I oppose ALL wars, and I'm probably one of the more extreme environmentalists that post here (I'm a "trees before people" kinda guy, and once spent a summer chaining myself across logging roads with Judi Bari). And I'm also a gun owner.

In the end, I decided not to get into it again, simply because it's not really constructive and doesn't contribute anything to the current debate. But I'll say this: You've been lucky. Bad things happen, and some of us have been placed in situations where we've had to defend ourselves from serious harm (or, in my case, defend another person). I'm very glad that you have never had need for one, and I honestly wish we lived in a world where they weren't needed. At the same time, I can't put into words how glad I am that I had a gun that day. I do believe that we need to tighten up our gun laws to keep them out of the hands of loons, but I'll never support confiscation, and I'll never be without one for my own use. I've been there, and understand how important it is to have the means to defend a life when a life really needs defending. A perfectly normal day can be transformed into a living nightmare in seconds.

[dimbear]

5. I live in the sticks. Expected time delay for law enforcement to arrive is about an hour.

By that time, my interaction with the burglar is going to be over one way or the other.

[BainsBane]

7. I do think that matters

I have dreams of buying a home near Superior National Forest. If I lived there, I would want a gun because I'm told you sometimes need to scare wolves and bears away. But I live in the city, and here I don't need it.

But some of the guns out there are not suitable for defense or hunting; they are weapons of mass destruction. No one needs to own those, and it is insane they are legal.

[dimbear]

16. I highly recommend your dream.

Here it's mostly smaller things like deer, wildcats, skunks, and raccoons. Since they think nothing of walking up my stairs or blocking my driveway, they get a lot of attention. Haven't shot any, don't intend to, but you never know when a rabid something is going to come by.

Again, go for your dream.

[BainsBane]

17. Do you live up there?

Near the Gunflint Trail/ Grand Marais?

[dimbear]

18. No, but just a stone's throw from a California State forest, out in the tall pines.

Our little town is slowly being returned to the wildlife. (Been through there, tho, on my travels back in the old days.) I happened to settle here mostly because someone told me it was the best place in the world. That wasn't strictly true but it was close enough for practical purposes.

[BainsBane]

20. Sounds lovely

[NashvilleLefty]

19. Me. too. Which is why I have a dog.

I do have a single shot shotgun that I use to protect my dog from snakes.

As for home protection, I rely on my dog. He's the best home security you could ask for.

[Victor_c3]

6. My father is a gun nut

When I turned 18 I applied for and received a carry conceal pistol permit and my father gave me a Glock model 30 (.45 ACP sub-compact).

I did some time in the military and I spent 13 months in Iraq as an Infantry Platoon Leader in 2004. I've been in numerous instances where I've used firearms and where I've seen and dealt with firsthand the results of such use. However, I've been lucky to never have been in a situation where I needed to use a firearm in a civilian setting. If I'm hiking in the woods and I know that I'm going to be in the middle of nowhere I might bring my pistol with me, but that is it.

My rule of thumb is if I'm going to be going into a situation that I think I need to bring a pistol to protect myself, I probably should go there to begin with. So I have never actually carried a concealed weapon (except for the few times I took very extended hikes in the middle of nowhere). One thing a lot of people don't stop to think about is that an unloaded gun won't do you any good. You might as well not have one for home defense if you keep it unloaded and hidden in one place and you keep the ammo in another place. And, unless you are comfortable with the idea of a loaded gun in an easily accessible place, you probably shouldn't have one.

As of now, I live in a congested neighborhood and I have two little girls (aged 2 and 4). I don't feel safe keeping a loaded gun in my house given my children and my surroundings so I don't even have it around. It is locked up in my gun-nut-father's gun safe several hours away from here.

As far as gun laws go, I think it would be perfectly reasonable to implement limits on the size and quantity of weapons and ammunition someone could own. There is no reason anyone needs a military-style assault rifle with 30 round magazines. A .223 caliber M4/M16 can penetrate up to 18" of hardwood. If you were to fire that in your house, it'd easily go through all of your interior walls, out the back wall, and keep on going into your neighbor's house. I've never seen a person who was shot with .223 who didn't have an exit wound (meaning the bullet kept on flying after it went through the person). In what home defense setting would you want to even fire something with that sort of penetrating power? What kind of danger would penetrating power like that pose to your kids who could be hiding in the next room over?

There is no reason a person needs anything more than a pistol with 6-7 rounds for home defense or a hunter or a hobbyist shooter needs a rifle that is anything other than single shot/bolt action.

[obamanut2012]

9. What state let you have a pistol and CCW at 18?

I thought it was 21 across the board.

[Victor_c3]

11. New York

I applied for it when I was 18, but didn't get it until I was 19. But that was in 1998-1999

[NickB79]

8. I had to point a loaded gun at my dad when I was 17

He snapped and was trying to choke my mom out, so my 14-yr old sister hit him across the head with a coffee cup. He tried to punch her, so her and my 13-yr old brother ran to the bedroom where I was. I'd heard the screaming when the fight started, so I grabbed my deer rifle from the closet. By the time they got to me, my dad was right behind them. He kicked the door open and screamed that he was going to kill us, so I had to point my gun at him. He stopped for a few seconds, his eyes bugged out, and he ran out of the house.

I stood guard at the door for 45 minutes while we waited for the police to show up. In the end, he threatened to have my mom arrested if she pressed charges, because he claimed SHE was the one who gave him the lump on the head from that coffee cup, and he grabbed her around the throat in self-defense. The cops didn't give a damn what a few teenagers said, so my mom simply packed up our stuff and we left to live with Grandma.

Ever since then, I've had the urge to keep a gun around, not just for target practice and hunting, but also for self-defense. I know I was emotionally scarred by the incident, and I spent many hours in the counseling center once I got to college trying to work through it. Honestly, now that I'm in my 30's, happily married, have a good job, a nice house and a toddler in that house, I've reached the point where I don't feel the need to keep a loaded firearm around. They remain safely locked up when not in the woods or at the shooting range.

[marions ghost]

10. First of all, if you're a woman

1. You'd have to sleep with a loaded gun next to you

2. You've had military training, but that's an exception in women. To defend with a gun, one has to be trained in self defense. If you DO NOT have the self defense training to equip you psychologically to pull the trigger, there's a good chance you won't be able to do it before somebody can overpower you. This kind of coldness toward an invader must often be learned. It's not a natural instinct.

3. Since you've had a "bastard" of a husband--you are probably not surprised to know that in households where women own guns, this INCREASES the chances they will be the victim of domestic violence involving guns.

4. THERE'S A REASON why we let police and soldiers, trained extensively, to protect us. Citizen vigilantes went out in the 19th century--except in tribal places like Afghanistan. It is not a civilized society that arms itself to the teeth with lethal weapons.

5. You'd be better off getting a larger dog (or burgler alarm) and ditch the gun --if you are serious about home protection.

[The Straight Story]

12. re: #4

A. Suppose you were once one of those people but no longer work in that field?

B. Not enough of them to protect everyone else, especially those living out in the country or the hood where I do.

[jmg257]

13. I own a gun or 2 that would be just fine for home protection.

Once in a while I would purposely earmark a specific model for such use. Having a perceived need is a convenient way of justifying getting something new.

What complelled me to get them varies - I like guns, I like getting new things, perceived fear, and no good enough reasons not to have them. In the end money would be the biggest detriment.

[TheMoreYouKnow]

14. A family member was attacked and killed

By a burglar armed with a knife. I was 20 at the time and i chose to never let that happen to me. I purchased a handgun months later when i turned 21.

[cynatnite]

15. I forgot to add something else to my reasons...

Several years ago, my exhusband's nephew (whom I used to babysit for) was accidentally shot and killed when he and a friend were handling a gun. He was only 12 years old.

That also played a part in my decision.

In the end, I decided that having a loaded gun in the house was far more dangerous than not having one.

[L0oniX]

21. This could be flame bait.

[rrneck]

22. I've owned the same guns for years.

In the time I've owned them, I've lived in dicey neighborhoods, and low crime upscale neighborhoods. I live in a low crime area now. We also got a notice that there was an escaped convict in the area. I don't think he's been captured yet. A while ago a young man was almost decapitated with a large knife or sword not far away. The killer has not been apprehended. Now, do I worry about it? No. I still feel safe. Am I going to sell my guns? No. They'll do just what they've always done. They will sit there and wait for me to get time to go to the range for a bit of plinking.

[Go Vols]

23. In my 50

years of life I have been around loaded,accessible firearms all of those years.In those 50 years I have never needed to use one for home defense.

I have 30+ guns in the house now,all loaded and never a problem,my kids are grown and gone,but they had access to them also.

I was taught early on that you don't fuck with guns unless need be.I taught the same.

Out of the guns I have,I may have actually bought 3,most were B'Day or X-Mas presents from the age of 7-8 and on.

I have them because its its the way of life here,not really for home defense.Hunting,kill a critter eating a chicken or got a calf down,ect.

Responsible gun owners are not the problem,I would prefer to stay out of the knee jerk shit that is going on now,but there are more like me I would think.


Edit:I also have probably 50 different fishing poles that are seldom used either.