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Comment by Bhilai | Hacker News Reader

A friend of our family recently bought a gun and that made me ask them why. Their response was of course personal safety at which point I asked them some more questions and turns out they keep the gun in a gun safe and bullets in another location so as to not cause any accidents as they have kids. But this practice seemed utterly useless if their home was being actively being robbed/attacked since they wont have the time to go fetch bullets/gun and most likely they ll end getting their weapon robbed as well.

They also don't carry it everywhere they go so its mostly a trophy in a safe.

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I imagine the friend may believe that being confident in one's ability to use guns safely and effectively is also a hedge against danger, independent of the utility of that specific gun. That specific gun may make training and becoming confident with guns possible. Playing it conservatively with storage and handling as a someone new to firearms seems like the reasonable path.

They also have kids so it sounds like that plays into why they would be extra cautious. Maybe they are willing to risk that extra time needed to have the gun out for protection if it means they don't have to worry about their kids getting ahold of their gun.

> Playing it conservatively with storage and handling as a someone new to firearms seems like the reasonable path.

More than reasonable. Highly recommended. Just like driving a car, it takes some practice to routinely handle guns in a safe way. Even if you eventually become an expert who is comfortable with having a loaded gun available at all times, it’s a great idea to respect your own level of knowledge, and to take time to develop practices that make sure nobody else can gain access to your gun.

I do the same thing, although ammunition only moved to a separate safe when we had kids.

For one thing, burglars are typically not going to hit your house like a Navy SEAL team--they are slow, and there is plenty of time to respond.

Second, the ~90 seconds it takes me to get into both safes and load the firearm is enough time to take a few deep breaths and understand what's happening before drawing a weapon.

Third, it's there in the event of natural disasters, etc where police may not be able to respond. Same reason I keep emergency water and food. I've lived through enough hurricanes to know things can escalate quickly, especially when you're running a loud generator.

You're probably overestimating how fast a home invasion can proceed. Unless the intruders are completely silent and/or have perfect information about the home layout and people's locations in it, it will take them quite a few minutes to round up everyone.

Yup, and common advice by well known firearms experts is not to confront intruders, but to retreat to a known location, ideally upstairs and call the police.

Only if the intruders seem like they are going to come up the stairs do you announce that you have a gun and that the police are on their way.

The purpose of the gun is not to kill the intruders. It is to deter them from approaching you and your family, and make it preferable for them to leave.

This advice is from lawyers who are looking to make your actions as legally defensible as possible. That isn't the same thing as maximizing your odds of surviving the crime.

There's a reason every professional military trains soldiers to that their knee jerk reaction to a threat should be to attack it as violently as possible (with some nuances). Taking back initiative counts for a ton in an ambush situation.

I'm trained as a soldier but we still learned to de-escalate if possible.

If you have reason to believe that the home invaders are their with the purpose of killing you, you may be right.

The odds of that, vs just an armed burglary, are very small.

This is correct and any good conceal-carry instructor will make this clear. If your home state does not recognize some form of the "castle doctrine", you can only use deadly force if you believe you're in actual danger. If someone breaks in and you gun them down without being presented with a threat, you're most likely going to jail. Even if you live in one of these states, you'd better hope you get a sympathetic jury and rightfully so.

This is correct, guns are a last resort. They come out when your life is directly in danger, and you shoot to kill, not wound. Most scenarios, like the one I was in, are resolved without a shot being fired.

Edit: I don't believe this warrants downvoting. I'm sharing useful information that would be covered in any Concealed Carry class.

Is it a handgun?

My understanding is that the best firearm for home defense is a shotgun because it has high stopping power, doesn’t require as much accuracy, and is less likely to penetrate walls.

Therefore I don’t particularly take people seriously if their home defense choice is a handgun

shotguns do have more stopping power than your average handgun, but your other points are not really true. even with no choke, the spread from a shotgun at home defense ranges is negligible. you still have to point it directly at the target, though this is a bit easier with a longer firearm. ammo you would choose for defense against humans (ie, buckshot) will easily penetrate one or more walls in a typical dwelling.

the short barrel and relatively low power of a handgun does make it an inherently compromised platform. but the short barrel does have one big advantage: it is much harder for an adversary to take control of the weapon at close range. soldiers sometimes transition to their pistol when clearing structures for this reason, although this is less common now with short-barreled rifles.

but at the end of the day, the "best firearm for home defense" is the one you know how to operate and feel most comfortable using. if they train frequently, you should absolutely take them seriously.

The odds of my house burning down are about one-in-a-billion but I still have fire insurance.

I'm far more worried about not being able to get a gun once supply chains break down and there are hungry people roaming the streets.

It depends - there are gun safes that open instantly by scanning your finger prints. I think I read somewhere that ideally, in the case of a robbery, you should be able to reach a loaded gun in 30seconds. That seems a tad excessive to me, but overall I agree. It is hard to balance safety and practicality.

I leave my guns around the house when I'm home, but I don't have kids. When I do, the guns will be locked away safely, either inside my waistband or in a safe, and the dog will be the first line of defense until the safe is opened.

This is standard practice until kids are old enough to learn gun safety and be trusted around guns, so 6-10 years old, depending on the kid.

Please note that I'm predicating this on the kids receiving actual training, not saying "don't touch". Children should be able to fully field-strip every gun in the house as soon as they can handle it, and the 4 rules are paramount.

Another possibility is that they just keep them that way now but want to have the guns, ammunition, and training ready if the situation in the country should take a sudden downturn. I know a few very liberal people who have bought guns recently primarily because they don't want the crazies to be the only ones who are armed. They would undoubtedly change their storage methods e.g. if Trumpists decide to violently contest or reject the results of an election.

ETA: How are guns not a sort of trophy for the majority of gun (especially handgun) owners? That's certainly how my gun-afficionado friends on FB seem to treat the ones they post about. Almost certainly never fired at all, let alone in anger.

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