But, if the intruder takes a bullet to the brain, the world goes on and I do as well.
Really? You think your gun is safer and more effective then locks on your doors/windows, a home alarm system, and dialing 911? Since you’re such a responsible gun owner I’m sure you follow the NRA guidelines for never storing your gun loaded and always keeping your gun under lock and key when not in use. “Sorry mr intruder, pls stand over there while I go get my gun, which is locked away in the top shelf in my closet. Oh, and please wait while I load it, txs”.
Yeah, real helpful. :rolleyes:
Also, you know of any children accidentally killed by the lock on their door? You know any troubled teenager that decided to off himself by home alarm system-ing himself to death?
I have no idea. Why does it even matter? Unless you’re suggesting there’d be just as many deaths in that age group without guns. In the UK, if we expand the age group to 13-24 and include -all- recorded homicides (not just drug & gang-related), the number is around 130-150 per year. Compare that to the 3,000 or so in the US. CITE(warning: PDF; see Figure 2, pg 15). You know what’s interesting about that chart? There are 100x more hospital admissions for assault for that same 13-24 age group, yet ‘only’ a hundred or so die each year. I bet that ratio would be a lot lower, and deaths a lot higher, if UK gang members were using guns, like their US brethren.
The UK also has a gang & drug problem. Less of their kids end up dead. In the US, gangs & drugs are why a lot of kids end up in trouble, but our guns are why so many of them end up dead.
I think you misread that source. What the EPA actually says is that they get 12,000-15,000 phone calls per year expressing concern about exposure of children to rat poison, and they theorize that this only represents 20-25% of the total number of exposures (most of whom did not make a phone call), hence 60,000 parents who are concerned that their child has been exposed. It does NOT say that 60,000 children die. The vast majority of such children survive.
I couldn’t find a source for the USA but according to the World Health Organization, Europe had a total of 219,000 children poisoned in the year 2000, of which only 141 died, which is 0.06%. Applying a similar ratio to 60,000 exposures per year in the USA suggests that the actual death toll would be about 40 children per year.
Hypothetically, if I were defending my home from an invasion of, say… zombies, my weapon of choice would be a sawed-off shotgun.
But, in the real world, there is very little reason for anyone to invade my home. I don’t own a damned thing which can’t be replaced for less than $500. Our lives are much more valuable than that, but again… why would this imaginary invader want to harm us? I’m not saying it’s impossible but it certainly is very unlikely.
About ten years ago, a vagrant entered my house when I wasn’t home. He stole about $5 worth of food from my cupboard and $3 worth of coins from a dish on my kitchen counter. All the other times I’ve been robbed were when thieves stole something out of my car, not my house.
So… let’s suppose I get woken up in the middle of the night and hear a noise in my basement. Should I shoot to kill? Yeah, there’s a tiny possibility it’s a serial killer who is determined to murder my whole family. More likely it’s a friend or family member who needed to get something out of my basement and didn’t want to wake me up to tell me about it. That’s why my choice is to shout something like “What the hell do you think you’re doing!”. Thieves would likely run away as soon as they know they are in danger of being caught. If it turns out to be my brother-in-law, he can apologize for waking me up and we’ll both be glad I didn’t shoot him.
Since when is a 19 y/o a minor? With those criteria my cousin who was killed in Iraq, a deputy dying in the line of duty, and a Crip being shot by a Blood would be counted.
Likely from video games; many of which portray shotguns as scattering to such a degree that you do barely any damage at ten feet. 
My Mossberg 12 Ga. and M1911 .45 are my fall backs. I have two dogs that can’t hurt anyone but sure are loud. They will scare off any random burglar. Should someone not deterred by the canine announcing system and keep coming, then a load of 00 aught to take care of them. I fire these weapons regularly and are the ones I am most comfortable with in a self defense situation. The AR and all other guns are in a safe not convenient for rapid access.
Until recently home invasions were very unlikely. But crooks have gotten dumber and bolder. In states that have legalized medical marijuana these are increasingly common. There have been several in my area and one outstanding citizen was recently sentenced for his activities. Home-invasion robber pleads guilty to assault - The Columbian .
Both legal and illegal grows have been targeted. I do not use or grow pot, but I know several people who do. I was recently in a customer’s home and he had a legal grow operation set up in his garage. The pot was grown in lockers heavily constructed out of plywood, have electrical and plumbing fixtures and are securely locked. He has No Trespassing signs, two big dogs and I’m sure he has weapons. This is all legal under state law. If he ever has to defend it or himself and the Feds get involved, it could get very interesting. I still think he’s an idiot because he has a wife and two young kids in the house. I would never expose my family to risk like that.
Indoor grows used to be very clandestine and the growers very paranoid about discovery. Now that my state lets one person operate as a legitimate grower for several users, it’s much more likely that the location of a grow site will become known to undesirable types.
Washington and Colorado have legalized recreational pot smoking and soon will have to come up with a legal supply so I can see more of this happening.
I am not worried about my home being invaded, but you can count on seeing more invasion style robberies where pot is being cultivated. Maybe I’ll start a “Pot Farm Security Service” to provide armed guards at commercial pot operations.
First, I don’t see where anyone prior to your entering this thread was fantasizing about a “Rambo” scenario. In fact it looked like people were responding to a hypothetical home invasion scenario, so I really fail to see how your comments related to the individuals in this thread.
Additionally, your side point about accidental deaths was irrelevant to the subject of the thread.
Finally, the whole “Rambo” thing is retarded for a few reasons:
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John Rambo was a homeless drifter, so dealing with a home invasion has nothing to do with Rambo.
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Rambo did not travel with or own a gun.
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Rambo responded to frankly police harassment followed by illegal abuse by the police by breaking out of the police station and running into the woods, with the goal of simply getting away. After being hounded by police he started to defend himself, but in fact he shoots and kills zero people. That’s right, Rambo kills zero people in the whole movie. The closest he comes to actually killing someone is when a sheriff who is trying to shoot him while he is immobilized on a cliff in the back falls out of his helicopter after Rambo throws some rocks at the windows of the copter.
In the other Rambo movies he is either engaged in sanctioned military missions or involved in a mercenary rescue mission in a warzone, both of which have nothing to do with fighting off home invaders.
since it let people inflate statistics.
[QUOTE=mattm;15843328
Until recently home invasions were very unlikely. But crooks have gotten dumber and bolder. In states that have legalized medical marijuana these are increasingly common. [/QUOTE]
That is strange. One would think that if miscreants could lie and get it legally, they would not have to steal to pay for it.
That’s an interesting point. But I’m pretty sure I remember him setting booby traps which actually did kill people. Anyway, I think DragonAsh meant if you are an ordinary person and you think holding a gun in your hand will instantly turn you into some kind of super soldier like John Rambo, that is a fantasy. Also, it would be good to remember that Rambo himself seemed tormented by what he had become. The second part of the fantasy is the idea that becoming Rambo would be fun.
the only people who seem to be saying that are people like DragonAsh. It’s an intellectually weak projection onto firearm owners, and is nothing more than a strawman.
There’s this, but Wikipedia and I seem to remember that he does not actually finish off the bad guy.
TL;DR: 0-1 guys in the first movie, lots more in the other ones. I think a marathon or something was on yesterday.
Equating gun owners or people with sports cars or motorcycles to Rambo or small penises is childish and dodges any discussion of issues, IMHO.
Do the rule specify “legal” weapons?
A wide-chole shotgun may not have much of a distribution (scatter) pattern at 10’. but if said shotgun were to meet up with a cutting tool do it ended up with the muzzle 6" from the receiver, it just might do a slightly better job.
Yes, sawed-off shotguns are illegal in probably every jurisdiction in the US - even Texas.
It comes down to “better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6”.
If you want maximum protection, you may well have to go past where polite society goes.
Just never let anyone know you have it
The OP specifies sawed off. And if you have to ask whether your sawed off is legal, the answer is no.
However: they are not illegal in every state. A few states make them illegal. However, federally, they are highly controlled, and if you don’t do it the legal, pain-in-the-ass way, then you get a felony term in a pound-me-in-the-ass prison, per the 1934 NFA. In other words, pay the $200, do the steps, and you might be able to chop your shotgun/rifle down. But even then, some states may say no.
You can also buy short barrelled weapons legally, like the Mare’s Leg, because legally they are built to be pistols. But “once a rifle/shotgun, always a r/s” and chopping it without the stamp makes it illegal.
Are home invasions really so common in the US that this thread is even necessary?
I live in Canada in a city of about 90,000. I think there has been 1 home invasion in the last 5 years.
If I recall correctly a while back in Vancouver there was a string of about 30 home invasions over a couple months. They were the same intruders hitting the same targets (older couples aged 60+ in a certain neighborhood). I’d almost call this a statistic anomaly.
If you factor in the percent chance of a home invasion actually happening it seems pretty minuscule compared to the chance of an accidental firearm discharge.
And as somebody mentioned earlier, if you plan on using a firearm to “defend” against a home invasion you’re NOT storing your firearm and ammunition in a safe/legal manor. My guns are locked in a gun safe in my office, each gun has a trigger lock. The keys for the safe and trigger locks are well hidden in a totally different part of the house.
I’m not a mathematician but could someone figure out the following?
What are the odds of a home invasion actually occurring at any random address in the US? Maybe have 2 numbers one for in a rural setting and one for a major metropolitan setting.
What are the odds of a house having improperly stored firearms cause an accidental discharge resulting in injury or death?
And finally what are the odds of winning a multi-million lottery?
I’m willing to bet the best odds of something happening are accidental discharge of a firearm, followed by winning the lottery, followed by a home invasion.
MtM
Our tax dollars at work…well, if the Government didn’t gather these stats, it’d be a lot harder to get at them.
Per the FBI, the number of Robberies in the United States in 2009 was 417,438. Robbery of a Residence: 59,207. Robbery is defined by the Feds as: “[T]he taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.” It’s distinguishable from burglary or other theft in that violence or the threat of same is a necessary element. Robbery in a Residence may not be a one-to-one match with “home invasions” but it is, IMHO, also the sort of thing that people who are worried about home invasions also worry about.
Number of Housing Units (Households is smaller; no idea why.) in the U.S per the 2010 Census: 132,312,404
Yeah, the years are different. And I’m not allowing for the same house getting robbed twice. This is a SWAG at answering McDeath’s query. I get 59,207/132,312,404 or 1 in 2234. Yikes. That’s higher than I would have guessed.
Odds of winning the Powerball Jackpot (substitute your own lottery if you wish): 1 in 175,223,510.
I found getting the odds of an accidental discharge causing injury or death to be a toughie. The CDC kindly had a list of violent deaths in 16 reporting states for the 2009 year. They listed 87 “Unintentional Firearms Deaths” (UFD, for short) for the 16 states. (It was 71 in 2008, FWIW.) UFD covers a fairly large spread of activities, wider than the activities that McDeath was implicating. The definition the CDC was using includes (at Box 3):
Quite a lot of things that I wouldn’t count as the types of deaths he’s talking about, particularly the range and celebratory firing screw-ups. And the stats don’t mention injuries, which, considering only 1 in 7 people die when they get shot with a handgun, are going to be a lot greater. Let’s be tremendously over-inclusive, multiply the 86 number by 7 to get total injuries, divide that by the population of the 16 reporting states (AK,MD,MA,NJ,OR,SC,VA,CO,GA,NC,OK,RI,WI,CA,KY,NM,UT), and see what we come up with. From laboriously adding up their populations in the year 2010, I get 123,509,076 people. Dividing my WAG of 602 total unintended firearms injuries into that population, I get a proportion of 1 in 205,164.
EDIT: If you like, divide the total population of those states by the same ration of households to population that existed for the robbery data above. It still comes out to 1 in ~65,000 households.
So, to review: [ul]
[li]Chances of winning the Powerball Jackpot are ~1 in 175 million.[/li][li]Your chances of being injured in a unintended firearms accident are 1 in 205 thousand, and I think I’m really overstating those odds. [/li][li]And your chances of being involved in a robbery of your household are 1 in ~2250.[/li][/ul]
Hopefully this was helpful. It was an entertaining distraction from work.
With the caveat that my first choice is to run if I can do so without abandoning my wife & child, I’ll take the shotgun. Not the sawed-off version, though; I don’t see a purpose to a weapon that’s lethal at five feet but useless at twenty. If I have to get within a single bound to use the weapon, I am increasing the odds that the crackhead will be able to get the jump on me. (Knives have the same problem as a weapon of first resort.)
So…someone’s breaking into Casa Rhymer. For whatever reason I decide to go out & confront rather than seek a defensible position. As I’m arming myself, the Glock goes on my hip; the shotgun’s in my hands.
I hope the above doesn’t make me sound like an internet though guy, though. I need a really, really good reason not to retreat, though. If I have enough time to get my wife & baby into the bedroom me and lock the door behind us, I’ll do that. The bad guys can have they want on the other side of that door. I only believe in fighting when I either am starting with an overwhelming and unfair advantage, or when there’s simply no choice.
I don’t believe there are any laws in Arkansas about how to store firearms.
The house we don’t live in has been broken into twice.
I have no children, so I see no danger at all.
A sawed off shotgun has no different a spread (1 inch per yard) than an unchoked , full length shotgun.
The main advantage of a sawed off is concealment and maneuverability in close quarters.
Maybe so. I’ve never fired a sawed-off; my remark was based on something my grandfather told me back in the day, so I could easily be wrong. (The error is of course mine; suggestions that my GRANDDAD was wrong will of course be answered with a slap. 
)
I still don’t see a purpose to having the sawed-off for home protection services. When not in use it’s locked up, and I’m not gonna carry it around. If all goes well I am going to calling the police to either report having chased off a home invader or to report having shot on; it seems unwise in either case to have to explain the illegally modified weapon.