Safes + concealment?

[MahrinSkel]

Ideally you stop people before they set foot on your property, guns don't even really enter the equation of deterrence except when you get into the hypothetical game theory land of large quantities of people owning guns dictating the behavior of criminals when selecting targets and timing  - which doesn't in fact require that you personally own a gun.  The physical presence of a gun in a specific house only gives the option to realistically threaten grave violence, which will provoke a flight or fight response in the criminal which may end exceedingly badly.

Which is why, once you make the decision to use a gun as a compliance device, you shoot at the first sign of active defiance.  If you're not prepared to kill somebody because they act threateningly with a weapon aimed at them, then you shouldn't introduce the gun into the equation to begin with.

Having a gun for "home defense" gives you options you would not have without the gun.  Actually using the gun for the purpose can escalate the situation, and having it may tempt you to go all macho and stupid, especially if you think it is a magic wand you wave at people to make them do what you want.  Getting them to piss their pants and run out of the house is a "good outcome", shooting them is much less desirable.  It helps if you live in a jurisdiction where the assumptions work in your favor (for example, states that adhere to the "Castle Doctrine" will start from the position that an intruder in your home "needed killing").  But no matter how strong your legal position, you've still got to get the stains out of the rug.

--Dave

[Polysorbate80]

Which is why, once you make the decision to use a gun as a compliance device, you shoot at the first sign of active defiance.  If you're not prepared to kill somebody because they act threateningly with a weapon aimed at them, then you shouldn't introduce the gun into the equation to begin with.

I prefer the shorter version:

"Don't point a gun at anyone you don't intend to shoot."

[Lantyssa]

"Don't point a gun at anyone anything you don't intend to shoot."

Fixed it for all situations.  It's pretty much rule #1 through #5.  It's popularity only being matched by "always treat a gun as loaded".

[Polysorbate80]

I always heard that one as "There's no such thing as an unloaded gun", but yeah :)

Edit: Oh, and personal rule #3:  "When the guns come out at the party, it's time to go home"

[Sheepherder]

Which is why it's a "do something else, srsly" answer because there's no accounting for a persons ability or lack thereof to shoot someone at an appropriate time.  I think we might have scared Snakecharmer away though.

[MahrinSkel]

Oh, and the best "home defense" weapon is a snub-nose double-action revolver in .38 or .44 loaded with (non-magnum) frangible rounds.  This is because if you need to leave a weapon in the safe/under the mattress/taped to the desk for 5 years, then pull it out and use it to fire more than one round, anything that will jam if it's not recently maintained (any semi-automatic pistol, carbine, or rifle) or the shell casings have gotten brittle with age (any shotgun) is a bad plan.  Not having to worry about the bullet going through the kids in the next room or the neighbors in the next house is also a plus, and the bigger the weapon, the more trouble you're going to have with it as you stumble around your house in the dark.

Of course, if you need to defend your home against the forces of government oppression, there's always these.


--Dave

[Jimbo]

DUDE!  That shot gun kicks ass!  They aren't taking orders till 2011!  Shit I'm in the wrong line of work.

[Broughden]

DUDE!  That shot gun kicks ass!  They aren't taking orders till 2011!  Shit I'm in the wrong line of work.

I am buying one of those.


Edit:
Except looking at the barrel length and knowing how shotguns kick I would go with the 10 or 12inch barrel version, with the tritium night sites.

[Sheepherder]

Real men chamber their automatics for 10 gauge.

[MahrinSkel]

Oh, and the best "home defense" weapon is a snub-nose double-action revolver in .38 or .44 loaded with (non-magnum) frangible rounds. 

To quote myself for followup, these days I would add something like this, mounted under the barrel (LED's have made mounting a light under a snub barrel a practical option).  Brightest spot is where the bullet will go in, close enough to a laser sight for across the room without making it obvious you're aiming a gun at their sternum.  If it's aimed in their direction at night they won't even be able to see the gun from the intensity of the LED (if it's aimed at their head, they won't even see you), they'll think it's just a flashlight.  I have something similar on my keychain, it's brighter than an old-style 2-D-cell flashlight and it's smaller than my pinkie (this one is a little shorter but wider).



Wife won't let me keep a gun without a safe to put it in, and I have very particular standards about what that safe would need to do: Open silently, biometric lock with combination backup (no fucking keys, put the battery backup on the outside or why bother?), and heavy enough steel to stand up to a sledgehammer (10 gauge steel minimum).  I've yet to find anything that gets more than 2 out of 3 (most of the safes with biometric locks sound like a car door slamming when the bolts disengage, the silent safes have cheesy 14-16 gauge steel I could punch through with a chisel), when I do it will probably cost more than the guns inside.

--Dave

[Tale]

Move somewhere that's not fucked.

[Surlyboi]

Move somewhere that's not fucked.

No such place exists on Earth.

[K9]

Move somewhere that's not fucked.

No such place exists on Earth.

Tristan da Cunha