On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, Ronn Blankenship wrote:
>
> Then what method do you recommend that the safety-conscious, law-abiding
> homeowner have ready to defend his home and the lives of his family members
> from an intruder armed with a potentially lethal weapon (gun, knife,
> crowbar, etc.)? Simply asking the intruder to wait until the police have
> time to get there is probably not going to work . . .
>
None, really, except suggest installing an alarm system and good locks and
to repeat the oft-quoted truism that people get hurt in accidencts with
guns at home more often than intruders are repelled. I'd advise the
homeowner to maximize the overall odds in his favor, not prepare himself
for a Charles Bronson episode. If it's 4 am and you're sound asleep, and
the intruder isn't, and if the intruder is any good at intruding, then the
gun in your nightstand is more likely to be used against you than by you.
Also, guns are frequent targets of those same intruders.
A couple of years ago somebody broke into my father's house and tried
to steal his Chinese AK-47. The silent alarm brought the police
around pretty quickly, but my father was extremely grateful that he
kept the ammo locked up where the thief couldn't get at it as well. He
was sound asleep until the police knocked on the door.
My main point, though, is that if you have kids then even the most
careful instruction in firearm safety isn't really sufficient to protect
them from themselves with respect to your guns, because kids are still
kids. I admit that I'm basing this insight on personal history and not
objective research, but I'm willing to guarantee that if you have a kid,
and if you have a gun, and if that gun is accessible to that kid, then
that kid will play with that gun multiple times over the years when you
aren't looking (if the kid's a boy, anyway...girls might be different).
By teaching him firearm safety you reduce the chances that he will
accidentally blow off his own or somebody else's head, but you don't
eliminate it.
You can't make yourself invulnerable, though gun manufacturers do try to
sell that fantasy. The best I can do is to try to put myself in the shoes
of a father. Would I feel worse if my kid killed himself or a friend with
one of my guns, or if an intruder got into the the house and harmed him?
In the first case, I would consider the death entirely my own fault and
I'd feel horrible. In the second case I would feel horrible but I would
blame the intruder. Next: is my kid more likely to harm himself with a
gun I leave accessible, or is he more likely to be harmed by a home
intruder? IMO it's the former, so if it were me, I'd lock up the guns.
Or sell them and buy a good baseball bat to keep by the bed.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
Don't be frightened. Adrenaline will just make your blood taste funny.
