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Let your next career move come to you.

If you lived in America would you get a gun?

Would it make a difference if you lived somewhere extra nuts like Texas?

No I've got young kids and would prefer not to increase the probability that they accidentally shoot themselves or someone else way beyond the probability that I'd ever need or be able to use it in home defence. 

Lock it away and you can't use it when you need it, leave it handy and someone gets their brains turned into a fine pink mist by mistake, eventually. 

no ofc not don’t be str8 ridic

the main likelihood if an ordinary fool buys a gun is that a home invader disarms him and ices him with his own weapon

If you have a gun in the house statistics show over and over again that by a simply enormous margin the person it is most likely to be discharged into is a member of that household, whether murder, suicide (or attempted variants of either) or accident.

My son has a couple, lives in rural Washington WA. A hunting rifle and a Glock handgun. He's 33, very sensible and keeps them wery locked. He's also an outdoor trecking and mountain type (Cascacades) so that's why he has them.

 

no 

one of my best pals from growing up in Dallas had a gun ‘for self defence’ (despite living in one of the richest and safest suburb in the city - Highland Park) 

he shot himself with it after a night out

Yes I’d buy a Maxim gun and stick it in the turret at the top of the house. And a Bren gun for the back of my pick up. Big Union Jack on the flagpole. 

can’t be too careful around the traitors 

I’d have a few - it isn’t as exciting as you think, just keep them unloaded in a safe and be normal, just like over here. The big leap is getting a concealed carry permit. 

Yes, if I lived somewhere that had good shooting.  Unlike the UK where shooting is literally the preserve of the landowning classes, there's a lot of public land in the US where you don't have to pay a landowner for shooting/fishing permission.  Mallard and some other duck are great table fare, and wild is the best kind of organic.  

Shooting wildfowl is illegal in the US isn't it? Maybe in bumfûck Arkansas there is a sidelaw permitting it, but I think hunting is pretty much a commercial activity countrywide so you're either paying the state for a permit or a landowner. 

I passed up a really good career opportunity because I couldn't with all conscience expose my kids to active shooter training or consider whether me or my wife would get a gun.  I didn't live in America literally because I couldn't imagine me and my family buying a gun for self-defence.  

Britain might be utter dogshit on many levels, but at least we don't have to make this judgment call, and at least mentally ill people can't buy guns and hollow point ammunition in Asda.

yeah a rare what pinko said …

ever sat in a bar with 2 pissed up rednecks each with a gun on their hip talking about ‘disciplining’ their spouse? Brits who think they know what the US is like from watching TV have no fvcking clue …

I would have as many as I could afford of as many different calibres and 'types' just to collect them. I wouldn't do anything with them but target shoot on my massive Montana ranch.

As with fountain pens, I am perversely attracted to amassing a collection of expensive but not-useful sweet things.

I would get all of the guns. I'd have as many as I could get my hands on, and loads of brass, and it would be awesome. My life would be lived in a smoggy maelstrom of caffeine, booze, Marlboros and cordite. The dream.

This ‘wild is the best kind of organic’ thought is a strange one. A roaming wild animal (say duck, deer) in particular can and has proved this a mistaken assurance. Recentl - I forget precisely who wrote it - there was a report on research into toxins found in wild venison as opposed to organically farmed roe deer. The problem is that a wild animal will eat what it pleases where it pleases and the health of the meat depends on the condition of the land. Pesticides, fertilisers, other sprays, faeces from animals treated with worm treatment, antibiotics and growth hormones will be in the land the wild animal browses. Sadly much of the ‘wild’ is poorly conserved land. By contrast a farmer raising deer in a fenced, certified organic, feed-controlled environment can be sure of what his meat contains and does not contain. Wild ducks sitting on polluted water or geese grazing treated grass and fodder crops on intensively farmed land may contain more heavy metals, pesticides, toxins and hormones than you care to think about. Wild does not equal clean, sadly.

I would have a biometric entry safe room with a gun vault and I would own plenty. Defensive and sporting. Come the collapse of civilisation I would want to feed and protect myself. 

Of course. One day i might have to become part of a well regulated militia, in order to secure the freedom of my State.

That's the only reason an ordinary citizen would need one, right?

Right???

[insert Anakin/ Padme meme]

Wild ducks sitting on polluted water or geese grazing treated grass and fodder crops on intensively farmed land may contain more heavy metals, pesticides, toxins and hormones than you care to think about. Wild does not equal clean, sadly.

including a 1 or 2 lumps of lead, natch

heh @ the exact predictability of who’d have loads of guns and who wouldn’t 

I’ll never own a gun. There will never be a fact pattern during my lifetime in which the risk equation is in favour of owning a gun. Yes yes collapse of society yes yes. Society isn’t going to collapse in your lifetime or mine.

“The big leap is getting a concealed carry permit.”

What absolute bogshite some of you people talk. “Going from not owning a gun to owning a gun is nothing, it’s when you get a piece of paper saying you can keep it in your pants, that’s when you really cross the line.” Sorry what

Serge, I’ve shot clays before, found it quite dull

“Deffo would want one if facing a grizzly or Buffalo at full charge!”

a scenario which happens to the average American exactly as often as it does the average Brit

I'd have a hand-gun for the home I expect.  Might get a hunting rifle and take up target shooting & hunting as a hobby if I retire back to NZ & get a rural property, I did enjoy shooting when I was young. 

Serge, I’ve shot clays before, found it quite dull

was it at 1 of the metropolitan shooting schools? if so, fair enough. six shots taking half an hour in a trench is crap

the good sort is when there is an autom7ed trap slinging in 150 clays at random heights and directions 2wards u, faster than u can reload. honestly, it’s like the most insane computer game, but in real life

or ur own trap in quarry with a few m7s

to quote the great Red Foreman:

"you know Kelso, not all hunting accidents ... are accidents"

The most vociferous 2A people are the ones who spend their days dreaming of the moment they get a chance to kill a human and the law siding with them.

If you're a responsible gun owner, they're locked away and therefore useless for protection.  If you're irresponsible, someone in your family is going to get hurt.

"The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun", tell that to the dead kids at Uvalde when the cops were too afraid to approach the class room.

"I have guns to prevent government tyranny".  This raises two questions.

1. What if the tyrant is your guy?

2. You do know the government has missiles, drones, tanks, F35s, satellites, submarines and nukes?

I would never buy a gun and there are no circumstances in life that would make me live in the US.

What a very interesting question! Puts European liberals on the spot, eh?

I think my answer would be 'It depends'. Depends on where I would be living, what the conditions were.

I watched a video on reddit last night: a black guy is hovering in a capacious stairwell;  according to the poster and the comments he was complaining about the noise coming from an apartment; eventually another black guy and his nearly adult son come out of the apartment, and this guy is carrying a pair of scissors, holding them in a menacing way. He gets in the face of the first guy, but then his wife pulls him away and he starts to walk back to the apartment.

The first guy takes a couple of steps back and pulls a gun. He shoots 2, 3 times at the retreating guy; the son then tries to get out of the way by stepping to the side of the shooter (it's clearly someone frightened and trying not to be killed rather than an attempt to attack the shooter) who then steps back and shoots the son 2, 3 times who then collapses and he shoots him 1, 2 times again, before going forward to where the father was lying inert and shoots him twice, appearing to be a classic 'double tap', one in the chest and one in the head.

Then he presses the button to call the lift.

I can certainly see why people watching things like that might believe that if the father had had a gun things would have ended differently, and he might well have lived through the confrontation.

People talking about keeping guns locked up should watch The Lock Picking Lawyer's videos where he shows that most gun safes are useless verging on dangerous.

struggling to find the relevance in their skin colour.

So, should the guy with scissors have come out and shot the other guy first?  What if it turns into the gunfight at the OK Corral and the cops arrive on the scene, how do they tell which one is the good guy? Or should they just kill them both?

“I can certainly see why people watching things like that might believe that if the father had had a gun things would have ended differently”

Because the eyes in the back of his head would have enabled the father to see his assailant drawing a gun as he walked away? And his SUPER MEGA GUN SPEED would have enabled him to spin round and ice the bad guy first?

Or just because he’d simply have dropped the first guy on sight, on the magically rightful assumption that he was armed and dangerous?

People talking about keeping guns locked up should watch The Lock Picking Lawyer's videos where he shows that most gun safes are useless verging on dangerous.

You keep them locked up to prevent your kids or one of their friends killing each other.  If someone is intent on stealing your guns, they'll get them.

“If someone is intent on stealing your guns, they'll get them.”

And if someone attacks you in your home, you’ll be incapacitated or trapped long before you can get your gun safe open.

There's nothing that says you can't have a small gun safe by the bed for easy access.

Benj the point of mine is that: (a) only a limited number of people know where the key and the safe are so I don't have to worry about visitors finding guns; and (b) it makes it much harder to any passing burglar to steal them as it's hidden and bolted to a big lump of concrete.

Back in the early 90s my dad had a m8 of a m8, a middle aged, Hawaiian shirt wearing geordie called Barry who’d made quite good in business.

Barry had a handgun, As I recall if was a massive six-shooter type thing like Yosemite Sam might wave around. 

He kept it in the glove box of his car while out driving.

We all thought he was a quite massive pillock

I'd probably only have a gun at home if I needed it for work (farmer's shotgun or similar). 

I'd be quite tempted to buy a couple of handguns but have them kept at the local gun range so I could go and shoot if I wanted to but without the risk of having guns at home. 

I've been on the receiving end of an armed robbery in the UK and I doubt "packing heat" would have improved the situation. 

TBF I do wonder what the point of being an American is if you don't have the constitutional right to walk into a supermarket, pick up (1) bread, (2) milk (3) an AR 15, (4) a microwave and (5) six pounds of tannerite, then go home and fill (4) with (5), stick it in your back yard and fire at it with (3).

You are required by law to advise the cop in a traffic stop if you have a gun in your car.  It's funny watching body worn cam footage of how the cops attitude changes when they hear that and if you are a twitchy type of person, you really want to stay still until the cop is gone.

I dont think they do pheasant shoots with a hip flask full of port clubbers.  Wouldnt be much pheasant for the lab to bring bavk after it's been hit with an ar-15

Reading about handguns apropos of my dad’s old mate mad Barry - we visited him on a trip to florida once which is where he showed us his piece - apparently, a magnum-style revolver, which is what he had, is potentially very powerful because it can be loaded with high power cartridges.

Ordinary semi-auto pistols of the kind that has a magazine slotted into the handle - typically a 9mm - are preferred by professional gun-toters like the police because they are light and easy to reload and wield (I think you still have to carry a magnum to be a sheriff anywhere west of St Louis tho).

BUT there is a meaningful deficit in power. According to some reports, a 9mm pistol won’t put a bullet through a steel car door. I didn’t know that.

I think it's the caliber.  Magnum famously fires a .44 and can (if maverick crime novels have taught us anything) shoot through an engine block.

smaller caliber can be made more man stoppy by hollow point rounds which splay on impact and punch a very large hole in you.

Pretty sure our seppo law enforcement friends would consider a normal car door "concealment" rather than "cover" ie you don't want to rely on it stopping anything.

Trying to recall which film it was with a load of duck hunters going duck hunting with AR15s and launching a full auto barrage on the unfortunate quackers.  Pretty sure it was an 1980s Eddie Murphy film?

@Woke:

First, I said I can see why people might watch something like that and think that.

The difference it would make is that the father would probably have come out of his apartment with his gun - instead of scissors. Whether that would have resulted in a standoff where eventually everyone walked away, or whether he could have shot the killer first - if you put yourself in his shoes, owning a gun might well seem a good option.

@Buzz, was that Southern Comfort?

Ry Cooder did the soundtrack.

It's about a platoon of National Guardsmen who go on a training mission into a Louisiana swamp and get into it with some locals who hunt them to extinction.

Good movie.

Whether that would have resulted in a standoff where eventually everyone walked away, or whether he could have shot the killer first - if you put yourself in his shoes, owning a gun might well seem a good option.

What if the other guy had a bazooka? He should have had his own bazooka, or indeed immediate air support, just in case

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