"A Florida man armed with an weapon that had once been banned under federal law forced his wife to watch as he strangled one of his sons and then shot a second before turning a gun on himself.
Victoria Flores Zavala told Boynton Beach police that 45-year-old Isidro Zavala went to her home on Saturday with a plan to kill her and their two boys because she had filed for divorce last year, according to WTVJ. But Isidro Zavala decide to spare his wife at the last minute so she could suffer while watching him murder 12-year-old Eduardo Zavala and 11-year-old Mario Zavala."
Kind of anecdote that doesn’t enlighten. This sort of behavior is way beyond anything we can discuss, or regulate, or even effect. Dark and twisted madness is not subject to rational control.
This last December there were 2.8 million NICS background checks. Now the background checks are done only at the point of sale, so they provide a pretty good idea of the number of guns bought. This isn’t a perfect method because some people buy more than one gun per background check, concealed carry holders don’t usually have to go through another check, and some small number of people fail the check. Most people who would fail a background check do not attempt to legally purchase, hence the small number of rejections.
That 2.8 million in December is high, it was only a little over 2 million in November. But if we do the math using a more conservative number of 1.5 million per month since 2009 we arrive at a number north of 400 million, the real answer is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of half a billion guns in the US.
There are currently only 315 million people in the US.
We are trying to keep up with demand, just give us some time to catch up, Ok?
Yeesh there have been a lot of replies on a lot of different threads. I can’t keep up with all of them.
[QUOTE=steronz]
It depends. I’ve said in other threads that if I were legitimately concerned about a home invasion, I would fortify my house. I’d install a heavy metal door at the top of the stairs, which I would deadbolt every night, and have a hard line with which to call 911. If someone broke into the house, I would hunker down in my fortress and wait for the cavalry.
[/quote]
I have a single floor home. Double doors to my bedroom and two windows to the outside. I suppose it could be made into a fortress but I don’t think it economically feasible and probably not so good for resale value. I did install motion sensor lights outside the house. A problem with my home invasion was visibility in the dark so my bedside gun is now a Remington 870 with a Surefire forearm light attached in addition to my handguns. I don’t have any kids and my SO and I have a good relationship. I don’t plan to shoot her and I don’t expect her to shoot me.
I think a couple loud dogs would be a great deterrent but unfortunately I don’t have the time to take care of them.
FWIW, I was talking about the video. The other nice thing about my sidearm is I can carry it with me almost wherever I go, unlike the fortress, so given the choice I’ll take the gun.
I sure John Tabutt thought much the same way you do before that night in October 2009.
Statistically speaking, you and/or your SO are more likely to be shot with your gun than any home invader. Not to worry tho; we’ll keep repeating this until you understand it.
Well my home invader wasn’t going to shoot me but rather beat me to death with a 2x4 so I’m not sure what that would do to your statistics. Also I’m a USPSA Master level shooter, so I’m pretty sure I’m considerably better trained in gun handling and safety than John Tabutt. And in case you missed it, I have a light on the end of my gun.
So, Kable, are ya bothered at all by posting videos of people shooting intruders in a thread titles “Stupid Gun news of the day”? You post them, we think it’s stupid news. Is that what you actually had in mind?
You maybe might want to actually start another thread, “Good gun news of the day,” if that’s what you were shooting for.
Huh. Well, I don’t watch videos when I’m at work, so I’ve just been assuming they’re all stupid gun news. Are you saying you’ve been deliberately posting good gun news in this thread, in spite of what it’s called?