I’m seriously considering it. Even if it stays in a box in the closet. I think that, as a single female, I’ll only consider it more as I get older and less physically able. If there’s already one in the closet, I’ll be able to move it to the nightstand drawer easily enough in the future.
The restrictions are ridiculous, but even if those loosen up later on, it’s not like they’re hard to do, just inconvenient in the meantime. I still have to get a FOID card anyway, which I’m sure will take a month.
There are a lot of people I’ve spoken with in person who want to get one, or at least want to be able to get one if they wish to in the future. I’m curious what the anonymous SDMB folk have to say?
Not in a million years. In fact, my upstairs neighbor has revealed that he has guns (not sure what kind, he’s had them a while - just on general principle, I hope they’re not handguns), and just knowing they’re up there makes me a little bit nervous. (Admittedly this is partly because he gives me the creeps generally.)
No, I think it would make my house less safe, not more.
I’m not anti-gun in general. I do have a FOID card so I can do trap shooting (which I enjoy–fun sport) and hunt with family and friends, but I don’t own any guns and don’t plan to. There’s no good reason to have one in the city, IMO.
I do have a friend with a few guns (including handguns) in his condo, and he may go through the process to legalize them now, but I doubt it. After all, he never registered his long guns, and it’s been legal to have those for a long time.
Never crossed my mind. Whilst living in Chicago, I have known and do know people with guns, but they are invariably criminals or creepy paranoid weirdos*. Buying a gun if you’re a Chicagoan who doesn’t fall into one of these two groups just doesn’t really seem necessary or advisable.
For some reason I find the paranoid types creepier than the criminals. I mean, hey, crime’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it. The paranoiacs* creep me out because they don’t need a gun for any of their day-to-day activities, but seem to slaver gleefully at the prospect of some post-societal epoch where they’ll finally have the justification to kill a bunch of people to protect their stuff***
It occurs to me that it’s quite possible that I know other people who own guns but don’t feel the need to talk about it all the time. I work as a chef**, so I own a variety of sharp and dangerous knives, but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about knives or how great they are. Perhaps folks like me find gun owners creepy because the only ones we hear from seem to be in love with their guns and feel the need to defend and glorify them with a passion and zeal seemingly out of proportion to the usefulness of the guns themselves. Just thinking outloud.
***when this time of darkness comes to pass, apparently there will be roving bands of marauders looking to steal Alex Jones books and punk rock lps who can only be dealt with via lethal force.
****Which should account, I believe, for my associations with criminals and creepy paranoiacs.
I’m not a gun person, never really felt I needed one, but I did grow up with a handgun in the house, and it’s never really bothered me in the least. I would consider having one if whomever I am living with is okay with the fact.
You must live in a NICE Chicago neighborhood. I can name many times in my crappy one I would’ve been safer and not at the mercy of criminals, had I had one.
I haven’t been in Chicago since 1969, when your "p-word"s (take your pick: “police” or “pig”) broke into Covenant Methodist Church in Evanston and beat, clubbed, and kicked me, then perjured themselves to justify their actions. Therefore, I may not have standing to comment on your Chicago problems . . . but I’ll do so anyway, in the hope that an out-of-state perspective may be of some help.
Back home in Virginia, I'm an upstanding citizen, with a long history of productive work, and a volunteer citizen-activist, spending hundreds of hours each year at the annual session of our state legislature. Sometimes these sessions run into the wee hours of the morning, long past the time when our local buses stop running. I frequently have had to walk 3 1/2 miles from the Capitol to my home. I've been threatened a number of times, and robbed once, and thwarted attempted robberies several times.
Virginia used to be a "may issue" state: any law-abiding adult was free to carry a weapon openly, but in order to carry concealed one had to apply for a permit from the court. The judge was free to issue, or deny, the permit for any reason, or for no reason, and there was no appeal from that decision. Thirty-five years ago, I was shot (while unarmed) by a hoodlum who objected to my political activities, and then received death threats from some of his thuggish friends for being so impolite as to involve the police in what they saw as a private argument. I applied for a permit, with letters of endorsement from a legislator and from the head of our local Vice Squad, but was turned down with no reason given.
Over a dozen years ago, Virginia changed to a "shall issue" state: permit still required, but the court is required to either issue the permit or cite a specific reason not to do so (and the court's decision may be appealed). The number of people with permits to carry concealed weapons grew enormously, and I was one of those who availed myself of that privilege.
To the surprise of absolutely no one except anti-gun fanatics, the crime rate in Virginia has fallen noticeably since then, and continues to do so.
Some permit-holders misuse their weapons, of course. Those crimes are far outweighed by the number of crimes which are foiled by armed resistance, or simply never attempted because the criminal can no longer be pretty sure that the intended victim is incapable of resisting. (I should mention that "armed resistance" does not just mean "victim shot back"; I have personally thwarted not less than three attempted robberies (and one attempted beating) by merely pulling back my jacket and putting my hand on the butt of my gun. The mere presence of the means of resistance often ends the threat.) I have never had to actually use my weapon, and almost never had to take it from the holster.
That's my experience, for what it's worth. Again, I don't live in Your Fair City, and am not likely to do so, so please pardon my use of bandwidth and disk space.
We now return to your discussion, already in progress.
Assuming you are not a drug dealer or otherwise involved with other nefarious/illegal activities, the odds against of having to protect yourself in your home are pretty steep, maybe “not in a million years” as noted above.
Well, speaking of millions, and making a long story short, a detective characterized as a “million to one” an incident at my home. For the record, I am not a drug dealer or otherwise involved in any illegal/socially controversial issues. In fact, I’m just an average joe when it comes to my daily activities.
This average joe status, however, did not discourage two convicted (attempted murder) felons from breaking into my daughter’s bedroom at 1:00 AM. Fortunately, they woke her up in the process, fortunately she had time to run into my bedroom, fortunately I owned a gun, and fortunately I knew how to use it. And quite fortunately, no one else will have to worry about these two guys anymore.
The decision to own a gun should not be taken lightly. Certainly, the odds of something like this occurring to you must be taken into consideration. You must also be honest with yourself about your capacity for ever using it. A good friend (woman, lives alone), being aware of the aforementioned incident, asked me about owning a gun. My first question related as to whether she was prepared to use it. Turns out her idea of using a gun to protect herself was simply to brandish it in order to scare away an intruder. My suggestion was to drop the gun idea and to invest in better locks.
My recommedation to anyone is to assess the odds of being victimized by a home invasion and then be honest with yourself as to whether you would have the composure to actually use it. Of course, had million to one odds comforted me to the extent of not owning a gun, there’s a strong possibility I would not be posting this response.