Admit that your motive for hoarding guns is fear.
My motive for owning the guns I do is mainly enjoyment. I enjoy shooting. I enjoy hunting. I enjoy collecting pieces of historical significance. The ability for me or my loved ones to defend themselves against intruders is one of the least important issues. But to dismiss the existence of criminals willing to break in to my home completely is dishonest.
Fear that the boogeyman - a criminal or imaginary government gun grabber - is gonna getcha!
No fear here. I have a very happy life, regardless of your projections.
"Gary Kleck's study of defensive gun use has been shown by numerous scholars to not be plausible.
A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 0.5% of households had members who had used a gun for defense during a situation in which they thought someone "almost certainly would have been killed" if they "had not used a gun for protection." Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 162,000 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all "military service, police work, or work as a security guard."
Paper: "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun." By Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1995.
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/backissues/86-1.html
Page 160: "The present survey ... was carefully designed to correct all of the known correctable or avoidable flaws of previous surveys.... We interviewed a large nationally representative sample...."
Pages 160-161: "A professional telephone polling firm, Research Network of Tallahassee, Florida, carried out the sampling and interviewing."
Page 161: "Each interview began with a few general 'throat-clearing' questions about problems facing the R's community and crime. The interviewers then asked the following question: 'Within the past five years, have you yourself or another member of your household used a gun, even if it was not fired, for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere? Please do not include military service, police work, or work as a security guard.'"
A 1982 survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. found:
• 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
• 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"
• 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
From: Book: Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms (Expanded Edition). By James D. Wright and Peter D. Rossi. Aldine De Gruyter, 1986 (Expanded edition published in 1994).
Study after study has found that a gun in the home is associated with an increased risk of homicide and suicide, and while guns are used to prevent some crimes they are used far more often to commit crimes.
Study after study? Other than Kellermann's, which Ii have already shown to have been debunked, what studies show this?
Guns are used to kill, maim, rob, assault, threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self-defense."
On this we agree. Where we disagree is on the solution. You think disarming law abiding citizens will accomplish it. But if someone is willing to "...kill, maim, rob, assault, threaten and intimidate...", why on earth do you believe they would obey gun control laws?
Nobody wants to take your guns.
Quite the contrary, I have shown you numerous quotes from powerful politicians showing they do, indeed, want to take guns from law abiding citizens.
Nobody is coming to "get you".
I have never believed that anyone is coming to "get me" in the sense you are trying to accuse me of.
You will likely never use a gun in self-defense.
I will likely never use my fire extinguishers either. But I still like to have them around. As I said before, I live in a rural area and I work out of town most of the time. You would have me leave my family's safety to chance and the good will of criminals? lol Not freakin likely. No, they will probably never use a firearm in self defense. But that is because they will likely never need to do so.
You will never repel the US government or a foreign invader. Even if you were to try, with your tiny arsenal, you'd be overpowered in short order.
You really think that? Hmmm, perhaps you should study history more carefully. From the vietnamese resistance against the US and the afghani resistance against the USSR, to the current issue our military has had with "insurgents", the abilities of a small group of armed citizens has been proven over and over.
If you research the effect a sniper has on the battlefield, and then compare what most hunters do to what a sniper does, it is easy to see how effective it could be. Now before you begin attempting to ridicule me for some survivalist mentality,
you brought the subject up by making a claim, to which I replied.
The main value of your pitiful armory is to serve as a psychological crutch to allay the crippling fear that many gunlovers live in.
My armory, in addition to being monetarily valuable, provides me and my family with hours of entertainment and a good portion of the meat in our diet. I need no crutch because I have no fears that guns would allay (with the exception of sleeping better when I am out of town).
Keep your guns, and you may shoot yourself or someone you know, as is more likely to happen.
Quoting the Kellermann study again? lol
No, we will not shoot ourselves or someone we know. We all follow basic safety rules. In fact, my daughter will ask to leave a shooting range if others show ignorance in their gun handling procedures.
