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The Only Article About Guns You Need to Read Today

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Scottish Dragon12/20/2012 8:32:42 am PST

re: #343 Renaissance_Man

No, don’t get a shotgun. FFS. All that does is let you play pretend that the gun will make you safer, because despite your minimal training consisting of watching a lot of movies and cuddling the shotgun you will manage to outshoot an armed assailant who has the element of surprise. And somehow you imagine you’ll manage to do this despite being sleepy, or confused, or scared, or unable to fucking find the gun in the first place.

All the evidence demonstrates that having a gun on your person or in the home makes you more likely to be killed or injured, not less. If you actually want to be safe instead of playing pretend, don’t add something to the home that will make you let safe.

People do use shotguns to protect themselves at home quite successfully without somehow killing themselves through incompetence. The meme you perpetuate here of the ‘super, unbeatable and all knowing criminal’ who will always have the drop on you and will always be more competent than you (but magically will not be if a police officer arrives who qualifies at about 60% with his weapon once every 18 months) is one of the biggest problems I have had with anti gun progressives.

It’s utter bullshit.

Generally, you have surprise factor working for you. It’s your house and you know it…even in the dark! Criminals know that also, and a survey about twenty years ago of convicted felons revealed that most of them admitted to having passed up on a burglary/home invasion scheme because of specific fear that the owners inside would be armed.

Also, the ‘guns make you less safe’ evidence is dependent on a couple of other things that are left out of that little venn diagram:
1) Do you have anger problems or severe depression issues that might make gun ownership problematic? Mental illness? This is nothing to be ashamed of, and self awareness is key.
2) Do you own a gun for self protection but have never fired it and are actually somewhat afraid of the thing?
3) Are you careless about leaving it out and loaded for kids to get their hands on? Are you ignorant of proper, safe procedures?

If you answer yes to any of the above, then I agree…a gun will make you less safe.

For those people who do not have these challenges, the choice should be entirely up them.

Now, if some of my fellow lizards want to call me a ‘gun nut’ over this, all I can do is shrug my shoulders. I do think that some gun control is necessary, and I would start with dumping the gun show exemption to background checks and then move on to mandatory gun locks or safes.

Truth be told, I have spent far, far more money on Warhammer 40K then I have even spent on firearms and ammunition.