Yes Yes Yes (No)
I live in the sticks and really have know idea how long it would take the police to respond. But it’s a moot point. If an officer is not standing next to you when the incident occurs, they are not going to be able to protect you.
This exactly. I’d rather have the police arrive, arrest me, take my gun into evidence, and go to jail for a while until they sort things out.
The alternative to me acting MAY be that my stuff (which I’m extremely attached to, but would not normally kill to protect) gets stolen, OR it may that I or my husband get killed or raped.
While the first isn’t too bad, the second (in my opinion) is to be avoided at all costs, up to and including the minor inconvenience (compared to rape or death) of having to live through an investigation of whether or not I was legally allowed to shoot someone to death in the situation I was in. And if it turns out to be that I *was *found at fault, I’m not going to be facing the death penalty, so I’m still alive, and presumably if I’m careful in jail, still not raped.
(There’s also the alternative that I ATTEMPT to kill the intruder and fail, and get killed/raped for my attempts, where I otherwise wouldn’t have been. Since I can’t know what their intentions were, I can only say that I *believe *that I would be psychologically better off if I TRIED to protect myself to the best of my ability, than if I didn’t.)
Maybe, but the way my house is laid out, that’s still a problem.
Assuming Mr. Burglar is already inside, there are very few ways for him to make his exit that don’t involve moving towards me, or someone whose life is quite a bit more important than his. So unless he came in thru a window, and leaves thru the same window, most of the other ways out involve him leaving my house feet first, and not under his own power.
Of course the dog would probably have scared him off long before I show up with shotgun in hand. If the dog is not around, the sound of the pump action being worked on a shotgun is both distinctive, and effective at communicating the message “run along now, son - you picked out the wrong house”.
Regards,
Shodan
If one of my kids wanted to own a hand gun and keep it in my home; I would not allow it. The chance of accident is too great and I don’t want a weapon who’s entire purpose is killing people in my home.
If it were for hunting, and properly locked up/secured go for it.
If they don’t believe that every other life on the planet is equal to theirs, that’s their prerogative. It will not change my belief that no life is worth more than any of ours. It’s why I help people all the time. It’s why I give to charity. It’s why I am a socialist.
You don’t have to agree, that’s your decision.
I’d rather play those odds, which are pretty strongly skewed to my advantage, than the odds that someone finds my loaded gun and shoots themselves or someone else by accident or carelessness. The risk of that happening is a couple of orders of magnitude larger. I’m believe I’m playing the odds best by not having a loaded gun ready under my bed. Regardless of my belief of whether or not I’ll be able to pull the trigger on a burglar.
Of course, if you live in an area where home invasions with rape and murder are commonplace happenings, YMMV. But I’m pretty certain that statistically, the average resident of a reasonably civilized part of the world is at a much larger risk of being shot by accident than of being raped and killed in their own home.
True, but a guy climbing in my Wife’s car window and saying, “I have a gun and I’m going to kill you”, and being out on bail waiting for her to testify sort of skews the statistics. 
It probably does. For you and your wife. But I’d be rather surprised if the situation you describe is typical for the average “I need a gun to defend my home” poster.
Probably not. Being sent outside when she hears noises puts me on the other side of the fence than you, though.
I went through a back of the envelope calculation in other of these interminable gun and home invasion threads. The post is here, if you’d like to critique the logic. My estimates were that you were anywhere from 10 to 100 times more likely to be involved in a robbery of your residence than suffer an unintentional injury from a firearms discharge. In my post, it was about 100x, but I was using a number from the CDC for accidental firearms deaths, that is 1/10th that of other numbers for that figure I’ve seen from them and I can’t explain the disparity. Either occurrence is very rare.
On the one hand, I don’t live in a bad part of town, I’m not involved in organized crime, I don’t have a large amount of cash in my home or am in a business that deals with large amounts of cash/valuables: factors that I suspect (we are in IMHO) are responsible for a majority of the ‘robberies of a residence.’ I guess my personal risk from that crime is lower than I calculated in my post. OTOH, I am fairly monomaniacal about applying the Four Rules and I don’t have children, nor do I have children visiting my house. So my chances of having my firearms be involved in an accidental/negligent discharge resulting in death are less (again, IMHO) than the ‘average’ American gun owner.
If you don’t wish to own a firearm for personal defense, then don’t. I certainly wouldn’t mandate that you own one. But don’t take away from me the ability to do so. If, God forbid, I ever am confronted with the horrible situation of having to defend myself and my loved ones from an invader(s), then I prefer my chances of stopping the situation if I have a firearm, than by physically assaulting the robber(s) with a baseball bat, knife, bare hands or what have you.
My answer is yes. It’s a minor distinction but the application of lethal force in self defense is only warranted to protect innocent life from immediate and otherwise unavoidable death or grave bodily harm. Not simply to kill a bad guy.
The answer to your second question is that there is no point in having a gun if you aren’t capable of using it. Stick to kicking and biting and hope that they aren’t bigger than you.
An anecdote: Many years ago, a close friend of mine woke up to a noise at his front door. Grabbing a handgun he went to investigate only to discover that a rather large dude had forced open his front door with a crowbar. No time to call the police, he issued a verbal warning training the gun on the intruder. In response the intruder changed his grip on the crowbar so that he was now holding it like a club and began advancing. My friend deliberately fired a shot past the intruder’s head and into a wall. That finally got the intruder’s attention and he quickly fled. A good thing, too because the next round would have been going into his center of mass. Then my friend called the cops.
Who’s taking away anything? I don’t live in the US and I certainly don’t have any influence on US gun laws, so I’m not taking anything away from you.
It’s just that the mindset of a typical European (or Canadian, according to the OP) is diametrically opposite to the mindset of many US Americans when it comes to guns and self defense. Your attitude is totally alien to us. And that was what I was trying to illustrate.
I have heard that the real reason most stay at home women won’t actually shoot a weapon inside is the perceived resultant mess.
Take a 5 gallon bucket about ½ full of sand, put at the front door & have the woman shoot into the bucket until she is used to the noise & recoil and learns how small a mess is made.
Next upsetting time at the door, she just says loudly, “I am a scared woman & I have a weapon.” She then fires 2 shoots into the bucket.
Not even a spaced out crack head is going to try to go through that door. he he he
I woman I worked with went to a firearm class taught by the local PD.
They said to say, “Mr. Burglar, I have a gun” and fire into the mattress.
Hope she doesn’t have a waterbed. 
Even a pistol bullet can penetrate several walls. He already gave a verbal warning, the shot should have been for effect.
'bout as reasonable as thinking the ability to bite and scratch are viable ways to defend oneself.
I agree; I would be afraid that the guy would be pissed off and come back in his cups.
Again, my experience colors my thoughts.
Everyone in rural U.S. has always had guns, in part for legitimate protection due to real potential violence, coupled with little readily available law enforcement.
For instance: what the methamphetamine epidemic did to parts of the rural U.S. in the early 2000s. It overwhelmed. The meth laws were only randomly enforced for a time; the local sheriff was understaffed and/or the sheriff or sheriff’s deputy’s, brother, cousin, brother-in-law or someone was involved with meth and sometimes given a de facto pass. If you lived in such an area, it was hard not to get crosswise with the tweakers somehow.
There’s a very good movie about meth and tweakers called “Winter’s Bone” that I recommend. It is available online.
The meth epidemic got better when federal government started serious prosecution of meth, but even still, I could not live where I do except that I have guns.