You might want to rethink your Home Defense gun

[Trunk Monkey]

Curiosity killed the cat and it will kill the kids too. I have always said that if you kill the curiosity, you will save the kids. There’s no saving the cat.
As my kids grew up they taught gun safety. Guns were never a forbidden item that they were never allowed to touch. We all know that kids want to touch the things that are off limits.
They were tough that guns can be dangerous. The look in their eyes when they see a 158 gr 357 Mag bullet hit a water filled milk jug is priceless.
They were all told that if they ever wanted to look at guns, all they had to do was ask. Guns just became another object in the house like the stove and knives in the kitchen.
My kids are now 35, 21and 15. My 15 yo is the only one still at the house. He has tow 22 rifles, in hard cases under his bed. There at less six loaded guns in the house and my son knows where they are, and knows how to load, unload and shoot them.
Knowledge is the key factor in keeping loaded guns in a home.

The only problem I have with this in general is that children have poor impulse control and all the training in the World won't change that.

Research indicates the human brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that processes rational thought, doesn't fully develop until approximately 25 years of age.

Granted, some develop earlier some later but in general a juvenile's world is ruled by their amygdala. That's the part of the brain that tells the kid (against all better judgement and training) that it's OK to sneak out of the house and steal dad's car.

Train the kid but lock up the guns.


https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051

 

[herrwalther]

Train the kid but lock up the guns.

My son turns 6 this month. If it were solely up to me, he would be getting a BB gun for his birthday. The BBs are locked up in my reloading room. Unfortunately my son has autism. And it will be several more years before I can determine his ability to understand firearm safety. As of right now, all my firearms shoot "darts" according to him.

 

[Sistema1927]

The only problem I have with this in general is that children have poor impulse control and all the training in the World won't change that.

Research indicates the human brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that processes rational thought, doesn't fully develop until approximately 25 years of age.

Granted, some develop earlier some later but in general a juvenile's world is ruled by their amygdala. That's the part of the brain that tells the kid (against all better judgement and training) that it's OK to sneak out of the house and steal dad's car.

Train the kid but lock up the guns.


https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051

Have children changed that much in the past 50 years?

I had a .22 rifle, and ammo, in my closet from about age 12 on, and a 12 ga. shotgun, and shells, joined it at age 13. I never once thought about using either for nefarious purposes. My experience was not unique, most of my buddies had unfettered access to firearms at an early age. Heck, we also took our guns to High School with us in order to hunt or target shoot before or after classes.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Have children changed that much in the past 50 years?

I had a .22 rifle, and ammo, in my closet from about age 12 on, and a 12 ga. shotgun, and shells, joined it at age 13. I never once thought about using either for nefarious purposes. My experience was not unique, most of my buddies had unfettered access to firearms at an early age. Heck, we also took our guns to High School with us in order to hunt or target shoot before or after classes.

Follow the link, read the article, draw your own conclusion.

Side note, does your sig line reference the same Lew Wallace who promised to pardon Bill The Kid?

 

[Sistema1927]

Follow the link, read the article, draw your own conclusion.

Side note, does your sig line reference the same Lew Wallace who promised to pardon Bill The Kid?

Yes, but mainly for his words that have come to be known as the "curse of Lew Wallace": "All calculations based on our experiences elsewhere fail in New Mexico.''

Same Lew Wallace who was a Civil War hero, territorial Governor of NM, and author of Ben Hur.

 

[Sistema1927]

Trunk Monkey,

I read the article, and I have seen the same elsewhere. BUT, why does it appear that children were more responsible in earlier times? Could it be:

• Stable homes with parental supervision?
• Immediate consequences for misbehavior? I.e. the use of corporal punishment school and the "rod" at home?
• Less exposure to gratuitous violence as seen today in movies, on TV, and via video games?
• No diagnoses of ADHD and resulting prescriptions for mind altering drugs?
• Stigma and shame attached to bad behavior?
• Higher expectations?

Or, some combination of the above and other factors?

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Trunk Monkey,

I read the article, and I have seen the same elsewhere. BUT, why does it appear that children were more responsible in earlier times? Could it be:

• Stable homes with parental supervision?
• Immediate consequences for misbehavior? I.e. the use of corporal punishment school and the "rod" at home?
• Less exposure to gratuitous violence as seen today in movies, on TV, and via video games?
• No diagnoses of ADHD and resulting prescriptions for mind altering drugs?
• Stigma and shame attached to bad behavior?
• Higher expectations?

Or, some combination of the above and other factors?

I don't know.

I do know that when my grand kids are in my home I err on the side of caution

 

[roscoe]

Home Invasions are more common today then most people think. A few weeks ago there was a home invasion in Louisiana that went bad for the bad guys.
Two young black men thought they would kick in the front door of a house in a nice upscale neighborhood. .

Three things come to mind:
1. Is their skin color relevant?
2. How common are home invasions? Rates have been dropping for 30 years. This sounds anecdotal. It is more dangerous to drive to the gun store.
3. Any modern 9mm with 15-19 rounds is plenty of firepower unless you are storing gold or narcotics in your house.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

1. Is their skin color relevant?

It's a descriptor. Like it or not, black people compromise 13% of the population of the United States and commit 52% of violent crimes. It is what it is.

2. How common are home invasions? Rates have been dropping for 30 years. This sounds anecdotal. It is more dangerous to drive to the gun store.

How common do they have to be when you're the one on the wrong end of one?

The odds are overwhelming that you'll never need to use a handgun that (I presume) you carry for self-defense but you still carry it.

I've said it here before I've had one incident where somebody tried a home invasion on me or at least I strongly suspect that's what was up. I stopped it by not opening the door for them and I didn't have to fire any shots. But it still happened and it was still enough that I carry a gun at home and I don't open my door for people I don't know.

Any modern 9mm with 15-19 rounds is plenty of firepower unless you are storing gold or narcotics in your house.

Except that as far as we know this guy wasn't storing gold or narcotics in his house.

How many people on this forum alone have enough guns in their home to make a home invasion a worthwhile endeavor?

I know you're going to say a criminal wouldn't invade your home if they knew that you had guns. There are criminals out there for whom the fact that you have a gun doesn't intimidate them in the slightest. If they can find a way to get around your gun they'll do that if not they'll move on to another target.

I want to clarify my terms. I'm not talking about a burglary were you caught the criminal in your home. I'm talking about an actual home invasion. In which they knew you were in the home and attacked in any way.

If you have a confrontation with a Criminal who's willing to invade your home there's a really good chance that you are not the first person that's pointed a gun at them or shot at them. The odds are that this is not their first rodeo and that they have more experience in this than you do.

 

[MikeInOr]

For me what I have settled on for my perfect home defense weapon is an XD mod 2 3.3 in .45acp. I keep it next to my bed with a 13 round magazine of 45+P gold dots in it and one in the chamber. I can make it through the house a LOT quicker than with any sort of long gun or carbine. Aiming a pistol in close quarters is as quick as bending my wrist which is MUCH faster than the whole body movements that a long gun or carbine require.

If I have to go outside to check something out I can slip it into a jacket or robe pocket and walk around my property without alarming my neighbors or giving a trigger happy cop an excuse to put a bullet in me.

I shoot the XDm2 well and often. To me rifles and carbines are for distant encounters not close up and personal. Shotguns are for the birds... and would never be my first choice for a home defence weapon. A reliable high capacity pistol just seems like the most versitile and practical choice to me.

But what is best for me isn't necessarly the best for everyone else.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

If I have to go outside to check something out I can slip it into a jacket or robe pocket and walk around my property without alarming my neighbors or giving a trigger happy cop an excuse to put a bullet in me.

Why would you leave the protection of your home to go looking for trouble anyway?

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Three things come to mind:
1. Is their skin color relevant?
2. How common are home invasions? Rates have been dropping for 30 years. This sounds anecdotal. It is more dangerous to drive to the gun store.
3. Any modern 9mm with 15-19 rounds is plenty of firepower unless you are storing gold or narcotics in your house.

#1,2 and 3 were covered pretty good by Trunk Monkey. But I will add that if had been two white males, I would outdoor have put that. I don’t sugar coat my stories.
I meet a 15yo little girl and her dad a few years ago. The little girl had survived a home invasion two years prior.
She lived alone with her mother in a quiet older neighborhood in Baton Rouge LA. Their door was kicked in one morning by two black males, one with a long criminal history. The one with the long criminal history was armed with a 45 Auto. He shot and killed the mother upon entering. The little girl ran down the hallway to get away and was shot in the back. As she laid on her stomach in the hall, the guy that killed her mother and shot her, stood over her and shot her four more times in the back.
Her is what she said to me. “ He shot me while I was running to my room. At first I tried to move, but heard one say “I ain’t leaving no survivors.” I closed my eyes and could hear someone walk up to my. He then shot me four times in my back. I knew if I moved or made a sound that he would shoot me again so, I played dead.
When I heard them leave the house I cralled to the kitchen and picked up the phone next to my mother and called 911.”
When officer arrived on scene she was by the front door with the phone talking to the 911 operator.

Now her and her mother didn’t have any gold or drugs in the house. When the bad guys were caught and asked why did they target the house. They said that they had seen the box for a new flat screen TV that was put out to the street with the trash and wanted the TV.
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_r...cle_5e97c318-f848-11e6-8faf-d3a2f0983943.html

 

[Trunk Monkey]

#1,2 and 3 were covered pretty good by Trunk Monkey.

 

[boom boom]

The only problem I have with this in general is that children have poor impulse control and all the training in the World won't change that.

Research indicates the human brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that processes rational thought, doesn't fully develop until approximately 25 years of age.

Granted, some develop earlier some later but in general a juvenile's world is ruled by their amygdala. That's the part of the brain that tells the kid (against all better judgement and training) that it's OK to sneak out of the house and steal dad's car.

Train the kid but lock up the guns.


https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051

On any academic study, one should be very cautious in analyzing results. As someone who has to sort through this muck, it generally takes something called meta analysis (that is a study of studies) and corroboration through real world examples before I would consider it a probable fact. This is even more so in its general applicability to everyone. Less than 50 percent of all academic studies in many of the "soft" disciplines can be replicated at present. Quite a few "foundation" studies were found to be contaminated (the prison guard study, the children in nature study, Milgrams's experiment, Margaret Meade, and so on) with serious ethical, procedural, and outright fraud and manipulation of data (discarding or recoding data for example). At best, we can consider such findings probabilistic rather than determinative for individuals.

Second, the brain has a lot more plasticity than we have thought, for example new cells and neural networks grow much later than previously thought, and so on. We do not know much about brain development because tracking studies are simply too costly to duplicate on a large basis so we capture snapshots in time of particular things easy to measure and then we try to associate those things into general behavior. Or we focus on a very small N over time where it becomes difficult to apply to the general population. Nature versus Nurture, genetic predispositions to risk, etc. are all things that at present are at the frontiers of science and research has been affected by such things as studies paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, political correctness, the bias toward not reporting negative findings, research done to gain government grants which means pleasing the reviewers with topic and results, and so forth.

I learned though from triangulating past historical records, what I know about operant conditioning, genetics, and some of the science of learning, is trite assertion is that people differ and will handle confronting the same task, well differently as demonstrated by this very thread. We can see through real world experiences, that one child raised under perfect conditions will turn out to be a monster while another raised under hideous circumstances will turn out to be an angel. Within families, one child is dutiful and the other is willful but they shared the same general upbringing. There is simply too much variability in most measures of human behavior to faithfully argue that action A will result in circumstance B applied to everyone. For that reason, I am willing to trust the parents of those children far more than application of academic research to their child rearing. Parents over time, unless inattentive, become experts in their children and their behavior. No scientist will ever approach the real world understanding of parents in such cases.

 

[MikeInOr]

Why would you leave the protection of your home to go looking for trouble anyway?

I live on 5 acres outside of town. My daughter came into my bedroom one night scared to death because someone was walking around outside of her bedroom window. I grabbed my XDm2 and carefully went into her bedroom to investigate. Sure enough a doe and a couple fawns were walking around right outside of her window.

I went outside, gun in robe pocket, to chase them away. This was much better than running down the street after deer in the middle of the night with an assult rifle under my arm.

I call it life... not every situation turns out to be an intruder trying to break in.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

I live on 5 acres outside of town. My daughter came into my bedroom one night scared to death because someone was walking around outside of her bedroom window. I grabbed my XDm2 and carefully went into her bedroom to investigate. Sure enough a doe and a couple fawns were walking around right outside of her window.

I went outside, gun in robe pocket, to chase them away. This was much better than running down the street after deer in the middle of the night with an assult rifle under my arm.

I call it life... not every situation turns out to be an intruder trying to break in.

That's not the same as leaving your home to look for an unknown possible intruder

 

[MikeInOr]

That's not the same as leaving your home to look for an unknown possible intruder

That is a perfect example of why I choose a hand gun for home defence instead of a shot gun or semi auto rifle. If you reread my original post I NEVER said that I would leave the safety of my house to seek out an intruder... I think you read that into my post. There are other reasons a home owner might have to go outside in the middle of the night to deal with something other than a possible intruder... when I do I want to be armed and I don't want to alarm the neighbors or make the cops nervous by carrying an AR to deal with a broken sprinkler. When such situations happen and I am woken up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night I don't ask myself... should I arm myself for an intruder... or to chase off a family of deer?

If an intruder makes an appointment to break into my house I will be sure to be prepared to meet him with an AK... and body armor and amplified hearing protection... and a couple of armed neighbors.

I have no vested interest in what others ultimately choose to use for home defense, but I don't mind sharing what I have chosen and why. It is up to each individual to evaluate my reasoning and deterimine if it makes sense and is relavent to their situation. If someone else shares a reason for using a shotgun as a primary home defence weapon that I didn't think of and it makes sense to me and my situation... it might make me reconsider my choice of weapons.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

That is a perfect example of why I choose a hand gun for home defence instead of a shot gun or semi auto rifle! It is also an example of how I respond to a possible intruder. If you reread my original post I NEVER said that I would leave the safety of my house to seek out an intruder... I think you are the one that read that into my post. There are other reasons a home owner might have to go outside in the middle of the night to deal with something other than a possible intruder... when I do I want to be armed and I don't want to alarm the neighbors or make the cops nervous by carrying an AR to deal with a broken sprinkle.

I agree with what you're saying but in context it was pretty easy to read that meaning into what you wrote

 

[MikeInOr]

I agree with what you're saying but in context it was pretty easy to read that meaning into what you wrote

Fair enough, I can see why you came to that conclusion!

 

[roscoe]

#1,2 and 3 were covered pretty good by Trunk Monkey. But I will add that if had been two white males, I would outdoor have put that. I don’t sugar coat my stories.
I meet a 15yo little girl and her dad a few years ago. The little girl had survived a home invasion two years prior.
She lived alone with her mother in a quiet older neighborhood in Baton Rouge LA. Their door was kicked in one morning by two black males, one with a long criminal history. The one with the long criminal history was armed with a 45 Auto. He shot and killed the mother upon entering. The little girl ran down the hallway to get away and was shot in the back. As she laid on her stomach in the hall, the guy that killed her mother and shot her, stood over her and shot her four more times in the back.
Her is what she said to me. “ He shot me while I was running to my room. At first I tried to move, but heard one say “I ain’t leaving no survivors.” I closed my eyes and could hear someone walk up to my. He then shot me four times in my back. I knew if I moved or made a sound that he would shoot me again so, I played dead.
When I heard them leave the house I cralled to the kitchen and picked up the phone next to my mother and called 911.”
When officer arrived on scene she was by the front door with the phone talking to the 911 operator.

Now her and her mother didn’t have any gold or drugs in the house. When the bad guys were caught and asked why did they target the house. They said that they had seen the box for a new flat screen TV that was put out to the street with the trash and wanted the TV.
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_r...cle_5e97c318-f848-11e6-8faf-d3a2f0983943.html

I don't think any of them were answered. Their skin color was not remotely relevant. It is simply a provocator. Descriptor - Trunk Monkey, give me a break- what was their shoe size? This sounds like what we accuse anti-gunners of: fear-mongering. No anecdotes about kids and break-ins changes that. Yes, break-ins do happen. Sometimes the perpetrators are well-armed or knowledgable. But the statistics matter. If this happens rarely, that matters. If it happens often, that also matters. So if this is becoming less frequent, that should factor into our decision-making process.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

I don't think any of them were answered. Their skin color was not remotely relevant. It is simply a provocator. Descriptor - Trunk Monkey, give me a break- what was their shoe size? This sounds like what we accuse anti-gunners of: fear-mongering. No anecdotes about kids and break-ins changes that. Yes, break-ins do happen. Sometimes the perpetrators are well-armed or knowledgable. But the statistics matter. If this happens rarely, that matters. If it happens often, that also matters. So if this is becoming less frequent, that should factor into our decision-making process.

I’m sorry that your feeling were hurt, but don’t try and make this a racial thing, because it was never ment to be. If the criminal would have been committed by another race, I would have put what the race was. That’s how I write my reports and it sometimes the way I post.
I’m not sure where you have gotten your information on the amount of home invasions going down. They have been on the rise the last five years. It is true that a good many are drug related but not all. We’ve had two this year where the target was a drug dealer and they ended up going to the wrong house.
There are many cases where the intruders kidnap a family member and have them drive them to the bank at night to withdraw money from an ATM, while someone stays at the house with the rest of the family.
Most people think that violent crime is related to lower income ares, but over the years upper scale areas are being targeted. They go where the money is.
Statistics do matter but just remember that you don’t get all the news about the crime in your area. A few years ago I worked five separate shootings in my district in a ten hour shift. The next morning it was reported in the news that there were two shootings in the city that night. One that I had worked and another in a different district.

 

[herrwalther]

Three things come to mind:
1. Is their skin color relevant?

Trunk and Gunny already answered. But to put one more round in it, think of it this way. Imagine you are a police officer and patrolling the graveyard shift. You are between 2 towns in a semi rural county patrol. Dispatch calls on the radio that a 24 hr gas station was just robbed. Suspect description is male, mid 20s, wearing black cargo shorts and a white tank top. So are you going to arrest every person you see with a white tank top or would you want another easy description to look for? I cannot and will not say it is never about race, because there are still some racist folks out there in police work.

 

[roscoe]

Trunk and Gunny already answered. But to put one more round in it, think of it this way. Imagine you are a police officer and patrolling the graveyard shift. You are between 2 towns in a semi rural county patrol. Dispatch calls on the radio that a 24 hr gas station was just robbed. Suspect description is male, mid 20s, wearing black cargo shorts and a white tank top. So are you going to arrest every person you see with a white tank top or would you want another easy description to look for? I cannot and will not say it is never about race, because there are still some racist folks out there in police work.

I am trying to keep race out of everything here at THR. Let's break down the original post: the premise is that break-ins are sometimes more than can be handled with a nightstand .38. Evidence: two black men broke into a house and were particularly well armed. One part of that evidence is relevant to the argument (full-capacity semi-auto handguns), one is not (their skin color).

Get my meaning? If someone come along, Google-ing away, interested in how gunowners view the world, we have offered an argument in which race has been presented as part of the reason to be more afraid of the world.

Imagine you are a black gun-owner, maybe a new gun-owner, looking for a place to discuss firearms without the crazy politics found in some gun-owning corners of the web. You come to THR and see that post and wonder: why was that relevant? Am I going to have to deal with this kind of thing at THR? I think we need to be more thoughtful than that. Everything we do here becomes part of the permanent record. And, to win the long-term political debate, we need black gun-owners. I have been at THR since it first opened (and TFL before that), and this is one of the places that is most welcoming to different types of gun-owners, across the political and philosophical spectrum, and we have done that by being careful and intelligent about our postings. Let's keep it that way.

The issue of police identification has exactly zero to do with the original post, by the way.

 

[Odd Job]

I think what we have here is a failure to meet in the middle, because of a natural way that an LEO might describe an event vs how someone else might describe it. I don't see anything malicious or untoward here.
I suggest we put the brakes on that avenue of discussion and get back to the original topic.

 

[GEM]

This has wandered all over.
Let it die.