General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Never owned a gun, never will. [View all]hunter
(38,311 posts)Guns add nothing to my sense of security.
I live in a city with a great deal of gun violence, much greater than most of the U.S.A.. I've witnessed it up close on multiple occasions. When our children were small we lived in a rougher part of town because that was all we could afford. I'd play with them on the floor of the back bedroom whenever I heard gunshots outside. I once encountered a stranger holding a gun on our back porch, hiding from the police who were out front looking for him. Another time I saw a police officer shoot a man. One time a stray bullet hit some equipment on a nearby power pole and it exploded in a shower of sparks. Our next door neighbor's son had been shot to death in a drug deal gone bad. It was that kind of place.
Guns seem to be one of the only thing burglars here are interested in. The gangsters buy their home electronics at Best Buy same as everyone else, and they're the ones distributing drugs wholesale so they don't care what's in your medicine cabinet. But guns are valuable to them. Any tells of gun love are an invitation for them to break into your house. There was a burglary a few years ago where the guys broke into the house, opened the garage door, and drove their truck in, closing the door behind them. That gave them time to load an entire closet-sized gun safe onto their truck. A neighbor saw them drive off, but didn't think there was anything unusual about it at the time. It wasn't reported how many guns were in the safe. So yes, even "responsible" gun owners contribute to this nation's gun problem.
When I was a young man I was rather reckless and too often found myself in rough situations. I've been threatened by bad guys holding guns, and I have a knife scar on my arm. I've been knocked down by armed police officers for no more offense than sleeping in my car. When I was working for a student housing slum lord I was asked to paint over the bloody aftermath of a gun suicide. The carpets had already been removed, thank God, and I can report Kilz primer works wonders. (This landlord painted all the walls of his apartments the same color as spray-can Kilz to minimize his painting expenses. Any horror could be covered up in minutes, simply scrape and spray...)
I've never been in a situation where me holding a gun might have improved the outcome. It's not that I'm incompetent with guns, it's simply my experience that once the guns come out everything is random and FUBAR.