Are you considering purchasing a gun?

well really to be more accurate I've been considering purchasing a gun since the death of Eric Garner but I did't start talking about it until June

I think the country is absolutely becoming a more dangerous place but I don't think owning a gun ultimately makes your life safer, so no, until the government actually collapses I'm never touching a gun

and djp - especially w/r/t state condoned violence, possessing a gun *definitely* doesn't make your life safer

thank you for the patronizing advice

The gun I currently own is actually my wife's, a pistol which she purchased years ago when living by herself. She had stored it with her parents until we had a reason to be concerned that they could not safely keep it, at which point we retrieved it and brought it into our home. We benefit, at this point, from not owning any ammunition for said gun.

I have wanted more guns for years, the desire for which falls into the following two categories:

1.) I have often dreamt of taking up hunting, which would require a gun, but have not been able to take this dream seriously enough to go through with buying one.

2.) During the past several years, I've been disturbed as I watched conservatives who were wildly out-of-touch with reality stockpiling guns at every opportunity. It has occurred to me that they are now the ones who are incredibly well-armed. There is a seriously lack of balance in this regard in America. My head keeps playing out worst case scenarios to our national nightmare. God knows what is going to happen? My wife is more gung ho than I about having a gun for protection, and brought up her desire to have another gun on November 9. I still do not at this moment think I will buy another gun for this purpose, but the consideration is becoming more serious.

My mother has a safe full of my dad's guns that I can have my choice of if I want, but I don't want. Ideally there'd be some gun buyback program where I could decommission them at a profit. A small part of me wants my mother to sell them and split the proceeds with her kids, but the guns are safer right where they are, out of anybody's hands.

I also imagine that btw licensing, training, the gun and some sort of gun safe I'd be looking at a couple thousand dollar investment.

In addition to the general truth that guns actually decrease a family's safety, this has been the major impediment for me. I have home repairs that need to be done that I can't afford.

everybody's situation is different but for me personally and in the neighborhood where i live i think i would be much better served and protected by getting to know my neighbors and having them get to know me and my family

my fiancee would leave me if i bought a gun, so no

also the sheer thought of holding a gun is terrifying to me

recently began considering it, will most likely not

Wait, why would I need a gun?

to shoot nazis

i've only considered getting a gun to prepare for a collapse-of-government, mad max post-apocalyptic world. but i figure even if i had a gun in that situation i'd get killed within the first week by all the gun nuts who own .50 cal sniper rifles and machine guns and have been preparing bunkers filled with 10 year old sardine cans

i would never, ever buy a gun.

I'm down to two guns because 'gun culture' is such a cesspool it's not even fun to target shoot unless I'm the absolute only soul at a range, no plans to own more and I have no interest in them as offensive or defensive weapons. Viscerally I can understand the desire despite statistics, etc., but I'm a single adult male in a fairly low-crime area. If there's a threat to me it's in property theft of some kind (burglary or robbery) and that guy can have my iPhone or TV or whatever.

Whenever my dad dies it's going to be a nightmare selling all of his but I think they should be able to pay off the mortgage so my mom will be secure at least in terms of living arrangements.

i figure even if i had a gun in that situation i'd get killed within the first week by all the gun nuts who own .50 cal sniper rifles and machine guns and have been preparing bunkers filled with 10 year old sardine cans

otm

if life turns into a shitty action movie i will play the role of Extra #4 who gets shot through a restaurant windows and dies off camera during the first 10 minutes

trump is mandating gun ownership for every citizen I saw a very official looking faceBook post

One caveat to no more guns - I have no plans to go vegan any time soon so if the opportunity presented itself to hunt game and get out of the industrial meat system I would invest in a hunting rifle.

I would, literally, rather be deported to the gas chambers than ever own a gun.

A gun is like the home equivalent of trying to take a bath in a Yellowstone geyeser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfgfKpnTCrM

I would, literally, rather be deported to the gas chambers than ever own a gun.

I, on the other hand, would not.

yeah I'm not going willingly

voted never but yeah i could imagine some universe in which i owned a hunting rifle

Has anyone ITT considered emigrating as much as if not more than buying a gun?

yes

how i would make a living elsewhere is the Q

I get the increased desire for personal safety, but this is comparable to deciding not to take planes anymore and just drive everywhere john madden style in the name of safety. and I guess john madden is getting some emotional comfort from riding around the country in a bus, it's not like that comfort is worth nothing to him, it's clearly worth a lot. but it is still ultimately not a rational decision and you're putting your own life and your family's life in marginally increased danger to get that comfort.

guns are good and fun just don't shoot your neighbors or whatever

I am 95% sure that I'm eligible to receive German nationality because my paternal grandfather was deprived of his in 1941 by the Third Reich. Once I get that figured out and have a German passport that's basically my Plan.

In ascending order of likelihood, I have considered buying a gun, leaving the country, moving somewhere very remote and isolated, and staying put and trying to figure out how to interface positively with my immediate community while the country at large voids its bowels in a protracted death spasm.

i'm too poor to buy a gun, let alone leave the country

Honestly I feel like if the USA, aka the most powerful nation on earth by far, becomes so bad that I need to emigrate, it's hard to imagine where I'd feel confident in my safety.

and i'd be more likely to kill myself than "protect" myself or whatever
i'm white and male btw

I have to say I've also thought a lot about leaving New York City and moving somewhere much less densely populated (but still liberal).

I'd leave the country if it was an option, but that's generally been true regardless of President. I have no particular allegiance to the US as an institution.

Another thing that gives me pause about the gun thing is that it seems like it takes a lot of practice to really be able to use it effectively, like it's a big commitment. I suppose there's the deterrent effect and maybe that's more important. OTOH I also have a feeling I'd be a decent shot based on my sharp eyesight, icewater blood and skill at laser tag and virtuacop, lol.

Decided a while back I would rather be killed for my beliefs than kill for them. No.

I will never leave California

When I consider a gun as a functional tool, I do not foresee having any use for its functionality. It would be like me buying an arc welder, even though I have no need for it and no training in using it.

Don't live in the USA, therefore no need of a gun.

... not sure how you would go about it here anyway.

I am not buying a gun but I thought about it.

more specifically i don't think the calculus of "owning a gun is a risk to your family" v. "owning a gun to protect your family" has come down on the side of owning a gun yet. and i'm not worried that they're going to close down the gun stores any time soon so i can afford to wait and see.

Do you guys who are considering getting guns already have other weapons? Or a scary dog?

childless friends were pushing me to get a gun in light of trump america they were like "you need to get guns and then teach your children how to use them and respect them" i'm just like "my kids are 5 and 3 i am not getting guns and teaching them how to use them until society breaks down and we're wandering the wasteland trying to avoid cannibal scavengers"

havent considered getting a gun but wouldnt mind living and working abroad it broadens the mind doesnt it

childless friends' parenting advice = the most worthless advice ever

xp at that it'll be too late though won't it?

Honestly I feel like if the USA, aka the most powerful nation on earth by far, becomes so bad that I need to emigrate, it's hard to imagine where I'd feel confident in my safety.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, 22 November 2016 18:20 (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i mean congrats on that power thing but yknow it is not really the only line on the spectrum of life is shit/good nahmsayin

don't live in the u.s. therefore no need for a gun. when i lived in a ground floor apartment by home defence was a claw-hammer next to the bed.

also literally most first world countries are safer than the u.s. lol

Again, I don't think just killing turkeys is the point. There's a reason the phrase "turkey shoot" exists!

was in a room w/ a glock recently and it just freaked me out on a cellular level. it felt like standing on the ledge of a very tall building. simply not for me

Home invasion is everyone's nightmare scenario, but it's sooooo rare.

is the home invasion boogieman one of those fearmongery fads from the late 80s/early 90s? i have been thinking about the concept of home alarm systems recently because i spent more time than normal at my parents' house over the holidays, and my dad is fanatical about the alarm being set at night, and i just accept it as the natural order of life, but i bet nobody in their neighborhood has ever been the victim of a home burglary. afaik, the only time the alarm ever came into play was one time many years ago when it started going off with nobody home and the fire department was dispatched and their front door w/ axes only to find a completely empty house. my parents had to pay out of pocket to get a new door

i'd be curious to read stats on alarm system ownership broken down by age group, tho it also wouldn't surprise me if everyone who buys a new home now just gets the alarm system w/ it as if it was the same as having gutters

My parents didn't even lock the doors growing up, I didn't have a house key until I was old enough to stay alone while they were gone for a weekend or whatever. That transitioned with age until my dad had a revolver in the console of his truck for the last couple of years he was alive. (Though as someone who was super into old west mythology I think that may have played a bigger role than any actual fear.)

I met someone last week through work who has a camera/alarm that she set up to send an alert to her phone whenever someone WALKS OR DRIVES past her front door. In Brooklyn. I stg I was in the room with her phone for a few hours and it goes off literally ever 90 seconds and she would rather have that than a lick of sense.

J0rdan, my house had an alarm system that I of course didn't install or subscribe to, but it has little motion detectors and keypads and - of course - a sign in the yard.

Enough houses in my hood have those signs in the yard that I suspect most of them just have the sign and count on the neighborhood just looking like a place not worth burgling. Like herd immunity.

Another thing that occurs to me is that many people just don't have as much stuff worth stealing anymore. Mug me? Sure, my wallet is $2 and a bunch of easily canceled plastic rectangles. Break into my car? Good luck fencing 57 Cheerios and an Edie Brickell CD.

House? Wtf are you going to do with some shabby IKEA furniture and 5,000 books? I promise you the thieves have bigger TVs than mine. Our dishes are from Crate & Barrell but it's an incomplete set and anyway the pattern is discontinued.

I met someone last week through work who has a camera/alarm that she set up to send an alert to her phone whenever someone WALKS OR DRIVES past her front door. In Brooklyn. I stg I was in the room with her phone for a few hours and it goes off literally ever 90 seconds and she would rather have that than a lick of sense.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Monday, January 27, 2025 6:25 PM (twenty-four seconds ago)

yeah i forgot about ring cam culture, altho to me that feels less motivated by fear of burglary than it does our distinctly modern culture of heavily scrutinizing the actions of delivery workers

one only needs to google the words 'toddler accidentally shoots' to find out just how dangerous it is to have firearms in the house (or car)

who has a camera/alarm that she set up to send an alert to her phone whenever someone WALKS OR DRIVES past her front door

this is why I don't look at NextDoor anymore lol

I went to a local police meeting a few years back, and they reaffirmed that most burglars want the path of least resistance. Door locked? Try the next door. It's locked? Just keep moving down the block or alley until you find an unlocked one.

is the home invasion boogieman one of those fearmongery fads from the late 80s/early 90s? i have been thinking about the concept of home alarm systems recently because i spent more time than normal at my parents' house over the holidays, and my dad is fanatical about the alarm being set at night, and i just accept it as the natural order of life, but i bet nobody in their neighborhood has ever been the victim of a home burglary. afaik, the only time the alarm ever came into play was one time many years ago when it started going off with nobody home and the fire department was dispatched and their front door w/ axes only to find a completely empty house. my parents had to pay out of pocket to get a new door

i'd be curious to read stats on alarm system ownership broken down by age group, tho it also wouldn't surprise me if everyone who buys a new home now just gets the alarm system w/ it as if it was the same as having gutters

We had an ADT system for a couple of years in our previous apartment (the one we lived in for 29 years without any kind of crime incident). Our shitty downstairs neighbors got robbed; it was never solved, but the general verdict among everyone else in the building was that it was probably one of their lowlife friends who grabbed their stuff (money and jewelry, no appliances or electronics taken) during a drunken evening, or something like that. Eventually we let the subscription lapse. No one ever came to uninstall the equipment so it just sat idle - keypad on the kitchen wall, control box in a closet, sensors at the front and back doors, sticker in the front window. Still there when we moved out.

The whole scenario that this woman who lives in South Brooklyn or on Staten Island (and also is boomer-aged and also an immigrant to the US, possibly Russian if I had to guess) in a statistically safe neighborhood is getting anything out of receiving 300 alerts a day, every part of it is illogical and detestable. Her ginned-up fearfulness with no actual exposure to risk and then the generational digital illiteracy that leads her to not see the uselessness of alerts that she's not paying any attention to... lol I hate it. Anyway that's the same kind of person whose male partner swears that they need a gun to shoot home intruders.

was in a room w/ a glock recently and it just freaked me out on a cellular level. it felt like standing on the ledge of a very tall building. simply not for me

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Monday, January 27, 2025 3:07 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

other than a couple of times back when I lived in vermont, which was 10 years ago, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gun on a non-cop. I think I’d react the same way

After a childhood fascination with guns via ttrpgs, I got drunk and high with some 3Ls a couple of Fridays into law school and they took me shooting: a 12 gauge, maybe a .22 rifle, a 9mm, and a .357 or .44 magnum revolver. They had an AR-15 but I don't think we brought that. I felt so incapable of controlling the guns and their recoil it terrified me and I've never so much as held a gun in the nearly 30 years since.

I grew up in the woods south of the Twin Cities and our house was specifically targeted for a robbery, I believe by a former friend of mine, who specifically stole all of my CDs, tapes, and the component stereo system we were using which had belonged to my dead brother. My father got an alarm system shortly after that.

I understand the statistical likelihood argument but it lands very differently when the statistics haven’t broken in your favor. For most of us, the emotional response is going to overrule the logical response.

I understand the statistical likelihood argument but it lands very differently when the statistics haven’t broken in your favor. For most of us, the emotional response is going to overrule the logical response.

Given the events of the last few days, I'm less worried about people breaking in than worried about making it 60 miles to the border. I might be better off keeping a gun in my car than in my apartment.

For most of us, the emotional response is going to overrule the logical response.

logical me does not buy a gun specifically to prevent emotional me from using it.

Yeah, this is ultimately why I am not thinking about getting a gun this go-round

I've been considering weaving a balearic sling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHyK6r1Jbng

If it looks like shit is about to get really real for real, I'm much more likely to buy a cyanide capsule than a gun. I presume they can be easily procured from most major retail stores.

we have a Glock 19, we have not fired it or removed it from its lock box in several years. I am not very worried about having to use it in Philly. that said, i am glad that we have it, if only because i have paranoid visions of Christofascist martial law coming down. that these seem more likely to come true now than during the first Trump admin, which was when we bought the gun, doesn’t fill me with good feeling. still hope we can just melt it down at some point.

I have no idea what I, as one person, would do with a gun if the people who have all the guns decided they were going to do something untoward to me. It's like walking under a waterfall while holding a parasol above my head with the assumption that it's going to somehow keep me dry.

Went to the gun store while running other errands. They’d have to order the $300 shotgun; it’s popular. It would take a week. I did not order one.

No. But also a little yes. Like 1% of the amygdala. Or even if I don’t maybe look into whether any leftish groups want an instructor for people who aren’t cis white guys.

"Currently there isn’t a law anywhere in the country that would prohibit weaponizing a robot."
https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/should-robots-wield-guns-states-move-to-draw-the-line

We’ve already had a Robocop reboot, too soon for another.

The Jews already have space lasers, we need to keep up

Gun, with occasional Robot

leftist gun clubs

anybody changing their mind yet?

no

nope

no

https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1qgpnfa/armed_community_member_stands_guard_in_his/

fuck no, guy. your bottle-plinker will not be a match for the combined firepower of the US government -- and the moment you pull that trigger you hand them a blank check to bring their firepower to bear on your neighbors, your city, your state, and probably anyone in the USA who says they thought you were right to do that. follow the lead of your neighbors and do it without trading bullets.

btw, the rule is: never pull out a gun in any situation unless you intend to use it. guns are not for not 'intimidation'. they are for firing bullets where they are aimed.

I guy I grew up with got in an argument with his girlfriend the other day, walked outside and blew his brains out. I keep thinking, maybe he would have cooled down if he didn’t have a fucking gun just sitting there. So no, I'm good.

If anything, reading about Minneapolis— and the methods of deescalatory resistance that are taught and employed— has made me more adamant that there is no such thing as “fighting fire with fire”

This does not extend to Democrat politicians who need to “buy guns” in the figurative sense

Also I’m pretty sure guns are illegal where I live. So no real gun deaths over here