NationStates Jolt Archive

As for my wife, I fell in love with her because she's smart, appreciates my sense of humor and is sexually ravenous. Being a cop was a happy bonus. :D

Or she had to arrest you so often that she thought when she was going to spend all her time with you anyway, she might just as well marry you ;)

1.45 minutes for police? Where do you live, on the Himalaya? Here in Milan police will arrive in less than 5 minutes.
2.If the guy has a gun and you don't, this is exactly the very moment for diplomacy. Why risk your life in an all-out defence if you can make him lose time? Wait for the right moment, and also buy an insurance against robbery if that is your main fear. Also a threat will always work - just use a good threat, like "the police is already coming" and then say "I'm not preventing you to escape".
3.You're assuming an unarmed intruder, right? If he is armed, and you're still fumbling for your gun, he's gonna shoot you before you can touch the trigger.
Also most intruders are smart enough to try homebreaking when no one is at home.
Moreover, humiliated people tend to want revenge on those who umiliated them, unless the intruder is a pro - in that case, he simply understand he has to wait till you get out of home to steal.
Also - at least here in Italy and most of EU - firing a gun at an unarmed person is called "excess of defence", and that is a felony. If you wound him, you'll risk jail if you didn't warn him that you were armed and if shooting was unnecessary. If you kill him, you will be tried, and most likely sentenced, for manslaughter, even if he was trespassing and entering your home uninvited. Even a thief has got the right to life.
4.I also confronted bullies, and sometimes had to fight my way out of it. Still I think that putting out a gun, or any other kind of weapon, would only worsen the situation.

Well, Milan is obviously a whole different world from where i live. I stay about 45 minutes west of Durham, NC, USA (although right now i'm temporarily staying in Texas) i live about 15 miles from the nearest police station, so seeing them respond to a call of mine in "under 5 minutes" would be a pipe dream. And around here, most criminals have guns, they don't care if you're home or not. They break in, and in most cases, don't say "Don't move or i'll fuckin' shoot ya!", they just shoot you and take your stuff. The only thing you can rely on is your gun in that situation. There's no sitting down and talking with them to buy time, The first thing you have to think of is protecting your family, and you only have seconds to do that. In my case, my house has been broken into. It was about 2AM and i heard a loud bang (which i later found out was the guy shooting the lock off my front door), then i heard the door swing open and then silence. I go to my closet and get my glock down and take the safety off. I then hear a "ka-click", which as a gunsmith, i recognize its a guy changing the clip from his gun. I swung outside my bedroom door and fired 1 shot. It hit him in the left arm and i heard him yelling as he ran outside, and then his car speeding off. I then called the cops and they actually did find him 1 day later since he went to the hospital to treat his gunwound. As for killing a person in self-defence over here, its perfectly legal if they are a threat to you and your family. So please, next time you post on a topic like this, take time to realize that not everyone lives in some pampered utopian place like the one you describe. :(

I'm a very non-violent person, and I am really uncomfortable with guns. But with all the insanity in this world I am seriously considering getting one, and learning to use it effectively. I would probably go with a handgun because hunting and sport shooting don't appeal to me very much.

The funny thing was that I used to be in favor of gun control, until a wise friend pointed out the fact that people with criminal intent can obtain firearms illegally, so banning guns disarms the law abiding, and empowers the the law defying.

"The prediction is that army will be against army: it may be that the [people] will have to beat their ploughs into swords, for it will not do for men to sit down patiently and see their children destroyed."

Ah, but has this wise friend of yours considered how and where it is easiest for the criminals to obtains their weapons illegaly?
I'm guessing in the homes of those law-abiding citizens who own guns...

So please, next time you post on a topic like this, take time to realize that not everyone lives in some pampered utopian place like the one you describe. :(

Utopian? Hardly... the place exists after all.

And if your local police is so slow, I advise you to intervene in your local politics and request better, more present, more quick-responding police forces.

ussc has ruled there is no duty of the police to protect/intervene in a crime - they do what they can but in violent crimes like home invasion they normally just pick up the pieces

ymmv

Well, if US citizens prefer vigilante justice and regard the police as dustmen rather than law-enforcing instance, that's their good right.

Personally, I see the police as being the "guardians of the peace", as they are called in Ireland.

The next police station is about 1000m away. They'd be here in no time if need should be.

Personally, I see the police as being the "guardians of the peace", as they are called in Ireland.

You might not see them that way if you lived in the US. Though not nearly as bad as police in many countries, there really isn't anything peaceful or peaceable about the police here. Their job is functionally to escalate the situation to violence and force their control over it if you continue to refuse to do exactly as they tell you, even if it seems unreasonable or dangerous to you. This has been exploited, though I do not have statistics on how often, by police officers and those impersonating police officers to commit atrocious and criminal violations of human rights, including theft, rape and murder. The point I'm really trying to make is that cops aren't any better than anybody else: they're human, too. Why is our trust in them mandatory when they obviously are as fallable as any other human being?

Back to gun control, a lot of people are making the argument that a gun locked in a safe does no good for home defense. This is absolutely the case, but the thing they are missing is "threat assessment." Threat assessment is something people should do in just about every situation they are a part of. Many do limited threat assessment, consciously or unconsciously, throughout their daily lives. When people are cautious about a situation, evaluating the apparent risks associated with entering an area or getting involved, they are doing a threat assessment of sorts. When driving, checking your mirrors is an example of crude threat assessment. When you own a gun that you might employ for home defense, you need to perform a realistic assessment of the threat currently posed to your home. Is it highly likely that someone is going to launch an attack against your home right now? Who might that be? Why would they attack you? What evidence do you have (threatening communications, etc.) that would help you to believe that? What sort of threat would this person pose (eg. would they bring a gun? bombs? knives? friends? lawyers?)? When do you think they would most likely conduct their offense?

If you don't have any reasonable expectation that you are going to be attacked with force that would require a firearm to help you weather it, LEAVE YOUR GUN IN YOUR SAFE! There's no reason for you to have it out. Keeping a gun by your bedside "just in case" of a random attack is really, really stupid unless you live in an area where random attacks happen all the time (like combat zones, or South Central LA) and could therefore be expected.