You can't swim in a gun. Guns have no useful purpose. The fact that pools are more dangerous doesn't justify owning a gun, so there is no "cognitive dissonance" here...We can eliminate unnecessary risk (like guns).
And you can't kill your potential killer or rapist, unless you invite him in the pool and hope he drowns, with pools being dangerous and all. I hope you never have to wish you had a gun near you. Personally I have no pool, but...
Pools, unless they are Olympic size ones used to do laps for most people are useless, "just [extremely dangerous] fun." Fun, like shooting a gun which also can save your life, or the life or your neighbor. Mighty useful if you ask me and much safer than pools.
You've obviously never been in a life threatening situation.
It's very unlikely owning a weapon (gun, knife, spray, whatever) will be of any use. "Killers" or "Rapists" (whatever that means) take you by surprise and pulling a gun is not an option (even if you had the mental discipline and self control to do it).
If you care about self defense, learn Krav Maga or another martial art that will condition you to actually increase your odds of survival... After years of rigorous training.
Just for the record, if you live in the 1st world, the probability of dying because of murder is so low that mentioning is a waste of time. Turn off the TV. ;)
So what if I have learned Krav Maga (and Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and dabbled in Sanda/Sanshou and wrestling) - and still feel incapable of defending myself against an armed assailant.
Is it okay for me to own a gun now that I've jumped through your arbitrary hoops?
Oh, I have no problem with guns. I own a rifle and enjoy target shooting. I recently got my hunting license and plan to start hunting this summer.
I have also lived in very rural areas and some very shady parts of town. I'm in Canada though, so handguns just aren't as prevalent up here (although I do have friends with restricted licenses and handguns they can shoot at the range).
I had an "interesting" youth. Growing up in rural area means I'm no stranger to seeing people at parties getting beer bottles smashed over their heads during fights or hit with ash trays at bars. Looking back at that, there was not a single situation where a person having a handgun would have made things better. It almost definitely would have made things much worse. People would have died as opposed to just need stitches at the hospital. Even in this rural area, it wasn't that difficult to talk my way out of bad situations. I was blasted out of the blue once, but it was a case of mistaken identity.
I think that if home invasions were a real threat to my family then I would really start to think about moving. There are just so many nicer places to live.
As an interesting side-note, I imagine many of the people there may have actually owned guns and even had them on them. And yet they didn't use them. If they indeed had them, then they also knew the importance of proper gun safety, even when drunk and angry :)
And yes, probably.. as long as you weren't hundreds of thousands of dollars upside down on your mortgage with 5 kids (requiring a large house) [and so on, insert rough situation here]
Canada has a very different culture despite its proximity to the US. You can't even compare the two. In my experience, people in the US are taught to feel that they are losers if they don't achieve a certain amount (or basically get what they want), whereas Canadians, in general, seem far more serene about the ups and downs of their lives.
Yes, it is a generalization, but it is very real. For instance, look at the disparity between violent crime rates in Seattle and Vancouver.
On your second point, I feel that you are speculating. Neither you or I know what a handgun would bring in those situations. People who do concealed carry in the US are statistically very unlikely to commit violent crime, far far less than the general population. The mere presence of gun isn't as big of a deal as many people fear.
The thing that troubles me in the US is that gun control advocates continuously attempt to paint a future where there are no handguns. We can't even keep cellphones out of prisons in the US, or eradicate drugs (which have been illegal for decades). With that in mind, essentially telling criminals in a society of extremes that they have nothing to worry about, that law-abiding citizens will be disarmed, seems incredibly foolish.
If we had it to do all over again, I'd be for strict gun control in the US, but we have to deal with the way things are now, not some imaginary reset. Maybe the issue for today is an early ban on armed drones.
If you care about self defense, learn Krav Maga or another martial art that will condition you to actually increase your odds of survival... After years of rigorous training.
So a thief or a potential rapist /murderer is in my living room at 4am. I should approach him without knowing his ultimate intention or what weapons he has, and try to some martial arts moves against him? Should I ask if he likes a cup of coffee first?
How about unmistakeable shotgun click from a safer distance?
You're right. Scaring someone who has got less to lose than you and might be on drugs is a good option.
Martial arts teach you confidence and self control, this is what will be useful. One of the first thing you learn when you're taught self-defense is that if someone asks for your wallet with a blade, you give the wallet. You use self defense only as a last resort.
If someone is inside your house just lock yourself in the bathroom, head low in the bathtub, and call the police. Maybe do some noise to scare the thief, or say out lout "get out, I'm calling the police". In this situation, if you have any sort of weapon, yes, take that with you as a last resort.
Shotgun negotiation? Who are you kidding? If you take out a weapon, you must be ready to use it. Are you ready to shoot? Can you live the rest of your life with the death of someone? Are you even trained for that kind of situations? Probable outcomes: injury, prison or death. For you.
Unless you have significantly stronger bathroom doors than the average person, locking yourself in the bathroom will buy you an extra 5 seconds, tops. Locked interior doors are very easy to open with even a little force. Not to mention most people leave the keys on the moulding above the doors...
Most home robberies occur when the occupant is not home. People who just want some cash or stuff do not want to risk a confrontation. If a person breaks in with you home you MUST assume they are out to do physical harm to you.
Which (hiding) would work great for one type of bad guy you apparently see a lot of on TV - the drugged out guys who picked a random house and wants $50. If this guy robs you he'll stop to pick up your shoes (to sell for drugs) so you can drop anything and run to safety. If the bad guy who broke into your house showed up on your security cameras' view with a "Type 1 Grunt - Snatcher" label you might even be safe to assume he would act this way.
But that's not realistic so you have to figure out who he is and what he wants from his actions starting with the 2am kicking down of your door. Guess wrong and he might be a drugged out rapist instead.
Really, if he's not yelling 'Fireman!' (And didn't arrive in a special truck) he's not kicking down your door to help. Some of the things that may be done to you may only (mostly) involve your things, or only hurt you not kill you, and people can give you a big song and dance about laws and morality - but don't YOU want to choose prison over death for yourself, if those really are your only two options?
I'm with you, partly. No need to fight this guy to be a hero. For your additional safety, hide in bathtub, sound a siren, and get help - while holding the shotgun you will use to kill him and his accomplices if they try to open your hiding spot before help arrives.
Isn't bringing up potential killers or rapists just fear-mongering in order to justify gun ownership? Is there any data supporting that gun ownership results in fewer rapes or deaths?
I find defense being thrown about as a very valid reason for owning a gun, but in a country like the US, is there concrete evidence that gun ownership caused fewer home break-ins?
I don't hope to be in a situation where I need a gun near me, but I also don't hope for someone confronting me having a gun in his/her hand.
> Is there any data supporting that gun ownership results in fewer rapes or deaths?
The claim was that "guns have no useful purpose". To refute this assertion, we don't need to prove that gun ownership results in fewer rapes or deaths (on, for example, a nation-wide basis), only that when someone attempts to harm you, a gun can be useful in defending yourself.
I mean, when you buy a bag of chips you don't ask yourself whether there is proof that chips actually results in a more satisfied society. You buy them because you feel it benefits you, and that's an entirely acceptable justification, in my opinion.
Well, people dissuading a killer/murderer by brandishing a gun and people being otherwise killed by guns are both very rare events, so I'd say that if one is "just fear-mongering" so is the other. In practice it's very hard to figure out whether gun ownership causes a reduction in crime, because it's well known that crime causes gun ownership and you have to have to be lucky in finding a good natural experiment to get around that. I'm not aware of any convincing research on the subject one way or the other, I'm afraid.
And before bringing up the number of gun deaths that would be considered justified versus suicides or murders, we do have pretty good evidence that in those cases where a gun prevents a crime it's mostly by the threat of its use, not its use itself.
When it happens to you, the % jumps to 100%/. end.of.story.
Suppose you make illegal all guns right now. Do you think it will be hard for a crook to his hands on a now illegal weapon?
All I need to know:
A gun will help me defend myself and family.
A gun can be kept safe by adhering to certain known gun safety principles. Accidents happen but then a brick from a building's facade can smack you in the head in the morning.
Cops are great, if you have one right there, right when you need him/her.
So, I think to myself, why not have one? Leaving all fun aside, it's a piece of mind.
This is a common argument, and while it has some merit, it also reeks of illusion of control bias. Guns make people feel safer because they feel more in control of their safety.
In reality, if someone is armed and has broken into my house, I want it to be absolutely clear to them that I am unarmed. I want them to know that they have no need to attack me, and that they should just take some of my stuff and get out (by far the most likely reason they're there), leaving me unharmed. The alternative possibilities sound much worse to me.
This is true in almost every situation where people talk about guns being useful against crime. I think I am more likely to harm myself, to incite the other party to harm me, to harm a bystander (maybe someone in my household), or to harm someone that I perceive as a much more serious and dangerous criminal than they actually are, than I am to successfully be a "good guy with a gun who stops a bad guy with a gun".
My impression, from speaking to gun owners, is that in most situations in which a gun is useful you do not actually end up firing it. Your mention of "almost every situation" brought to mind the Portland mall shooting, where the shooter stopped and killed himself after seeing another man taking aim at him[1]. Other much more publicized mass shootings may have gone significantly better if the government did not publicly designate large, completely unsecured areas in which only criminals are allowed to have firearms.
Have you ever actually had an intruder in your home?
I have had it happen twice. Once right after we moved into a brand new house (3-4 days after move in). Some local kids had figured out that the front door could be opened because the lock was installed wrong and were using the house to party while it was empty. They hadn't realized that people moved in.
Our golden retriever scared the crap out of them and they never made it 5 feet into the house - even though the dog was on the second floor. Now there is a solid defense system. I'll note that at the time, we had 5 guns locked up in the closest safely stored. The dog was down the stairs and dealing with the situation before I was even conscious enough to think. The whole thing would have been over before the guns were out if it was worse than some dumb kids.
Second time it happened was only 18 months ago. This was a little different because I was on a boat at night, but again I was certain that two big adult men were robbing boats in the vincity. I called the cops. The cops sent the coast guard. We hunkered down and hid (probably not the right call, should have turned on the lights). I wish I had a gun in that moment, they were 15 feet from our stern and definitely coming onboard. There is no where to go on a boat like that. I had a mag light and a radio, and when the guys started heading for my boat I hit them with the light. Meanwhile the cops went from sneaking over at 5mph to screaming over at 45mph. That defused the situation, but if there weren't cops and/or I had a gun I would have definitely shot a round or two into the water to scare them off. Possibly more.
When the cops actually picked them up, it turned out they were 2 14 year olds sneaking onto boats at night stealing booze. The cops made them apologize for scaring the crap out of us, so I met them. They couldn't have been 115 pounds each. If I hadn't saw them, I honestly could have sworn under oath they were 300 pound linebackers based on their silhouettes on other boats. Thank god I didn't have a gun that day, I'm almost certain I would have shot one of them. This is how kids get shot while holding skittles and even trained police officers confuse wallets for guns. Your mind plays tricks on you.
My lessons learned: keep the lights on. Own a dog. If there are intruders, make them totally aware you are there because most of the time, they want nothing to do with people. I'm not against owning guns, but if you store them safely they won't be as much help as you think.
Breaking and entering under the cover of darkness is a very dangerous activity and one for which I don't have much sympathy, but I agree with you, communication is key: communicating that your domicile is occupied, and if the criminal persists, communicating that you are armed prepared to shoot.
I have very little regard for the life of a robber. I don't feel that I should take valuable time out of my life to learn skills for applying measured non-lethal force to dissuade a person who intends to take my personal property by force. The only reason why I would be very hesitant to just shoot someone who broke into my house, would be my inability to identify them -- I don't want to shoot my mother-in-law.
This is the same fallacy that makes people who are afraid of flying say they feel safer driving (in) a car because they are 'in control'.
It doesn't change the fact that in reality they are orders of magnitude more likely to get hurt or even die while being in a car than while being on an airplane.
Not having a gun when someone armed threatens me will most likely increase my chances of survival/getting out of the conflict unharmed.
Maybe with a gun I have a better chance of retaliation but I'm also more likely to die.
The bottom line is: any weapon you /add/ to a conflict rises the stakes for /all/ parties involved. And vice versa.
> Not having a gun when someone armed threatens me will most likely increase my chances of survival/getting out of the conflict unharmed. Maybe with a gun I have a better chance of retaliation but I'm also more likely to die.
And this is known as the fallacy of making things up and asserting that they are most likely true.
The 1st sentence can be easily backed up by statistics about gun crimes.
The 2n part is purely speculative on my behalf but I'd dare say that's straightforward enough to conceive by noticing the word 'maybe', prominently placed at the beginning. ;)
I'd be curious to see your statistics. If they control for situations where two criminals have guns and are shooting at each other (i.e., they're actually about defensive gun use by the good guys) I'll be pretty shocked.
Just a general observation: your forceful, emotional phrasing/expressions only serve to discredit your position.
'end of story', 'All I need to know' are expressions that begin to end a discussion, they certainly don't make way for a healthy and productive exchange of ideas.
(I don't mean to knock on you here, just thought I would point it out so you can think about this on your own. Cheers).
'end of story', 'All I need to know' are expressions that begin to end a discussion, they certainly don't make way for a healthy and productive exchange of ideas.
No exchange of ideas on this topic, I've considered them all and I have decided to be armed while in my home. Whether I use it, how and when I use are a different story, but at least I may have that option. Others may choose not to have a gun, it's their choice.
Wikipedia has some links to studies collecting statistics on that. Though it's important to note that you're asking the wrong question; if I recall correctly, in something like 90% of defensive gun uses, no shots need to be fired. The threat alone is enough for the criminal to surrender or retreat. What you want to measure is how often a gun use prevents a crime.
Anyway, it seems a middle of the road number from the studies is . . . about a million defensive gun uses per year? Lower bound is 55,000 - 80,000.
Wikipedia also gives a homicide with guns rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Stat..., looks like about 8,000 in 2012. It should be borne in mind that a lot of those homicides are from things like gang violence, and would be conducted with illegal guns or other weapons even if gun laws were super-tight.
A 25 metre long pool is easily used for lap swimming of any intensity and even smaller pools remain useful for people who only require low intensity exercise.
Would you want to go on a hunting trip with someone who had never fired a gun, or who did not know how to aim? There is a big different between knowing abstractly that you need to pull the trigger and having actually done so, especially with higher-caliber rifles.
You're arguing my point: target practice is to gain skill to kill with the weapon. I wasn't taking a specific moral stance, I actually believe as long as the government is allowed to have weapons the people should be able to as well. I simply have no illusions what guns are for.
And you can't kill your potential killer or rapist, unless you invite him in the pool and hope he drowns, with pools being dangerous and all. I hope you never have to wish you had a gun near you. Personally I have no pool, but...
Pools, unless they are Olympic size ones used to do laps for most people are useless, "just [extremely dangerous] fun." Fun, like shooting a gun which also can save your life, or the life or your neighbor. Mighty useful if you ask me and much safer than pools.