re: #49 Flying Squirrel Girl

When I was 18 and home over the Xmas holidays, someone broke into the house while I was home alone during the day (I did what you are NEVER supposed to do, and pretended like no one was home because I didn’t recognize the truck or the guys in it). I was talking to a friend on the phone when the incessant knocking stopped and I heard the sound of wood cracking and saw the shadow of the front door swing open. While one guy drove the truck into the backyard, the other came walking into the hallway and saw me crouched beside the bed, on the phone waiting for a 911 operator. He ran, jumped in the truck, and they sped off.

I have often thought how differently that day could have turned out if either one of us had had a gun.

I always tell people my view on gun ownership is shaped by experience, not fear of what MIGHT happen.

When I came home from my last semester of college, I found a trash bag over one of the windows of our back door (my mother lived in one half of a duplex at the time). Turns out she’d been robbed the night before, somebody had smashed in the window, unlocked the door, come in and taken her cheapo cubic zirconium jewelry. Nothing of any real value, thank god, despite there being thousands of dollars worth of accumulated electronics in the home.

They came back the next night, presumably to finish the job — except that I was there (Mom worked two jobs including an overnight shift at the time). I heard them trying to jimmy the lock with a paint spreader. As we keep no weapons of any kind in the house, I improvised by wielding the battery-powered weed whacker as a crude club. Didn’t need to use it though — one solid pound on the inside of the door sent the guy(s) running, leaving the paint spreader stuck in the door jamb.

Turns out that you don’t need guns to defend your home. the vast majority of break-and-enter types are colossal cowards that flee at the first sign of resistance.