When two gunmen smashed through the front glass door...

[mingoglia]

Originally Posted by miscrms

3. As you mention, in the vast majority of cases, even if you own guns they will be of no use to you because they are stored away in a safe manner


6. If any moron couldn't just walk into a pawn shop and buy a shotgun or handgun for $50, these types of situations would probably be even less common.

My hand gun, a Glock G21 .45 is relatively accessible. It's locked up in my closet. One day I'll get a safe that can be unlocked by touch and have it bolted somewhere even more accessible. I keep a very low weight, high fragmenting, hollow point rounds in my 3 mags. I keep this type of ammunition in the gun because it's more likely to not kill my neighbors if it were to go through a wall... unlike a full metal jacket. I'd much rather have my shotgun in this situation because it's "safer" still... by safer I mean less likely to travel through walls. I've also gone through numerous tacticle and hand to hand definsive classes and trained on a simulator in shoot/don't shoot situations. I've actually gone through the same classes, at the same school as many of my local law enforcement officers.

With regards to item 6, I don't believe this. I highly doubt the average criminal neanders through his local Walmart and plunks down $187 on a 870 pump before going on a aggragated robbery spree. If we went back 200 years ago and made sure that this country did not allow weapons then we'd have a better chance at this. The reality is, guns are here... and if we "get rid" of them only criminals will have them. What happened during the prohibition of alcohol?

[Dave_PH]

Mine isn't locked, it's easily accessible between our living room and front door. There's a hollowpoint in the chamber and 15 more in the clip.

A few months ago there was a series of home invasions just south of here in St Pete. One night a homeowner heard a noise from someone trying to break in through his garage door. He fired through the door. Two robbers took their friend to the hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The two were arrested. The homeowner was not charged. Too bad criminals.

[miscrms]

Originally Posted by Dave_PH

Feel free to show me the data on this

Admittedly pure speculation on my part. Reliable numbers are very hard to find, particularly as "home invasion" is not typically tracked as a separate crime stat in most areas. What is clear to me is that this phenomenon is highly blown out of proportion in the media because of the very understandable fear it creates. There are lots of self defense oriented websites out there that grab a couple of these sensational headlines and then show statistics of the hundreds of thousands of home invasions and residential robberies that occur. Of course they neglect to mention that the later constitutes the vast majority. Here's a good example of this sort of fear-mongering:
BumpKeyWarning.com - Home Invasion Statistics

Here's a site that attempts to track all home invasions in MN based on law enforcement and media reports. Based on the nature of this site they clearly seem to be of the opinion that this is a big problem, and if anything I would say they over estimate with a broad interpretation of the "home invasion" definition and some double reporting. A survey of their data finds the following:
MN Home Invasion Watch

For 2007-2008 in MN:
Total Home Invasions: 110
Intruders Killed by Owners: 4
Owners Killed by Intruders: 5
Owners Killed with Own Gun: 2

So a total of 5 home owners were killed in the two year period during home invasion robberies. Of those 2 were killed with their own weapon, and one more appears to have actually been an intentional murder, not a true random home invasion. As 4 killed their attackers (of which one was not with a fire arm), and one man successfully defended his home w/o killing the invaders (despite not too brightly chasing them into the street and continuing to fire at them as they drove away) I'd say the armed homeowners were about 67% effective in their defense. (4 succeeded, 2 died as a result). Based on the fact that those who did not introduce a firearm into the situation survived at a rate of 95% I would say those folks had better results. This is not in any way to trivialize those who were injured, raped, or traumatized by the remaining occurrences, just trying to get down to the bottom line.

According to the CDC, based on the most recent 5 years data available there are an average of 5.6 deaths per year in MN caused by accidental firearm discharge. So for the same time period, we could estimate that about 11 people died in firearms accidents.
Injury Mortality Reports

Given this sample, I don't think I'm unjustified in thinking that more people are accidentally killed by guns than die in home invasion style robberies. In this case they were more than 2:1. Further more those who introduced a firearm into the situation were 7 time more likely to end up dead.

Rob

[miscrms]

Originally Posted by mingoglia

If we went back 200 years ago and made sure that this country did not allow weapons then we'd have a better chance at this. The reality is, guns are here... and if we "get rid" of them only criminals will have them. What happened during the prohibition of alcohol?

I don't necessarily disagree. I guess I'm just more of an idealist. If we never make an attempt to address the issue, it will never improve. I cannot see our currently escalating personal arms race leading to any positive outcome.

I'm not really here to argue the issue, as I doubt there is any real chance of anyone convincing the other side of anything. The OP said he was curious about the thought processes of those with differing views, so I obliged.

Rob

[mingoglia]

Originally Posted by miscrms

I don't necessarily disagree. I guess I'm just more of an idealist. If we never make an attempt to address the issue, it will never improve. I cannot see our currently escalating personal arms race leading to any positive outcome.

I'm not really here to argue the issue, as I doubt there is any real chance of anyone convincing the other side of anything. The OP said he was curious about the thought processes of those with differing views, so I obliged.

Rob

I understand your apprehension about discussing this. I too am not looking to get into a heated debate regarding this. My intent of the thread was to discuss both sides in a friendly manner in hopes that everyone keeps their cool and remains friends. I'm mainly looking for other peoples views in an attempt to understand where they're coming from on this issue. Yea, it's highly unlikely that I'll change my position... but I'm still curious to hear everyone's take.

With that being said... my own analogy has always been to compare the removal of guns from our country with the prohibition of alcohol. Things started out good for a very very brief time... then not only did alcohol use sharply climb, but then you had the organized crime element start to take shape. Still considering my analogy for this discussion, if alcohol never existed in this country then no one would have known what they were missing... and there fore the demand wouldn't have sparked the interest of organized crime and those running moonshine operations.

Mike

[miscrms]

Originally Posted by mingoglia

I understand your apprehension about discussing this. I too am not looking to get into a heated debate regarding this. My intent of the thread was to discuss both sides in a friendly manner in hopes that everyone keeps their cool and remains friends. I'm mainly looking for other peoples views in an attempt to understand where they're coming from on this issue. Yea, it's highly unlikely that I'll change my position... but I'm still curious to hear everyone's take.

With that being said... my own analogy has always been to compare the removal of guns from our country with the prohibition of alcohol. Things started out good for a very very brief time... then not only did alcohol use sharply climb, but then you had the organized crime element start to take shape. Still considering my analogy for this discussion, if alcohol never existed in this country then no one would have known what they were missing... and there fore the demand wouldn't have sparked the interest of organized crime and those running moonshine operations.

Mike

Thanks, I appreciate that. Your example is a pretty good one, an outright ban is unlikely to ever work as it simply foments resistance. From my cold, dead hands etc. However, I believe there is a good deal of grey area between unrestricted access and a total ban. In my opinion the current application of the second amendment is skewed way too far towards protecting the right of someone to buy any gun they want at any time at a moments notice, as opposed to protecting the interest and safety of the general public.

Rob

[Dave_PH]

I didn't see the stats anywhere on that page
MN Home Invasion Watch

For 2007-2008 in MN:
Total Home Invasions: 110
Intruders Killed by Owners: 4
Owners Killed by Intruders: 5
Owners Killed with Own Gun: 2

And THAT page is the closest you could come to stats.

In fact, it looks like Owners Killed by Intruders would have been 9 if not for the armed homeowners

[tripp]

The concept of a ban probably won't work for the reasons stated above. The concept of limiting the availablilty of certain types of weapons, is, I think, a bit of a waste of time as well. Look at the weapons that the assailants in this example carried... a shotgun and a pistol (presumably an automatic of some kind, probably not a revolver). Hardly exotic. It seems to me that most of the energy spent (correct me if I'm off base here) has been on assault rifles and the like. Taking the bayonet lug off of assault rifles has not prevented the loss of a single life, it's just sort of a silly incremental attack on assault rifles. I freely admit that an AR doesn't really have any practical value. A dreadful home security weapon, not really good for hunting either. I have one because it allowed me to practice my marksmanship (I was in the service for 6+ years) with a weapon very similar to the type I'd be required to qualify with. Target shooting is loads of fun too... but I digress. The point is, very few crimes are committed with assault rifles. Shot guns and pistols are the bread and butter of crime, however, there are so many already out there that it's really impossible to control. We don't need to give organized crime another way to make a buck.

I'm not really sure what the solution is. Better parenting and a higher standard of living for everybody would be a good start.

[Dave_PH]

Firearms are involved in 0.6% of accidental deaths nationally. Most accidental deaths involve, or are due to, motor vehicles (39%), poisoning (18%), falls (16%), suffocation (5%), drowning (2.9%), fires (2.8%), medical mistakes (2.2%), environmental factors (1.2%), and bicycles and tricycles (0.7%). Among children: motor vehicles (45%), suffocation (18%), drowning (14%), fires (9%), bicycles and tricycles (2.4%), falls (2%), poisoning (1.6%),environmental factors (1.5%), and medical mistakes (0.8%).

[tripp]

Originally Posted by Dave_PH

I didn't see the stats anywhere on that page
MN Home Invasion Watch

For 2007-2008 in MN:
Total Home Invasions: 110
Intruders Killed by Owners: 4
Owners Killed by Intruders: 5
Owners Killed with Own Gun: 2

And THAT page is the closest you could come to stats.

In fact, it looks like Owners Killed by Intruders would have been 9 if not for the armed homeowners

uh, where did you draw that conclusion from? Not the data. Reading the top article... what a way to live. In constant fear of everything. That bloke will be dead of stress and anxiety, but his corpse will be safe inside his little fortress. A bit over the top to say the least.