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  • Originally posted by Gregg View Post
    My boss told me yesterday about a gun safe that opens with your finger print. I am going to look into that.

    This is what I use.

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    • If you break into my house at night, you have implicitly violated the social contract and threatened my family, so I have no qualms what so ever in killing you.....
      "You know what's wrong with America? If I lovingly tongue a woman's nipple in a movie, it gets an "NC-17" rating, if I chop it off with a machete, it's an "R". That's what's wrong with America, man...."--Dennis Hopper

      "One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real." -- Klaus Kinski

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      • Driving in the lefty lane is a breach of the social contract...
        I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert...

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        • your aim at a range has little relationship to any number of realistic scenarios would could imagine. how is your aim when you are in the dark, and your alarm is going off and your dog is barking? after you have been punched in face? how about this, intruder is trying to run out of house carrying your nintendo or whatever you kids play now, between him and front door he is trying to run out of is your wife. you shoot the guy or let him run out with your videogame?

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          • Originally posted by gcstomp View Post
            your aim at a range has little relationship to any number of realistic scenarios would could imagine. how is your aim when you are in the dark, and your alarm is going off and your dog is barking? after you have been punched in face? how about this, intruder is trying to run out of house carrying your nintendo or whatever you kids play now, between him and front door he is trying to run out of is your wife. you shoot the guy or let him run out with your videogame?
            Thanks for the reply gcstomp.

            Regarding taking my stuff, I made this comment in post #104 - I am also of the mind that I would not shoot someone taking my stuff. Defending my family is a whole different story.

            I have been trained/role play that I am not shooting anyone for my stuff.

            I would like to expand on that. If someone is in my house, my first desire is to get them out. I want them away from my family. They break the window or door, the dog barks they run away is what is hoped for. It is the intruder that doesn't want to run when hearing my dog bark or me yelling that is the frightening part. A butcher knife, brass knuckles or baseball bat is all better than nothing. Unfortunately that gets us too close to the intruder that has already demonstrated he is not afraid of the other noises.

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            • I think you have right priorities Greg. I was responding to Fresno who basically said a snatch and grab thief should be shot dead. BTW, you shoot at the thief, talk about escalating, he now knows he has to kill you rather than running out of the house with his $80 piece of electronics that he is going to pawn off. No one is breaking in to hurt you 999 out of 1000 times, that does not help them, they are breaking in to make a few bucks. Sure in papers you can find examples of some gotham madman type who just wants to watch world burn but most likely it is desperate shlubs trying to raise funds for a fix and they want to run out of house even more than you want them to leave.

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              • Originally posted by gcstomp View Post
                your aim at a range has little relationship to any number of realistic scenarios would could imagine. how is your aim when you are in the dark, and your alarm is going off and your dog is barking? after you have been punched in face?
                I wanted to address this in a separate response. I both agree and disagree with some of these.

                First I cannot imagine a scenario where I get punched in the face in the dark in my own house. Gun or no gun the intruder should not get that close. If he kills my guard dog without waking anyone up and gets to my bedroom to punch me in the face while I am sleeping, we are probably all dead.

                Now if you are asking is it ok for me to shoot a guy for punching me in the face that answer should be no in most of the cases. It would also be the same answer if we were taking about stabbing them or hitting them in the face with a bat. These would all be scenarios outside of the house.

                Where I do disagree, is that range time has little relationship to any number of realistic scenarios. It has everything to do with that. Prior to classes, training, and shooting I had a lot of misconceptions about what I would or could do. I was very nervous the first time I handled a pistol on the range. I am not nervous now, but very very respectful of what is in my hands.

                I would also add that the experienced gun community (after 8 months I am not in that) recognizes the huge difference between paper shooting and self defense. It is a real thing.

                Dark and pitch black are two different things. My house is almost never dark on the main floor. We leave a light on dim in the foyer and a small light on over the kitchen sink. Up stairs is dark but not completely dark. I can easily make out silhouettes. Hitting them would not be a hard. Of course the challenge is to identify the silhouettes before shooting at them. Again that large barking dog and me yelling would take a large part in doing just that.

                To those that are reading these posts, do you imagine that the intruder is armed or not armed? Most of mine are unarmed, but those will not get past the dog and should run away at the barking sound before they every break in. So if they get in they are armed, but with what? Let's say knife. Now I have to have a knife fight or my bat vs their knife. What if they are faster and stronger. Again if we are fighting they did not flee when they could so they are up to more harm than smash and grab. If they have a gun and are willing to use it, my families safety odds just went way down. If I have a gun in my darkened house I now have evened or maybe pushed the odds in my favor.

                So why don't I have a gun upstairs for self protection? I am not really sure, guessing I don't really believe it can happen to us. And not wanting to tempt the grandson. I believe finger print gun safe can cure that one.

                This is a strange and interesting journey. All comments and thoughts are welcome.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Fresno Bob View Post
                  If you break into my house at night, you have implicitly violated the social contract and threatened my family, so I have no qualms what so ever in killing you.....
                  If it's one of your kids sleepwalking, and they don't answer when you yell at them, have they also implicitly violated the social contract?
                  "Jesus said to them, 'Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.'"

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                  • Originally posted by Kevin Seitzer View Post
                    If it's one of your kids sleepwalking, and they don't answer when you yell at them, have they also implicitly violated the social contract?
                    no, they have not....I'm not sure that you are really looking for me to answer/explain myself here, but I will.

                    I'm not killing anyone that rings my doorbell, but if you have broken into my house, and aren't leaving when you hear my dog barking crazily, I'm not yelling for you to leave because that gives away my position, I'm waiting for your head to clear my stairwell, then I'm delivering the most extreme damage I can.
                    "You know what's wrong with America? If I lovingly tongue a woman's nipple in a movie, it gets an "NC-17" rating, if I chop it off with a machete, it's an "R". That's what's wrong with America, man...."--Dennis Hopper

                    "One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real." -- Klaus Kinski

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Fresno Bob View Post
                      no, they have not....I'm not sure that you are really looking for me to answer/explain myself here, but I will.

                      I'm not killing anyone that rings my doorbell, but if you have broken into my house, and aren't leaving when you hear my dog barking crazily, I'm not yelling for you to leave because that gives away my position, I'm waiting for your head to clear my stairwell, then I'm delivering the most extreme damage I can.
                      All I'm asking and/or pointing out is wondering how you know for sure, in the middle of the night when you've been awoken suddenly and are full of adrenaline and perhaps not thinking clearly, that the person you find walking in your house is a stranger and not a family member or someone otherwise there innocently by mistake? Yes, I know, the dog should alert you to the difference, but maybe your kid tripped over the dog in the dark and the dog was startled? It's these kind of nagging doubts that have kept me from ever wanting to have a gun available for home defense. I'm not so certain I'd be right about a unknown person's identity and intentions in the middle of the night that I'm willing to take someone's life in that scenario.
                      "Jesus said to them, 'Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.'"

                      Comment


                      • Yea that is disturbing attitude regarding free pass to kill someone. Vast majority of people killed by home owned firearms are not the tv style banditos breaking into house but suicides, which firearms make such an easy button strategy, homeowners own children, family members shooting other family members by error. Heck, It is more likely a thief will steal a home owned gun rather than you as homeowner will fulfill the somewhat romantic notion of defending the homestead from evil forces at the gate. Most effective home defense deterrents are alarms, a dog, and take a minute and watch youtube to watch the stopping power of the high end stun guns, they drop people more effectively than a firearm, while not murdering your own family, which is a plus. But I get that different strokes.

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                        • I may have told this story before, but this recent discussion about home invasion makes me want to share it again, especially gcstomp's comment about home invader's stealing guns. I preface by saying my one experience, 35 years ago, is just one data point, and my uncle, who has spent the last 28 years in prison for murder, was not the responsible and thoughtful gun owner Gregg is.

                          When I was 7, I was spending the summer at my grandparent's place in Miami. My uncle lived with them. He owned guns, and would leave them lying around all the time. He also thought it was funny to point them at me and scare me. Anyway, one night, while I was asleep on the couch in the living room, a burglar came in unarmed. He saw one of my uncle's guns, a 9 mm, on the kitchen counter and he picked it up. He was now armed. I was a heavy sleeper, but my grandmother a very light sleeper. He poked around looking for stuff and woke her up. She started screaming which woke us all up. My grandfather was flustered, I was scared by just standing there confused and looking at him. My uncle started cursing at him in a mixture of English and broken Spanish and telling him to point the gun at him and if he hurt his mother he'd kill him. The guy grabbed my grandmother and held the gun to her. He was scared. He tried to hold her as a shield, backing out of the house, but she got away from him and ran to a neighbor to call the police, her night dress open and flapping around (which may have been the most traumatic part of it to me). My uncle keeps screaming at him and the guy is screaming back for awhile and backs out and runs off.

                          My uncle goes back to his room to get another gun. It seems to take him awhile to find it. When he does, I think the guy is long gone, but he still goes out roaming the streets looking for him. The cops show up and see him stalking about screaming with his gun and nearly kill him. They do subdue him, maybe thinking he is the perp at first (I didn't see this part, because I was inside), but my grandmother lets them know he is not, crying the whole time for them not to hurt her son. Then they come inside and take statements, but the only things of value the guy got away with were my uncle's gun, and a bag of cocaine my uncle had--neither of which he could tell the cops. The cocaine may have been the reason the guy broke in to begin with. To this day, I don't know. My uncle and I haven't talked in years, and I never bothered to ask him.

                          ETA: The guy was a short dude. Like 5'4". I don't know if that matters, really, except that he wasn't a physical threat without the gun, well, to my uncle at least, who isn't tall himself, but was a weightlifter and clearly bigger and stronger. He could have still taken my grandparents and me down if he wanted to, if my uncle wasn't home. Then again, if my uncle wasn't home, the gun wouldn't have been on the counter, and maybe he wouldn't have broken in at all, since he seemed to by after my uncle's stuff. IDK.
                          Last edited by Sour Masher; 04-19-2019, 09:43 PM.

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                          • Originally posted by Ken View Post

                            Is there an argument to be discussed that if you wait to try to fully/completely identify the perp and have a conversation with them you just gave away any advantage you have? In those moments every millisecond is priceless right? Maybe over dramatized, I don't know.
                            I do not think this is over dramatized. It is also along the lines of what Fresno was writing about.

                            You are correct in the comment that every millisecond counts however we should discuss the circumstances. Most "gun fights" happen withing 5 ft of each other. The person that gets the first two shots off is usually the winner. I was taught this at my conceal and carry class. But the circumstances behind this are street fights/muggings. He did not give similar details for home invasion.

                            He was specific in that you do not shoot someone for taking your stuff. You shoot someone in your home if you or your loved ones are threatened.

                            I think there is a huge problem if the would be intruder is not just walking away from a barking dog (as Fresno mentioned). I agree with him. If an intruder is not deterred from my barking dog I am going to error on the side of my families life rather than worry about theirs. That means I assume they are going to hurt my family and i will defend them with my own life. In my current state that would mean using a large butcher knife that is in the draw by my side of the bed. I would have to get very close to the killer in order to protect my family. I have to hope I am faster and stronger or better armed then they are. If they are faster and stronger they will kill me and my family is probably next. I am going to yell that I am armed and the police are on their way in hopes that the killer flees.

                            Obviously I am playing the odds that the above scenario will not happen to us combined with the fear of hurting a family member (as some have mentioned), adding in small doses of laziness and cheapness and you have the recipe for why I am not currently using guns to defend my family.
                            Last edited by Gregg; 04-23-2019, 09:56 AM.

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                            • A couple of weeks ago I purchased a Smith and Wesson 681 .357 Magnum. It is our first revolver. It is a 1987 or 88 in very good condition. It is stainless steel with a 4 inch barrel. It is the heaviest pistol we own. It is the same as a 686 except it has fixed sights (non-adjustable).

                              My wife and I have not had the opportunity to shoot in almost a month. We were excited to go yesterday to try out the new gun.

                              .357 revolvers can also accept .38 special ammunition (less powerful). We got a box of each to see the difference. We decided to go with the .357 ammo first. We shot at 21 feet. We each shot 6 shots. The first shot was in the bulls eye. the second was close just out of the bulls eye. All six were within a 5 or 6 inch pattern. It was loud and kicked pretty hard.

                              My wife's first shot was just missed the bulls eye by the width of the bullet hole. She fired a couple and inch or two higher than the first, then put one in the bulls eye. Her grouping was tighter than mine 4-5 inch diameter.

                              We then changed targets and tried the less powerful .38 special ammo. I do not know if it was adrenaline or not, but I didn't see as much difference as I expected. Both of us had very similar results as to our .357 target. Less loud and less kick.

                              We then went to our own semi autos. Both of us missed about a foot low on our first few shots. We had to work hard on getting back to some sort of the accuracy that we are used to. Later I asked the owner of the shop what happened. She said it was over compensation and something like when you stand in a doorway and press your arms against it, then step out and your arms go up by themselves. It was actually pretty funny.

                              I shot more rounds with the revolver and found myself more accurate with the heavier gun.

                              My wife had a blast and could not stop smiling. It was a good day.

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                              • It has been awhile since we got to go shooting. Some minor illness colds flu etc. combined with spending time on our new old pontoon boat has prevented us from getting to the range. We hope to go this weekend.

                                I did get to go Saturday with two men after our Saturday morning Bible study. One of the guys was ex military and had never shot a hand gun before. I found this curious but didn't say anything. He had experience in rifle and shotgun so he knew a lot of the safety stuff. The other gentlemen was a very experienced handgun shooter with a conceal and carry permit.

                                I shared my 357 Mag and 9mm with the new guy. He did surprisingly well. Being the natural competitor that I am I am glad to report I out shot him. I seem to have found my level of accuracy that will not improve unless I am willing to practice more or maybe get a tutor to refine my skills. At 21 feet I am within the diameter of my closed fist. I would like to be half of that.

                                The seasoned shooter was on the lane next to us practicing his draw. This is wise as he keeps in practice drawing and firing the concealed weapon. He would be in little danger of shooting an innocent bystander if he ever needs to use his skills. He is not cocky about his ability. I asked him if he thought the stress of a dangerous situation would affect his accuracy. He said "honestly I don't know but you would think it would have to somewhat." I asked him if he thought bystanders would be at risk he replied no. I think he was talking about slight differences in accuracy. He draws points and shoots within a five inch radius. Since I am not carrying I would feel safe with him in the event of a terrible circumstance.

                                I am not allowed to practice drawing at the range. You have to take a class and get a certificate that allows you to practice it. If I go to the next step I would definitely take the class. Maybe in late fall.

                                CC guy and I went into the lounge for lunch. It was great. I had a Cheeseburger topped with pulled pork (no BBQ sauce) fried onions with a fried egg on a pretzel roll. It was fantastic. Good enough to make that a lunch destination.

                                That was my first time shooting without my wife. It was fun, but not as fun as shooting with my honey.

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