[MRRiley]

Hey Mike and Captain... I am torn really, I know the safe is the best option. But in terms of keeping the gun for protection.... what good is it, if it is in a safe?

We have a brazen burglar of late that is entering folks homes between the hours 1-5 am while they are sleeping... going through unlocked windows/doors in this heat wave we are experiencing.

My girls have been taught about the guns, but there are always other kids rolling through the house. You can't be everywhere. And it just takes a second for something to happen...

For me this latest horrible accident hits too close to home.

My friend in jr. high accidently shot his best friend with a shotgun while "cleaning" it. I dont know to this day know exactly what happened as John has never been able to talk about it... but they were both "Hunter Safety Card" holders, as was I. It was taught in school back then. We all had hunted together and they knew how to safely handle guns. My guess is, stupidity may have been the real killer. A moment where a 13 year old does something stupid.
Kids are kids... Sadly they can't be trusted to safely handle firearms everytime, anymore than adults can be.

I think my guns will just go away... The safe is the best answer, but is a useless answer for protection in my opinion, and I do not hunt anymore, so what is really the point in having them.

Gus, I do understand your position. Really what you need are 2 safes. One with a spin dial or electronic door/lock for the "off duty" weapons and one specifically for the "on duty" weapon such as this Pushbutton Gun Box. These quick safes can be mounted on your nightstand and can easily be opened in the dark in under 15 seconds (with some practice... because you generally do everything a bit slower when waking up out of a sound sleep). I've heard of one that uses your fingerprint but I can't seem to find it. This would offer, in my opinion, the ultimate in storage security and familial safety. Of course another factor is to use frangible bullets. These are much less likely to penetrate a wall and injure someone in the next room.

Mike

edit... Found it.... GunVault GVB2000 Biometric - Biometric fingerprint detection unlocks the case in under 2 seconds...

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Last edited by MRRiley; 09-26-2009 at 03:25 PM.

[seacapt]

Hey Mike and Captain... I am torn really, I know the safe is the best option. But in terms of keeping the gun for protection.... what good is it, if it is in a safe?

We have a brazen burglar of late that is entering folks homes between the hours 1-5 am while they are sleeping... going through unlocked windows/doors in this heat wave we are experiencing.

My girls have been taught about the guns, but there are always other kids rolling through the house. You can't be everywhere. And it just takes a second for something to happen...

For me this latest horrible accident hits too close to home.

My friend in jr. high accidently shot his best friend with a shotgun while "cleaning" it. I dont know to this day know exactly what happened as John has never been able to talk about it... but they were both "Hunter Safety Card" holders, as was I. It was taught in school back then. We all had hunted together and they knew how to safely handle guns. My guess is, stupidity may have been the real killer. A moment where a 13 year old does something stupid.
Kids are kids... Sadly they can't be trusted to safely handle firearms everytime, anymore than adults can be.

I think my guns will just go away... The safe is the best answer, but is a useless answer for protection in my opinion, and I do not hunt anymore, so what is really the point in having them.

Gus my reason for the safe is twofold, I want to keep my kids safe and I don't want a thief to get my guns and use them against someone else.
There are small quick access safes available for the bedside application. You will have to decide what works best for you.
At no time should even the trained kid have unsupervised access. My 13 yearold is on a skeet team , but I still don't give him access without an adult present.
A question to ask self is what will you do if bad guy gets in house. When I was carrying and had pistol in headboard I was living alone. Mike mentioned "frangable bullets", I'm not familliar with them but I assume they are like rat shot and he is right , you don't want to shoot through the walls of your house. There is an awful lot to consider. If you have a gun and are not prepared to use it , it will probably get you hurt so maybe getting rid of them is the best answer. Think it through don't act on impulse.
You have some tough choices to make my friend.
Alarm with siren and lights is a good deterrant , can get a cheap setup at Radio Shack and install it yourself. A well trained German Shepard or Belgian Sheep Dog can be your best friend in more ways than one but this takes time .
The fact that your local bad guy goes in while people are home means he is very dangerous and not thinking rationally!
Be safe and keep your girls(momma too) safe.

[MRRiley]

This conversation is getting silly, Mike. You're talking in absolutes while using "probably," "maybe," "possibly." If there's an exception to the rule, it goes both ways.

You can say "you have a better chance with a gun...most likely" but then I can say "you have a better chance with compliance...most likely."

I choose to take my chances. Truth is, I could step out my front door and get an F-14 to the dome (literally...Air Force flies over my house all the time). I drive. I ride bikes. I cross the street. I play with electronics.

I have never talked in absolutes during this whole thread. Don't you think I know that nothing is certain in life except it's uncertainty? I do believe I've even said much to that effect on multiple occassions right here. And of course there are exceptions to every rule.

What if you are more skilled?

In the same way that you can get training with weapons, you can get training with your hands.

Well duhhhhh... I could run into a yakuza who could kill me by twisting my little finger from across the room but more than likely any criminal I encounter will only be proficient in routine fist-to-cuff brawling.

Oh and I never said it was "easy." Not going near the other subjects you're bringing into the conversation and that is just fear mongering. Asking "what if this?" and "what if that?" in relation to weapon possession is too rhetorical. "If only I had done this...if only I had left home 30 seconds earlier..."

Life is full of what if's... It's how we learn not to make the same mistake twice... And the fact that there are more common ways to die than thru the misuse of a firearm is just that, a fact, whether you chose to believe it or not.

I've been in 2 car crashes (one would have paralyzed/killed me if not for seat belts)...both of which were as a passenger. It's a risk I take when on the road. Shit happens. If I'm going to die, it's my time. I've been on numerous flights with no issues...driven thousands upon thousands of miles...been into some shit when I was younger. I don't believe in "fate" but I do believe in a "master plan."

I don't suppose you blamed the cars for either accident did you? Was the shit you were into when you were younger self inflicted or did the trouble just jump up and attack you. HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY!

Mike

[Parallax]

Strawman alert.
The flaw here is that doctors rarely deliberately kill their patients, people who point guns at people often deliberately kill their victims.

The flaw here is that you didn't actually read the post .It clearly says "accidental" gun deaths. The stats for gun deaths from all causes are. much higher.

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Last edited by Parallax; 09-26-2009 at 03:46 PM.

[Wheatfield]

The flaw here is that you didn't actually read the post .It clearly says "accidental" gun deaths. The stats for gun deaths from all causes are. much higher.

I read the post, I'm calling the accidental part a strawman.

[adamkean]

if more guns = safer, then the USA should be the safest country in the world. period.

[seacapt]

In the United States , law abiding citizens have a right to own or not own a gun.This right comes with responsibilities. Mishandling of the resonsibilities is as dangerous as mishandling of the weapon.
Not all gun owners carry concealed. I have neighbors who could not feed their famillies if they didn't hunt. For most of us it's not the Dirty Harry thing that some of you seem to believe.
Just a couple random thoughts.

[Ratmagiclady]

Gus my reason for the safe is twofold, I want to keep my kids safe and I don't want a thief to get my guns and use them against someone else.
There are small quick access safes available for the bedside application. You will have to decide what works best for you.
At no time should even the trained kid have unsupervised access. My 13 yearold is on a skeet team , but I still don't give him access without an adult present.
A question to ask self is what will you do if bad guy gets in house. When I was carrying and had pistol in headboard I was living alone. Mike mentioned "frangable bullets", I'm not familliar with them but I assume they are like rat shot and he is right , you don't want to shoot through the walls of your house.

They're similar in a way, but they're actually a bullet: the thing is they break apart the first time they hit something, so they'll stil hurt people, but are less likely to go through a wall or something and still be lethal.

A well trained German Shepard or Belgian Sheep Dog can be your best friend in more ways than one but this takes time .

Doggies are very good to have around, and a pretty good bad-guy-dissuader.

[Wheatfield]

I have neighbors who could not feed their famillies if they didn't hunt.

Well, that should account for about .0001% of the population.

[Ratmagiclady]

In the United States , law abiding citizens have a right to own or not own a gun.This right comes with responsibilities. Mishandling of the resonsibilities is as dangerous as mishandling of the weapon.
Not all gun owners carry concealed. I have neighbors who could not feed their famillies if they didn't hunt. For most of us it's not the Dirty Harry thing that some of you seem to believe.
Just a couple random thoughts.

There's a big difference between most gun owners and the rhetoric of the anti-regulation 'We want instant access to military weapons or we're being tyrranized' lobby, and the general scare tactics used politically. Hard to tell the difference from outside.

There certainly are plenty of real gun fanatics out there, with disproportionate influence, and they usually have other agendas that aren't exactly friends of a free and civil society.

[MRRiley]

There's a big difference between most gun owners and the rhetoric of the anti-regulation 'We want instant access to military weapons or we're being tyrranized' lobby, and the general scare tactics used politically. Hard to tell the difference from outside.

There certainly are plenty of real gun fanatics out there, with disproportionate influence, and they usually have other agendas that aren't exactly friends of a free and civil society.

Just as there are plenty of real gun-phobics out there with disproportionate influence... and they have their own agendas and use scare tactics of their own.

Of course, you likely consider me to be one of the "gun fanatics" so everything I've said in this thread must come from some deep paranoid agenda. However, please note that I have never advocated everyone carrying a firearm, nor have I advocated access to heavy military weapons (no I don't think every Tom, Dick or Harry need a 50cal Gatling Gun) or grenades or the like. I have never claimed that a firearm is the answer to all problems or that people must worship at the alter of the .357...

What I do advocate and believe is that every law abiding and mentally competent citizen should be free to chose or not chose to arm himself with firearms suitable for self defense or sporting uses. This right is guaranteed to me and every other citizen (except those adjudged not qualified by a competent legal authority) by our country's founding documents and until they are overturned or changed, they are the law of the land. I've also said that any law abiding American citizen is free to try to change those documents if they so chose. However I am also free to oppose their efforts and will do so vigourously WITHIN the law.

Mike

[jmdeegan]

Just a few points for me here....someone several pages back mentioned PA as a strict gun-law state...unless something changed in the past few years, that could not be further from the truth. PA is very much a right to carry state, licenses take time but not too much and very little effort. Trip to the court house, a couple photos, the proper paperwork and done. NY is not actually too difficult either, depending on where in the state you live. If you refer to the 5 boroughs, it is still feasible, tho expensive and time-consuming. Upsate it is far easier. Paperwork, fees, background check and a class.

I had a CCW in Pennsylvania, because I could and also in part because I was working several off-hours jobs that put me in odd areas at odd hours by myself. Part was because as I was going through FBI application processing, I wanted to spend more time training with the tools I may need to use, just because I could.

Now, I split time between the 5 Boroughs of NYC (no weapons here) and Columbia County NY. At my proper home 30 minutes south of Albany, I have my compound bow (purchased for hunting) which currently is my only true weapon there (i don't count the machete I use for brush trimming, since I know I wouldn't get to it if I needed to as fast as I'd need to). Once I move there full-time, there will be a gun safe, and there will be hand guns and long guns in there. In part for hunting, but also home/family protection. See, where I live there is zero local PD. We are covered by the NYS police, and the two closest barracks are approximately 15 minutes away, and given the roads in our area, gunning it won't get you there much faster and safely.

So, if its a gun and safety, or depending on police who could be at least 15 minutes away.....I take option A, because I can.

As others have said tho, I advocate the mandatory training and even going so far as having proficiency testing before granting licenses. Make people re-test every couple years. I believe some highly-coveted big-game hunting states (i think alaska for one) requires certain testing before giving tags out, to make sure the hunters are actually capable of handling the arms required to ethically take the game in question.
The point I'd say there is make sure that if you are going to have the weapon, you know how to use it. And if you are going to license someone to allow them to carry and in theory use it, lets make sure they know how to do so.

[K-9]

How about we put more effort and money into CRIMINAL CONTROL? Apply that modern technology and thoses "advances" you seem to think exist to treating the flaw in some humans which allow or cause them to act with such brutality toward their fellow inhabitants on this planet. Then we proponents of self protection might not feel the need to have a firearm so much.

Hey, I'm all for that.

I am also not willing to put the faith in the government that you are for surveillance. In order to provide a real deterent surveillance program it would have to be 24/7 and everywhere. I value my privacy almost as much as I value my life. Are you so ready for 1984?

I believe London has cameras nearly everywhere on their streets. It can be done. If we photographers can shoot anyone (the harmless form of the word shoot) on streets with it being legally ok as they are out in public, why can't most streets be monitored in the future?

You most have missed the part in one of my previous posts that stated my house which got ripped off so many times was equipped with monitoring and alarm systems, a" panic" button in every room , a 98 lb Akita dog and a police station 1.5 miles away. When my wife pushed the panic button one day while somebody was trying to get in through the back window, The siren worked the monitoring service notified the police within 3 minutes and the police showed up in about 12 minutes. The siren scared off the burgular but even with great responce time alot of bad stuff can happen in the 15 minutes it took for help to arrive.
Come on, Trap doors and electric floors were your suggestion?
I'll tell you what , When Technology allows me to have Scotty beam the bad guy to another planet or if Harry Potter wants to give me his wand to turn the bad guy into a snail, then I'ltake your advice and get rid of my guns.

There can always be flaws in systems like this, but my point was time and effort should be spent perfecting this and bettering this. My Jabba's Palace trap door reference and electrified floor tiles was just getting my point across and I didn't intend for you to take those options too literally. I was just debating that we can intelligently implement other means of defense if we wanted to. You mentioned someone was trying to get in the back window. How about adding sensor lights and motion detectors in the backyard or around the yard?

As far as Gus and gun safety at home. I like to play percentages. If you have no guns in the home, there is a 0% chance that anyone can get accidentally hurt with them. That story of the girl getting shot by her brother is horrible. The father could have gone his whole life in that house without ever having an intruder or a need to use the weapon under his mattress, yet something like that had to happen. A tragedy indeed.

[res3567]

I have an uncle who is the same age as me; my grandmother got married at an early age.

When he was just a baby in the late 60's my grampa was working away and out of the state. An intruder broke into the house while my grandmother and uncle were sleeping. She had a gun in the house but there were no bullets. She called the police and locked herself in her bedroom yelling through the door "I have called the cops!"

He ran away and when the police arrived minutes later they found rope on the coffee table in her den.

The police officer one the scene GAVE her BULLETS for the gun and said use it if the crook returned.

Two nights later he did, this time he tried comming through the bedroom window. Before he could break the window she fired several rounds through that window and called the police again.

He ran away again and he never returned to the house. She did not know if he was hit or not, but lets say the bullets missed him. He knew better than to return because he would be faced with the same situation or worse, my grampa packing the pistol to defend his family.

[MRRiley]

...
I believe London has cameras nearly everywhere on their streets. It can be done. If we photographers can shoot anyone (the harmless form of the word shoot) on streets with it being legally ok as they are out in public, why can't most streets be monitored in the future?
...

I'm not going to go into that other than to say there is a big difference between a private citizen shooting a photo in public and the government shooting millions... And I will not debate this particular issue further in this thread.