|
Edited on Thu Nov-06-03 02:18 AM by happyslug
But I have to agree with the people who say your first choice should be a shotgun. Shotguns and Rifles are TWO handed weapons designed for quick and easy use.
Pistol design also tends to quick and easy use, but with the additional requirements of being able to be carried in a holster AND one hand use (and I know it is better to use two hands even in a Pistol, I am discussing DESIGN, not optimize usage).
These two additional design requirements compromises the ability of pistols to be easy to use and quick to aim. With a shotgun your body has three points of contact with the weapon, your two hands and your shoulder. Furthermore the act of putting the weapon into your shoulder brings it up to your eyes for aiming (or "pointing" if using a shotgun without sights). These natural parts of the design is why all armies in the world equipment their personnel with Rifles instead of pistols (Most armies only issue pistols to personnel who do to job assignments can not operate a rifle and also the assignment. i.e. Machine Gunner, a Tank operator and pilots among other examples. Another example are MPs who are issued pistols for they may have to direct traffic, pistols free both hands for directing traffic. This is the same reason Police are issued pistols instead of Rifles).
One last comment on the use of force, in most states you have to "retreat" from any confrontation if you can. In my home state of Pennsylvania this duty ends at your door step (and if the “home invader” runs out of your home, the duty to retreat also begins at that door step). My advice is always to call the Police FIRST and than try to retreat if possible. Only if those two actions fail should you use deadly force. If the "home invader" leaves, leave him go, do NOT shot him. A few years ago a doctor found a person in his home, he chased the person out of his home and than down the street where he shot the “home invader”. The Doctor was convicted of Manslaughter for he had chased the person out of his home and therefore the “Home invader” was no longer a threat to him or his family (I should note had the “Home Invader” been shot in the home it would have been valid self-defense, Pennsylvania does not recognize a duty to retreat FROM one’s home).
Also in the USA home invasions when the home is occupied is rare (as is looting after disasters, the fear of being shot is the main reason given by criminals when ask why they will do neither). In England and other heavy gun control countries, such home invasions are much more common (again attributed to the lack of guns in the homes in those countries), but let me say this, Criminal statistics are easy to manipulate (and often are) except for homicide (You almost always have a body for a Homicide, thus hard to reduce or increase homicide crime rate do to local political reasons). My point is the crime rate has been going down for over 30 years (since the mid-1970s, except for an increase in the late 1980s AND an increase in the number of NON-family/friends murders). Murder has lead this decrease in crime, with other crimes also dropping. Reason for this drop is all over the board I have my own theorys but for this topic we just have to point out the DROP in crime Not why crime has dropped.
I believe the drop in crime since the mid-1970s (With its huge drop in the 1990s) has to do with increase Children and Family intervention starting in the early 1980s. The reason it only starts in the 1990s is that the crime rate reflects a drop in people with violent tendencies, and those tendencies do not manifest themselves till a child is a teenager. On the other hand the violent tendency is “learn” by the child as a preschooler. If the child does not learn to be violent as a preschooler do to family intervention, than the child does not become a violent teenager ten years later and thus crimes drops.
Increase policing and longer sentencing have also been factors through, in my opinion, less a factor than that fact that most inner-city blacks of today are now 2-3 generations away from the rural south and the rural south’s long history of violence. As a result today’s inner-city urban blacks have a more traditional “Northern” attitude to violence as opposed to the blacks of the 1960s whose upbringing still reflected the violence of the rural south. Even today the Rural South is the most violent area of the United States, and has been since colonial days (and this history of violence applies to rural southern whites as while as rural southern blacks). Scholars have long reported it takes 2-3 generations to change a culture, given that most blacks moved to the inner-city only starting during WWII (and increasing rapidly in the 1950s) the blacks who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s still were influenced by their family’s rural southern roots and the rural south’s culture of violence. Today’s inner-city blacks are to far removed from that Southern Rural Culture and the drop in crime among inner city blacks reflect this change.
Thus between family intervention and the weakening of traditions of violence in families are the main reason for the drop in crime. Crime and family violence have long been connected and thus by addressing inner family violence you drop crime rate. It takes ten years for the crime rates to fall, but it will fall to reflect the drop in inner family violence (and will increase when such family intervention is reduced, for example in the late 1950s the states all deduced family intervention services do to the recession of 1959, this lead to the increase in crime rates in the late 1960s).
Jut a reminder, shotguns are the best form of self-Defense but also remember crime is DROPPING and will continue to drop as long as we fund Children And youth Services and other family intervention programs.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
