I'm not sure if I get the whole 'I own a gun for protection' thing, could someone explain the mechanics?
Certainly. But I'm gonna start low on the totem pole.
If, for instance, you come across a wild but wounded boar, which amounts to 'in rage' what are you going to do? Run? Nope, it's faster than you. Kill in with your bare hands? Good luck. Stab it with a knife? Not much better. You right then and there
need a gun, because it is the only tool that will work.
For the record, I've lived in places where this problem exists and has occurred as often as twice a week. One such location with in Columbia MD, a very ritzy and expensive and overcrowded suburb about fifteen minutes north of DC, except it was a buck that had been hit by a car and the driver hadn't killed the poor thing. Once I found out the person simply left it there and called animal control hoping someone would come by to save it.
(For the record, if you hit a dear and it's lying on the side of the road still breathing but bleeding, don't call animal control, get a knife or firearm, and kill it. It's more humane and less dangerous for everyone. And, yes, animal control will do
the exact same thing.)
Working up: Humans. Pistols and firearms works to prevent crime, believe it or not. Why? People don't want to get shot! Now, since I'm trying to argue this without resorting to conversational terrorism, I'm not going to site facts or statistics. ALL of them are biased on both sides of the arguement. But I will say that I feel more comfortable where I am now, knowing all my neighbors are armed and trained with firearms, that at any point during my stay in baltimore.
Then what happens if someone should break in? Well then, I have to use the words of Paul Tibbets when someone asked him why he had a shotgun to defend himself instead of a bat: "I'm too old to swing a bat around, but I can still use a shotgun." It's the same point: It's an equalizer. A crook at the very least is probably going to be in much better shape than you. They tend to move a lot of good very quickly for a living. Second, they probably have a gun themselves, as equalizers in case rule one doesn't hold true. (No, they don't carry guns because people carry guns, but because they don't know for sure that Schwarzenegger didn't drop by for the night in the two minutes they weren't looking.).
As one last point, I would point out that even if you don't fire at the crook, a gun still works in your favor. Firing a gun is one way to quickly clear a house. People normally can't tell where it's fired from, and most people won't wait around to see if they are actually being fired at or not. They'll get out alive and try for a different house later on.
Note, I did not use any examples of crazed murderers, random stories, or statistics. I tried to keep in all relevant material to explain my point of view, nothing more. (The animal incidents are things my neighbors left to me for almost a year and a half, so I can stand beside them.)
