Re: Guns! - I promised (yes it\'s rural related..)
For the past 63 years, I've been one of the 3 out of 4 households which does NOT own 1 or more handguns. But, all of this talk about home defense has got me thinking about what we should be doing. It just adds fuel to my fire after the thread on home security systems.
My wife and I have been married for almost 40 years. I think the first thing we should do is sit down and seriously talk about locking our front door -- we have never done so, anywhere we have ever lived. There's no use thinking about any of the 3 sliding doors at the back of the house; we leave one or more of those open, year 'round, so the dogs can go in and out.
First thing we'd have to do is get a locksmith out to re-key the locks - we've been in this house for four years, and neither one of us has a clue where the keys are that we got with the house. The last house, where we lived for 21 years, we had to have the locks re-keyed when we went to sell it, because the real estate people wanted to put a lockbox on it, but we couldn't find a key to put in the lockbox.
On second thought, nah, I'm not gonna bring it up. Old habits are hard to break and we'd probably just end up locking ourselves out too much.
We do have keys to our mountain cabin, but that's because we lock it when we're not there. It's never been locked when we are there. And, we've learned to lock the deadbolt on our motor home at night, because our male greyhound, Rocky, figured out how to hit the lever action door handle and open the door himself when he wants out, but he hasn't figured out how to get back in.
All the statistics got me thinking. "Handguns are used for protection against criminals more than 2 millions times a year." What does that mean? How were they used? By whom? How successful was it? Was the protection needed, or were the handguns just "used" (whatever that means) whether they were needed or not? How many of those times was by a homeowner in the middle of the night? Not enough information, and it sure sounds slanted.
About "stopping power". Further on in the statistics, it says that "fewer than 1 in 1,000 defensives uses of a handgun result in the death of a criminal." That works out to fewer than 2,000 criminals being subjected to ultimate "stopping power", and again, it doesn't say how many of those were by homeowners confronted with a criminal. Probably most were by convenience store workers. Regardless, considering around 100 million households in the US, I like my odds.
I especially like my odds in another statistic. Paraphrasing (because I'm too lazy to go cut and paste the quotes), it says that people who use guns for defense are less likely to get hurt - 17+% of them get hurt. On the other hand, number 3 on the list of less likely, at 24+%, is no defense at all ("other weapon" was close behind at 22%). The average of any form of self protection was 38+%. The statistic is plain - on average, you're better off with no self-protection.
The statistics do go on to say that the use of a handgun for portection is 5 times higher than the use of guns for criminal activity. This is likely the reason why the use of a handgun is 7% more effective than no defense at all in the above paragraph. What I'd really like to see is how many people are hurt when they try to use a handgun against a criminal who does have a gun. I'm willing to bet the statistics really jump at the point - self-defenders who try to use a hand gun against a criminal with a gun are probably much more likely to get hurt than non-defenders. I base this on conversations with friends who are long-time law enforcement professionals. One told me, "If both you and the criminal have a gun, you're much more likely to be shot. The criminal is desperate, and is already a bad guy, or he wouldn't be a criminal with a gun. He's much more likely to shoot than you are. The worst thing you can do with a criminal who has a gun, is to show a gun." His further advice, "If you think you really need to have a handgun, get a little Saturday night special .25 caliber with a really short barrel. If you think you need it for defense, show it, and immediately point it up in the air and pull the trigger. The louder it is, and the more flame that shoots out from the barrel, the better deterrent it is. then, point it back at the criminal. This will work about 10% of the time, but it's better than trying to actually shoot the criminal, because that rarely works. It's also better than making a mistake and finding out that you didn't shoot a criminal, but your neighbor who also heard a noise and was out prowling with his gun."
Bottom line, I'm not an anti-gun nut, and have owned several plinking rifles in my time. My wife and I both enjoy target shooting, although we've had to give it up because our timid female greyhound quakes in fear at a firecracker, let alone a rifle shot. But, I am a logical, thinking person who understands that without a gun, the odds are decidedly in my favor.
