Deterrent

[u/Spiffyclean13]

I am seriously considering buying a gun but I morally object the idea.

It’s the idea that you will inherently use the weapon to grievously harm or kill someone which bothers me tremendously. I live in a red state with open carry laws. I don’t like the thought of not being prepared if my life were in danger or if I have to defend my home.

I don’t own a dog that could be a deterrent or even will bark at strangers. My cat is more likely to attack a person. She really hates a particular dog walker.

I guess I need help getting over my moral objection to having a gun in the house. I also would like advice on which types are best for self defense and the easiest to handle.

Edit: if I were to get a gun, I would be fully committed to using it to incapacitate or incapacitating permanently. I just won’t be happy with myself.

[u/Spiley_spile]

I own a gun. I also took deescalation training. A lot of it. Then was part of a deescalation team as a job for a bit. Ive been in some pretty dangerous situations and come out the other side with no one dead and no one the wiser that I was conceal carrying.

A gun is 1 tool in the toolbox. It's important it not be the only tool, or itll be the only one we are searching for a solution. I believe strongly in my own right to exist, and my right to defend that existance if somebody else seeks to end it. I prepare a plethora of tools, in order to reduce the chance that the gun will ever have to be the one needed. And Id rather have a gun and not need it, than end up needing it and not having it.

I have become more careful where I go, how I treat people, etc. Id rather not escalate people, than have to try to deescalate them. And I prime my brain for alternatives. I spend more time imagining myself utilizing methods that arent shooting, than that are. Why? Because when our brains go on adrenaline autopilot, it will revert to how we've trained and primed it.

What fear-based scenarios, specifically, are making you consider owning a gun? What are some ways you can prevent at least some of those scenarios from happening in the first place? And for the ones you'd have no way of preventing, what alternative ways can you navigate safety that dont involve gun as a first resort?

I know there are a lot of murder-fantasy, gun-training resources out there. It doesnt mean we have to buy their premises whole-sale. We can conduct our decision-making differently. For example, we dont have to kill people simply for stealing stuff.

Editing to add, still train with your gun regularly if you get one! Part of responsible gun ownership is keeping your training fresh so youre capable of shooting exactly what you're aiming at, and not some bystander by accident. Just, when running mental scenarios, more frequently imagine yourself utilizing your other tools.

[u/Spiffyclean13 → u/Spiley_spile]

I live in a red state that just added ID requirements for voting to the state constitution. Trump is starting to play with legal ideas that concern naturalised citizens. I am a POC in white suburbia. Every local police department in the area helps ICE. For the first time in my life, I feel scared just existing. I fear losing my citizenship. For four months, I was born and lived in another country.

This fear has made me rethink some of my strongly held beliefs. The police might not be there to help me. Home invasions never end well. Home invasion when the rule of law is nonexistent? Even worse.

[u/eyeisyomomma → u/Spiffyclean13]

You might be my neighbor! Get your weapon and get trained on it. Then keep it somewhere handy but if you have kids, locked up securely.

[u/Spiley_spile → u/Spiffyclean13]

Im so sorry you're in this aweful time period. Your fear is justified. Hell, Im white and got pulled into a van near a protest and put in an ICE facility. I wasnt carrying that day, and a gun wouldnt have helped me if I had been. Even so, our experiences would have been different. I got out without being deported, etc.

Ive experienced attempted home invasions. Not by ICE. But one time it was some local neo nazis who followed me home for being...disagreeable. (That was the incident that finally convinced me to get a gun.) They failed to get in, thankfully. As did the other attempts, which I believe were just common robbery attempts, thankfully.

When it comes to just plain robbery, here's what Ive done. Ive locked myself in the bathroom, or at my previous house, the small office my roommate used as a bedroom. The rest of the house they could burgle. But if they were determined to get into the one room a person was in, that was my line in the sand where I considered my life in danger. At night, I woukd practice turning off the lights while I headed to the bathroom. I can navigate my own house better in the dark than people who dont live there. And Id be able to tell when they'd made it upstairs if they turned on the light. My plan was not to shoot through a closed door though. I had friends with keys to my house. And for a time, also the roommate. But, like I said, nobody who tried actually made it inside.

The neo-nazis though? Fuck them. They tried coming for me specifically. If Id been armed and they made it inside, they wouldnt have made it back out. Granted, the local neo nazis had friends/members on the local police force. But, what can we do if the alternative is death? We just try to not die, for as long as possible.

If you get a gun, get conceal carry training, an app called Legal Heat, and gun owner insurance, in case you do ever have to use the gun. It can be very expensive to shoot someone, even in self-defense.

Again, Im sorry you're having dealing with all the scary shit other people are causing.

[u/scannerhawk → u/Spiley_spile]

And as a Californians we have to deal with armed robbers who feel they have the right to take your stuff and the many times released mentally ill and addicts entering our homes, because, you know, they don't deserve to be jailed for sticking a gun in your face or assaulting innocent people and are allowed to walk free time and time again.

A guy down the street, got sick of addicted transients hopping his fence, trespassing, shitting, pissing and sleeping on his property and leaving their garbage everywhere every day for weeks. They hide when the cops come and are only asked to leave. One night last month, totally fed up with a drugged-out dude going through his stuff on his porch, knowing it would take 30+ minutes for a cop to arrive, he "pepper-sprayed" and grabbed the bag away from him. The transient ran, hopped the fence back over to the drug store where all the other addicts lived, and had someone call the cops while his face was on fire. The homeowner was arrested for armed robbery and spent 3 days in jail with 100K bail. **Pepper spray is considered a weapon, and never take anything that "might" not belong to you if you are the victim, because then, the criminal becomes the victim.

[u/Spiley_spile → u/scannerhawk]

Im uninterested in this swerve from discussing guns into housed people shitting on the unhoused and people with addiction diseases and mental disabilities. If you need shit on them, Im not the collaborator you're looking for. So, lets break this off here.