Guns in the home

This view is anathema here.

I respectfully disagree.

Below post is a copy paste from something I wrote on Reddit a few days ago, mostly applies here:

Do you carry a spare tire on your car? Are you full of fear of a flat every time you drive?

Do you have a fire extinguisher in your house?

How do you explain the irrational decision to own a fire extinguisher when your risk of injury in a home invasion is much higher? Show me the lie:

https://www.nfpa.org/~/media/FD0144A044C84FC5BAF90C05C04890B7.ashx

Number of civilian deaths from fire 2018: 3,655

Number of civilian injuries 2018: 15,200

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/vdhb.txt

2003-2007 : 266,560 "violent victimizations" during 1 million burglaries with household member present. That is 53,312 annually.


It is utterly irrational to claim someone is "full of fear" for making the zero-effort decision to carry or store a pistol (or AR-15, shotgun, etc) to protect themselves and their family, while taking perfectly reasonable precautions (spare tire, jack, fire extinguisher, locking your car doors) in other avenues of your life.

I am not saying you're irrational for choosing not to carry or use a firearm for home defense. But to criticize someone and claim they are some kind of nut simply because they are prepared is totally ludicrous.

Such opinions should be backed up by reference to the voluminous research base conducted by law enforcement and criminologists. The utility of firearms for self-defense is well documented. It is the responsibility of the OP (who posts so much statistical data) to do a similar analysis of his claims.

The idea that guns make you prone to violence is also well studied in the psychological literature on aggression and the support for the idea is mixed at best, with many refutations of the concept.

So Mr. Maize, make your point with scientific rigour or your views are not of much use.

I disagree and I have worked for a major metro PD and I can attest that a dog, a girl and a mom can be killed while holding a phone to 911 by an ex in a shockingly short period of time and would likely have survived had they had the ability to protect themselves. I can site other instances as well. I can also site instances where the mere presence of a firearm DE-escalated the situation and likely kept all parties healthy.

Should firearms be secured from children and irresponsible adults.....HELL YES!! That doesn't mean they shouldn't be available to be used for self defense and any number of quick access safes will allow for both.

Not everybody should own firearms. I don't disagree with that, some by choice some by law. That doesn't take away the fact that the VAST majority of firearm owners are both responsible and lawful.

But hey you got as much right to your opinion as anybody else. I just have some personal experience that leads me down a different path.

Chris

I kinda figured this with all the "victimization" threads that this is where it was going.

Skipping stats and going straight to bias, I would like to restate what another member posted once that I really liked.

He said something like: people project their fears about themselves in to others, and many on the "left" want to control society based on their own short comings.

Meaning, if sometime does not trust themselves with a gun, they want no one to have a gun. Parallel: My aunt is a terrible driver. she wanted a law for all cars to have back up cameras and park assist. I can drive great, but that means any new car I get has $2000 more expensive for electronic doo-dads because of these laws.

So I guess what I'm getting at, sometimes when we want to control all of society, we should look at ourselves first, and see what our fears are.

If you owned a gun, would you feel more dangerous to have a certain object in your possession??

My wife was beaten and almost killed in her house by a larger male at one point in her past, and this event occurred as it did largely because she lacked the tools by which to effectively defend herself. She, and I, would absolutely disagree with the notion that the need for effective self-defense somehow ends at your front door.

Similarly, to assert that somehow my wife is more prone to violence simply because she might have a firearm at her disposal to defend herself is silly, both from a practical observational perspective and because that notion is not supported by any accepted science.

From everything that I have seen, science will tell you that people that are prone to violence have that propensity regardless of the presence or absence of a specific tool. Conversely, it has been the human experience over several centuries now that using tools to empower the weakest of the species, to place them on an even footing with larger more predatory members of society, is both effective at reducing the impact of predation and is one of the most liberal and compassionate things that society can do.

Stephen Maize said:

It would be nice if the American police would deny guns for self defence purposes. There is simply no need for people to have them.
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This leads me to believe that Mr. Maize does not live in the U.S.
Here the police do not make up the laws, we enforce them. I have been a Police Officer for 19 years and encourage people to buy guns for their protection.
There are approximately 660 Officers on my department to protect a city of approximately 600,000 people. We can’t be everywhere all the time.
I have found that when someone bases their argument on personal feelings and emotions, they tend to think they know a lot about something that they know very little about.

Stephen Maize said:

My personal view is guns should not be in home for self defence purposes

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While you can certainly hold that view, our founders held a different view and added the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution so every lawful citizen can have the right to do these:

• Under First Amendment, right to free speech even when you are at home
• Under Second Amendment, right to self defense even when you are at home, as ruled by the US Supreme Court in DC v Heller

You can also hold the view that free speech should not exist at home, and you are free to do so. But your decision to hold that view does not change the fact that others have the right to free speech at home, if they choose to hold that view also.

And while you can hold the view that guns should not be in home for self defense, your decision does not change the fact that others have the right to keep and bear arms at home for self defense, if they choose to do so.

Stephen Maize said:

My personal view is guns should ... be locked up in a gun safe when not in use

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While you can certainly hold that view, the US Supreme Court ruled that District of Columbia's requirement that lawfully owned firearms be unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock was unconstitutional.

Of course, just as one can hold the view to not exercise the right to self defense at home; one can also choose to lock up guns in a gun safe but that does not change the fact that others have the right to keep (store) guns at home and bear (carry) guns at home also.

Stephen Maize said:

There is hardly a need to have a gun in the home for self [defense] purposes.

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I disagree as burglary, rape, violent crime and murder can happen in every town/city all across the country.

Stephen Maize said:

Guns in the home for self [defense] makes the gun owner a dangerous person.

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But one can argue that cooking knives at home can make home owner a dangerous person so we should ban all cooking knives.

Stephen Maize said:

It would be nice if the American police would deny guns for self [defense] purposes.

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Every law enforcement officer takes an oath to support and defend the US Constitution and denying guns for self defense would be unconstitutional.

Stephen Maize said:

There is simply no need for people to have them.

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How about for self defense?

Stephen Maize said:

There should be strict gun control laws in place to keep guns out of the hands of criminals

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We also have strict laws in place that require criminals from committing crimes. These laws have gotten more strict over the years. Have these anti-crime laws prevented criminals from committing crime?

Stephen Maize said:

A gun in the home makes home owners and criminals more prone to violence.

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So can cooking knives at home.

Aside from people who are legally prohibited from owning firearms, for example felons, people who are not willing to keep their firearms secured from children or thieves should not have a firearm in their home. Further, a person who knows him- or herself to have an uncontrollable temper combined with a propensity to violence is not a good candidate for gun ownership.

Those groups add up to a small percentage of adults.

For the rest of us, a firearm is a tool for self-protection, similar to a fire extinguisher.

I am an old lady a shade over 5' tall with several medical conditions; as such a firearm is the most suitable tool for my self-defense. This is called the equalizer principle.

The location of my former residence sadly devolved over the years into a very dangerous area. BEFORE the homelessness explosion, official crime statistics for a typical month included 6 assaults, 6 robberies, and 1 rape within one mile of my home, as well as a host of non-violent crimes like car thefts. Another old lady in the neighborhood was raped one morning while doing laundry in her detached garage that was visible from the street. Most gun crimes occurred a little over a mile away, but one time some gang members initiated a gun fight in the street two doors down from my house, with one bullet penetrating the wall of a home directly into the children's bedroom. (Thankfully the children were not injured.) The police robo-called the whole neighborhood to stay inside locked in while they looked for the perpetrators, lifting the lockdown some 7 or 8 hours later. After the homeless population exploded, knife attacks skyrocketed, pretty much every week saw stabbings, and mentally ill people / drug addicts would be roaming the streets at all hours. I remember one man running down the entire length of the block howling like an animal. There was a constant serenade of sirens and police helicopters. A person living under such conditions without having appropriate means and training to defend him- or herself is failing the duty to protect one's life; and if there are also children or dependent adults in the home is also failing to properly protect those dependents. For the last several years that I lived there I had a firearm within arm's reach at all times. Thankfully I never had to use it.

statistics prove that 100% of home invasions happen in the home

OP must not be in this country.

As being involved in a home invasion. I can say that me having a firearm detour the criminal enough for him to flee. If i did not have a "firearm" i am not sure if me, my wife or daughter would be here. So i would have to disagree with you. You have the right to voice your opinion, but to say "My personal view is guns should not be in home for self defense purposes", i strongly disagree.

"It would be nice if the American police would deny guns for self defence purposes. There is simply no need for people to have them."
could you define "need" to me? The 2A says i do have the "need" for a firearm for protection and its my right to also.

I've always felt responsible for the health and safety of my family under any and all circumstance. And, as the primary bread-winner, myself as well.

I see it as a personal responsibility to be competent with a firearm in the admittedly-unlikely need as a last resort for defense against gratuitous serious threat.

Much like liability insurance for home or auto. Responsibility: Like gravity, it never quits.

It does make me a dangerous person to anyone who decides to break into my home. My guns are in safes, my loaded guns on in a touch combo safe. At night I turn on my Blink motion detection camera's, lock the bedroom door and the dog sleeps in his bed next to the wife and I. If someone breaks into the house, we will be notified by Blink, I will view the camera video, and probably set off the manual alarm, by then the dog will be barking up a storm and the wife and I will have our guns ready. We will be able to continually monitor the situation on multiple cameras and will have called 911. I the home invaders for some reason decides to kick in the bedroom door, he will have just entered a very dangerous situation for himself. At that point I have done everything possible to protect the safety of the home invader. But once that bedroom door is kicked in, he's not likely to leave. Without a gun, with someone that crazed, it's likely the wife and I would never leave. The area I live in, the odds are homeowners have guns, I can't think of any home invasions in the 20 years I've lived here, and I suspect it's because it's dangerous for home invaders in this area.