I’ve recently begun to think about keeping a gun, for defense in my home. The more I think about it, though, the more my years of anti-gun conditioning influence me–it sort of doesn’t sound like a good idea either to bring a gun into the situation, or to be the one who starts the shooting. On the other hand, it seems stupid to not be prepared with something if an armed intruder enters my house.
So, what do you all think? Can you make me feel OK about having a handgun in the house?
I did not grow up around guns. Parents don’t own one.
Before you make that step, you need to practice - a lot. You need to go to a shooting range or borrow from friends to see what you like and are comfortable with. Guns are very individual things.
Most people enjoy shooting for practice and it is an end in its own right. After you have done that for a while, you will be competent and educated enough to buy one and use it successfully.
You also want to look into safety classes and any beginner’s classes in your area. Beginning to shoot isn’t difficult but the entire process does to take skill.
You shouldn’t bring one into your home until you know what you want and you are competent with it.
I have owned a gun for home protection for many years. A friend who is a cop gave me some lessons on use of a firearm for self defense, and he helped me get a C.C. permit. I take it to an indoor range and shoot till my hand hurts once a year.
I feel comfortable having it in my home. Mentally, I am prepared to take a life if I am threatened by an intruder.
What Shagnasty said. Practice. Firearms in the hands of the uneducated are accidents waiting to happen, IMHO. Firearms in the hands of the educated, however, are a useful tool.
Go to a gun store with a range. They can help you try different pistols to find one that suits you, and they will know where to find local training. The National Rifle Association is not just a lobbying agency either; use them as a tool to find training that suits your purpose.
I probably don’t practice enough these days, but I am still comfortable with the concept of using a firearm in self-defense. If you don’t feel that you can take a life in defense of your own, you may not be suited for this particular mode of self-defense.
Ditto on Shagnasty, but…you CAN bring a gun into your house with the intention of learning how to use it…But you need to not think of it as home protection and keep it locked up (trigger lock and in a secure place, like a lockable case).
I’d suggest learning how to shoot with a .22 for cost reasons. CHEAP ammo and you can get a used Ruger 10/22 rifle (they last forever) for under $100 and a used .22 pistol for around the same. Use them, learn from them, then sell them for half of what you paid and upgrade to what you want. But first read my other thread about how big you should go, here.
If you are concerned about keeping a gun in your house with regards to children, etc but want to actually have something you can use in an emergency, I recommend a Gun Vault.
And, lastly, why don’t you consider buying an alarm system, secure doors and windows, a panic room, motion detector lights outside and a big fucking dog? If you make it difficult for a robber, they will go to where it is not as difficult. The linked article in the other thread is an anomoly, but I am sure a reinforced security door and a panic room would have helped the situation…
Training, training, training. Repeat. Not just physical training but mental training. If you aren’t mentally and morally prepared to kill someone who is breaking into your house with the intent to do grevious bodily harm to you and yours, then don’t get a gun, buy a dog. If you are prepared, then training, training, training.
As I generally do in these sorts of threads, I am going to suggest that you look into a shotgun before you spring for a handgun. A shotgun of 20 guage or larger is one of the best home defense tools available, and they’re relatively cheap as well. Shotguns are also more user-friendly.
The only problem presented by a shotgun is that many shooting ranges prefer that you don’t use them on the premises. However, it has been my experience that many ranges offer shotgun courses geared towards home defense, so you would be allowed to use and practice with one in a class setting.
Before I address your specific concerns, I would like to add that I own four handguns but my shotgun is the firearm I keep loaded and next to my bed.
Since you don’t list a location on your profile, I can’t provide you with legal data on how your state would handle a shooting. I will note that in most states, barring a few that require one to retreat to the furthest extent possible, a person is justified in using lethal force if he feels like he is in mortal danger. Generally, an intruder in your home fulfills that category.
You mention “conditioning” against firearms ownership. I have no objective data to back this up, but from my personal experience police and military personnel are not impossibly skilled firearms users (despite my own military background, I have benefitted a great deal from civilian instruction). Yet it is important to note that both police and military carry firearms and most of the time for defensive purposes. I do not think it is unreasonable for a competent civilian to keep a weapon in his home for the same reason.
You may find this section of the NRA website interesting. You can search by state or keyword and the site will bring up recent news articles (note that the NRA summarizes them, but provides cites) wherein a citizen used his firearm in self-defense.
Sorry to post again, but I also wanted to briefly address the issue of having a firearm and children. I can only provide my personal experience, as I don’t have children and haven’t done a great deal of research into the subject.
When I was young (about five years of age), my father taught me to shoot with a CO2 pellet pistol. He taught me proper handling and always supervised my use of the pistol until I was about age eight. Shortly after he allowed me to use the gun on my own, I managed to kill a squirrel. It was not until I killed the squirrel that I began to respect the pellet gun and my father’s real firearms as potentially lethal weapons.
Obviously, respect for firearms is something that must be learned before one is trusted to use or have access to one. I am not recommending that you recreate my experience with the squirrel for any children you might have, but I think it is important to understand that even with proper instruction younger children may not grasp that a firearm is actually deadly.
For that reason, I would suggest that you lock any firearms you own up during daylight hours and remove them for your own easy access only when you can a) keep the firearm under your control and supervision or b) ensure that your children have absolutely no access to a firearm. I do think that it is a good plan for one to train his children in firearms usage from a young age, but to also keep in mind that such training may not fully set in without age and experience.
Thank you very much for the thoughtful and informative replies, and keep them coming. Learning to shoot before beginning to keep a gun would, I think, make me feel better about the whole situation. I will do that.
As to other options, like an alarm system, a big dog, etc–I rent my house, and am specifically not allowed to do either. It sort of sucks, because if I owned the house, I would fortify it out the wazoo.
Considering the recent stories about Ambien® users sleepwalking, sleep-eating, and even sleep-driving, keeping a loaded gun in the bedroom might be one more reason not to use Ambien as a sleep aid.
I think this very good advice. In addition to the rationale Mr Krebbs lists, there is nothing so intimidating to the bad guys (hell, the good guys too) as staring into the muzzle of a 12 ga. shotgun. IMO fumbling for a handgun may just arouse the competative spirit of an intruder, but few want to argue with a shotgun.
I think that the most important thing to remember in re: owning a handgun for home defense is that if an armed intruder enters your house, and you don’t have a reasonable weapon, you and all of the other occupants of the home are totally at HIS mercy, and must do exactly what HE wants you to do. He will leave when HE wants, after he does what HE wants. In YOUR house.
I am reminded of the ‘BTK killer’, and his testimony in court. His own incompetence in many of his murders caused extra suffering for his victims. And he took his own good time to finish them off. You can imagine how quickly his career would have ended if somebody that was serious with a gun had been one of his victims. He would be known today as the ‘DOA intruder.’
If somebody kills me, I’d like to think that it would be while he is under a heavy barrage of fiery lead, and even then, just because he got off a lucky shot.
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Locking doors and windows, keeping the porch light on, and a phone handy are pretty good options in most of the US it seems. If you get a gun, becoming familiar with it is a great idea. Some personal reccomendations are an all steel revolver in .38 or even a .32 (very ‘shootable’) such as the Ruger SP101 ( http://ruger.com/Firearms/FAProdView?model=5748&return=Y ) or a Mossberg 20ga riot gun with a Hogue short stock ( http://www.getgrip.com/main/whatsnew/whatsnew.html#short ).
If you don’t train much: Aim center of mass with the shotgun. And the belly with the revolver as recoil will tend push your shots up. The closer the attacker, the better the odds with the revolver. One attacker empty the revolver, more than one attacker, two pops each. Use hollow points with the revolvers, preferrably not Plus P with a .38 (again, more ‘shootable’ and hits count). Largest lead birdshot with the shotgun if you have close neighbors like an apartment. No close neighbors, smallest buckshot that they have.
On the subject of firearms with children in the homje, I could not agree more. This is a good point!
I made it very clear to my daughter that any time she wanted, I would bring the firearm out and let her handle it under my supervision and answer any questions. If she wanted to shoot it, we would go and shoot it and I would train her if that’s what she wanted.
I made it perfectly clear to her that this was a tool, and like the rest of Daddy’s tools, there were some which she could play with (Hammer, level, etc.) and some she could not play with (circular saw, jigsaw, etc.).
Regardless if you end up getting a gun or not, I still think it is a good idea to find a range or a friend a fire off a few rounds. Shooting is some of the most fun you can have and there has been many a vaguely anti-gun person that got talked into stopping by the range and walked out and subscribed to Guns & Ammo magazine the next day. Most people really like shooting from the start.
I would start off with a .22 caliber rifle or pistol like others have said. They aren’t that loud, they are very cheap to shoot, and they don’t kick. Don’t let someone tell you to shoot something like a 12 gauge shotgun with a full load, .357 handgun or OG forbid, a .44 magnum when you are still a beginner. You wouldn’t think shooting was much fun when you hear the noise and recoil from those in the beginning although you can build up to shooting more powerful guns like that pretty rapidly. You don’t want to shoot overly powerful guns as the focus of training in the beginning because you can devlelop a flinch problem at the moment of fire and that can be hard to break.
I think everyone should shoot at least a few times so they don’t view guns as these mystical beasts. Everyone should know basic gun safety as well so at least they can recognize when other people are doing dangerous things. Instead, guns are one thing that many people are proudly ignorant of and they may refuse educational and harmless shooting just on some vague principle. You seem like you are open-minded and curious and that is a good thing we welcome here.
Ownership of firearms in Australia for self-defence purposes is highly illegal and is grounds for revocation of your Firearms Licence, so the following thoughts are given purely from an academic perspective, as someone who has done a lot of hunting and target shooting and has a long-standing historic interest in collectible firearms.
If it were legal to own a firearm for self-defence, I would unequivocally reccommend a 12ga pump-action shotgun. Not a semi-auto, but a pump action.
Why?
The sound a pump-action shotgun makes when the slide is racked is a great psychological deterrent, and reloads are quick should you need a second shot. A semi-auto shotgun will allow you to empty the magazine too quickly, whereas the split-second you need to rack the slide on a pump-action means they’re slightly more accurate, IMO.
I can’t give any advice for what loads to use, as my experiences with shotguns are limited to clay pigeon shooting and some small game hunting. No 7 1/2 shot makes quite a mess of those small orange clay discs, though!
I’d also advise against getting a .357 magnum revolver for home defence, as the muzzle flash from the load could dazzle you in the dark… if it’s visible in bright light at a shooting range, imagine what it would be like in your home at night.
Have you considered a non-firearm option? Say, a MagLite torch or a Nightstick? If you have children in the house, you’re going to have to keep the guns locked up (Which you should anyway, regardless of whether or not there are kids in the house, IMO), and a MagLite or a Nightstick still provides good defensive capabilties without worrying about the kids playing with your new Mossberg 500 and either scaring the neighbours- or worse, hurting or killing someone (like themselves or one of their friends!)
Love your username Martini Enfield. That is an all time classic rifle! Have to disagree on the pump sound being scary though. But very sound advice on the .357. They are LOUD and BRIGHT.
