My next project: Converting the Tele

[Eric***]

Sure, Eric, you have no idea how many burglaries, home invasions, rapes, muggings, etc. are foiled by gun owners.

Right.......

Guns are fun for target practice, but otherwise are only good for mayhem of one kind or another.

Well, I think that's still up for debate. I've been reading this book recently, and am almost done with it. It paints a pretty grim picture of genetically-programmed violence in men and though one-sided, offers up some points for personal gun ownership that merit consideration. It's just interesting stuff to think about if nothing else.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

What's the title of the book? Sounds interesting.

[Eric***]

What's the title of the book? Sounds interesting.

The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence. If you'd like, I can mail you the book once I'm finished with it. I seriously have maybe 20 pages left.

[Tig***]

I'm certainly no gun enthusiast. I also certainly will never willingly let any part of my family become a victim of a home invasion, for instance. Call it, "better to be prepared for the worst than to later regret about what I could have done" kind of thinking. I'm not some whacky survivalist, but know if things get nasty, it happens quick.

While I don't live in fear, but I try not to live in a "that will never happen to us" bubble. For the record, I'm politically independent, but lean left on most social issues and despise the NRA.

[Tig***]

Sure, Eric, you have no idea how many burglaries, home invasions, rapes, muggings, etc. are foiled by gun owners.

Right.......

Guns are fun for target practice, but otherwise are only good for mayhem of one kind or another.

[Eric***]

That's mature.

[Eric***]

So Sean, are you still planning to paint the headstock black??

[Tig***]

That's mature.

Sorry, but I find "trolling" posts to be best handled by humor. If the humor is lost, oh well. I'm just the SOB to call it out, so I'll take my lumps and stick to my personal integrity.

Seriously, beekeeper's son is the most abrasive poster to come along in quite a while. There is nothing else to say other than browse the past posts.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed!

[Eric***]

Sorry, but I find "trolling" posts to be best handled by humor. If the humor is lost, oh well. I'm just the SOB to call it out, so I'll take my lumps and stick to my personal integrity.

Seriously, beekeeper's son is the most abrasive poster to come along in quite a while. There is nothing else to say other than browse the past posts.

I guess my point would be that it might be gratifying, but you lose a lot of integrity by responding in that way. YMMV, so I'm not sure why I'm typing. I'll quit. Sorry to be a bother.

[NWBasser]

Guns are a very emotional subject for a lot people. I try to keep an even keel view on all that.

I'll have to look it up, but there was a DOJ study which detailed a lot of evidence of gun ownership foiling various crimes. In most cases, the guns were not fired but their presence deterred a potential crime.

Conversely, the oft-told argument that guns are usually turned and used against the gun owner has been completely dispelled.

I don't mean to say that guns are great solution to crime, but it's better to take an objective view.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

There Are Two Kinds of People In The World: Those Who Think There Are Two Kinds of People In The World and Those Who Don’t

[Eric***]

There Are Two Kinds of People In The World: Those Who Think There Are Two Kinds of People In The World and Those Who Don’t

The version I heard of that was that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who put people into categories and those who don't. That retort has served me well through the years.

To NWB's point, that book I'm reading tends to agree with what you said: that the presence of a viable retaliation is typically enough to limit violent crime. Oddly enough, it even works in rapes -- women who fight back are significantly less likely to be raped. It's kind of counter-intuitive, at least relative to the current thoughts floating around.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

I don't propose to know anything, I simply have opinions like anybody else. And with complicated subjects, it's often impossible to be sure of anything, so opinions are all we really have. But I'll still err on the side of non-violence. If I thought that I needed a gun to be safe, I'd move to a safer place.

[NWBasser]

One other point; I don't mean to overlook the tremendous amount of gun violence ranging from armed robbery to murder. That significant problem is all too well established.

From a practical standpoint, I can't see how any serious form of gun control could possibly work. There are sooo many firearm-owning citizens and existing guns in the US that enforcement would be about as effective as Prohibition was.

That horse has left the barn.

[Eric***]

So...about that tele...

[FrankenFretter***]

That is exactly what I'm looking for for home defense. The Remington 870 12GA is a bit cumbersom, but I like shotguns that don't penetrate walls. I sold my S&W 9mm years ago and need a decent yet affordable .40 SW.


Ah, and I can't wait to see the Tele after you complete it.

If you want a .40 that doesn't penetrate walls, look into frangible ammo. I don't even own my own gun anymore, but I have some friends that own enough to arm a third-world nation, so I always have choices of what to shoot. I would like to own a handgun again, but mostly just for going out shooting with friends.

I'm slightly amazed at the number of gun enthusiasts on here. I've never really seriously considered owning a gun, particularly for home defense, even though I used to have a shotgun for pheasant hunting back when I lived in the midwest. It's just sort of strange to learn that so many people do something that never really occurred to you before, you know?

Yeah, I know what you mean. In my case, I grew up around guns (my brother and I took a firearms safety course when we were pretty young, so we weren't dangerous or anything). I have never been hunting, and probably never will. I just enjoy shooting the crap out of inanimate objects once in a while.

[deeaa*]

I'm slightly amazed at the number of gun enthusiasts on here. I've never really seriously considered owning a gun, particularly for home defense, even though I used to have a shotgun for pheasant hunting back when I lived in the midwest. It's just sort of strange to learn that so many people do something that never really occurred to you before, you know?

Well, Finland has the largest number of guns per capita along with the U.S...but it's not very apparent, most often you'd never guess somebody had a gun.

But, that home defence thing...that's something that is NOT allowed here by any standards...I mean, if you pulled a gun on a home invader, the chances are you'd end up in way more trouble than the attacker. Exaggeration of force in defence is something that is really looked hard on. If somebody punches you, you take him to courts; if you punch him back you're already guilty of more than the attacker basically, not just being in a fight but aggravating an existing one...and if you use MORE force than the attacker, i.e.pull a knife, no matter if it's home defence or what, it's still automatically an assault charge / intent to kill or something.

I keep my house doors open usually all day and night, but my guns locked in basement...if there was a burglary or such, I'd first try to talk them out, then at worst get a baseball bat or something...there are cases where just scaring a would-be burglar with an UNLOADED gun, just showing it to them, has brought charges against the homeowner. And you'd lose your gun licence in a jiffy too.

So yeah, guns are DEFINITELY not for home defence here. The only possible grounds to get a licence for gun is sports, and it usually takes a year or more to get one, and entails a great amount of applications, mandatory courses in gun handling, a shooting diary for a year with a borrowed/club gun, and even a doctor/psychiatric assesment usually at least for handguns.

[deeaa*]

"better to be prepared for the worst than to later regret about what I could have done" kind of thinking. I'm not some whacky survivalist, but know if things get nasty, it happens quick.

It's likely very different here...I do not know of a single case ever where a home would have been intruded in a way that would merit gun defence...ever. Of course we have plenty of murders and whatnot too, but they are almost 100% done between criminals/drug users/alcoholists by far, even if we do have had school shootings even etc.

I don't think a normal family who have no ties to the criminal community has ever fallen a victim of something like that. I'd say almost always when a family needs protection, it's a family member who's the culprit- a father laid off work starts shooting in the air and causes a police situation, a battered wife knives a drunken abusive husband, some unemployed guys fight while drunk and someone gets killed...those are very Finnish crimes.

But basically, I don't need to lock my doors at night.