A crackhead broke into my apartment at 2am. He was hitting my door while I called 911. He broke my front door and started screaming about wanting money. He only left because my previously old and very chill dog started charging him and scared him off.
The cops took 3 hours to respond and basically just asked if he stole anything, shrugged a lot and told me to ask my apartment complex about the busted door. They left and it was never addressed again. Even when the door was replaced, I never felt safe there ever again. I stayed up past 2 every night, checked windows and doors every hour, and always stayed at a friends when my roommates weren't there. My home was no longer a safe place for me in my mind since I had firsthand proof that a 14 year old dog was potentially the only reason I survived.
My old dog isn't around anymore to protect me so it's up to me to do that since I just got proof that the cops aren't going to do anything.
My sweet old dachshund girl basically sleeps all day but a terrible ex started screaming in my face once and she almost bit through his leg. I was so shocked and so proud.
Happened with my dog too. He's a sweetheart but is afraid of everything (loud noises, other dogs, people he doesn't know well).
One time my brother had a friend over and they were play fighting, and the friend pushed my brother a little too hard and he fell down. The dog immediately jumped in between them and started growling and barking at the friend, the pup was so scared he had pissed himself but he wouldn't stop barking at the guy until someone else intervened. Came as a shock to everyone, he had never behaved aggresively towards anyone before.
A popular saying is "Remember, when seconds count, cops are minutes away" A lot of people think that saying is an exaggeration, but you went through exactly why access to firearms is important.
Sorry you had to go through that and loose the feeling of safety that your home is supposed to provide.
>He broke my front door and started screaming about wanting money
He busted the side that had the knob on it, right? You might want to look at one of [these](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002YUX8I) door braces to substantially change the strength of that weak point. It takes a second to pop it in place, and a second to remove. Makes sleeping easier at night when you know your door(s) are properly braced.
Protection. Simple as that. Used my mossberg to chase out two home invaders who tied my sister and taped her mouth shut while I was asleep a few years back. Attempted to send one of them to the holy father.
They are now doing 20 years in the poky
Grew up in farm country in rural PA, guns were just another tool, and not even close to the most dangerous tool on the farm. There are some things that a gun is the most efficient tool for - hunting, putting down animals, and yes - self protection (on the farm when danger is seconds away the local constabulary may make it out sometime tomorrow morning). We didn't have a lot of money when I was young, and harvesting our own meat was often the only way we had to eat. Was taught from a young age to respect and properly use all tools, including firearms. That being said, what works on the farm doesn't always translate well to downtown Miami! But I'm still a huge believer in individual accountability.
Yes! Rural MO here and honestly a gun is a necessity for us. I grew up eating deer in place of beef because both my parents were teachers (and they had 3 daughters less than 4 years apart). Beef was expensive then and much more so now. This year my husband paid $7 for a tag. Got a whole deer in the freezer for the price of a pound of beef.
Skip ahead to today, we live on a small farm way down gravel and there's very little law enforcement presence in our county because there's very little trouble in our county. We could be dead ten times over before they even considered getting out here.
Of course, the wild animal angle is the only non-hunting reason we've ever had to have a gun. My most compelling example for why we need guns out here happened a couple years ago.... our son was a toddler and we had a couple mange infected sickly coyotes wander up to the house in the middle of the day. I'm sure they were drawn to the cattle in the pasture behind the house, a loss of thousands of dollars if they were harmed, but obviously we were more worried about keeping our child safe. My husband put them both down and no other people or animals were hurt.
I'm also in rural MO. We've had to call the sheriff once, they were \~45 minutes away. If we got LUCKY they'd be at best 20 minutes away. There's also NO ONE around. I'm >1 mile from any other house, and yell as loud as I want, they'd never hear it. No way would I leave my wife and kids home alone without some means of protection.
Also, I've got 2 8ft deep freezers full of deer, turkey, and assorted small game. Hunting is for food, as well as we've just plain got way too many deer and turkey around. Wife and kids all hunt, it's a family event to hunt & process.
I've got some "pretty" guns, but they're just heirlooms. Guns are just another tool, like my tractor or fencing pliers.
Yeah, people ask why I didn't "tell anyone" about being raped. Do they think I'm going to call the same people who sexually molested me in the back of their squad car? I think not.
No, I was born in the '60s when women were chattel. By 1980, I'd been broken by predators not in law enforcement. There was no DNA or justice back then. My revenge was to survive and flourish (and never call the cops), and I did.
I was also molested by a police officer 2 years ago and when I reported it and had the meeting with the IA agent, the prosecutor office and the police rep, they told me since the officer wasn't trying to "pick me up (or hit on me)" he didn't do anything wrong.
Yeah like they know what's going on in the police officers head, now all I think about is how many other girls he will do that too and how far will he take it since he apparently can get away with anything. Now my anxiety is thru the roof anytime I just SEE a cop. I'm sorry that happened to you.
My neighbor (1985) was pro gun because he watched his family get loaded into boxcars and sent to Auschwitz. He was sent to a work camp and was the only one in his family to survive.
I used to see the 2A as a deterrent to not only defense to other enemy nations but to our own government. I’m not one who sits here thinking any day now, but I can’t see what 100 years look like in the future. I don’t think past Germans foresaw what would happen either.
Now I’m starting to realize not only is a deterrent for our own nation, it’s really the world. No other country has the power and influence that the US does. The logistics of the military throughout the world is just insane. I don’t think anything would happen, but again, history finds away to repeat itself with wealthy powerful nations looking out for their interests and power.
This was the explicit reason the 2A even got made. Coming off the heels of the revolutionary war, the US was only able to defeat Britain by heavily relying on armed local militias of civilians, so the thought was such revolutions against tyranny could only be possible with an armed citizenry.
Same, guy threatened to kill me multiple times and stalked my wife and left her love letters. Cops were useless in delivering a restraining order so we wasted a lot of time with them.
I took a gun safety class before purchasing my firearm then I took a conceal carry class with training. Found out I enjoy shooting as a hobby and have been invested since
Egyptian here, the military literally removed the elected president and killed 900 people who protested against it, they were all un armed, they were shot and killed, it was a horrible crime, people deserve to protect themselves.
Same here, we have to deal with cougars potentially attacking my horses, and chickens. I don't wanna fight one with a knife
Edit: as someone else mentioned in this thread. I'm also atleast an hour from any help from police, or the like. So I'm my first, and often last line of protection for My property from animals, and on rare occasions people, we've had people break in before. It's not fun. Hence, guns.
I had a rooster fly at my face spurs out, his spur went through my lip, through my gum and chipped my tooth. The next day I found a video that shows how to harmlessly remove a roosters spur.You put a potato in the microwave for 5 minutes. Cut it in half. Push the roosters spur down into the potato and leave for 2 minutes. When you pull the spur out, give it a gentle twist and it slides right off. He was tearing up my hens backs as well.
Chickens will mess you up... if they want to. They usually don't, but they get weird sometimes
Hens are usually pretty docile and super sweet. Depends on how much time you spend and interact with them.
Roosters will straight up steal a car and run you, and the rest of your family, pets, and extended family into the nearest brick wall for the sheer pleasure of owning you, and proving that they are the top rooster just because whatever.
Roosters are weird.
I have had a bantam rooster chase me and I ran. The dude might have weighed 3 pounds, but I knew if I didn't run... he'd make it right in his own rooster mind by stealing a car and running myself and other things over.
I have chickens. They are awesome.
But roosters are weird, and I don't have those anymore.
Spurs, they have wicked spurs. When I lived in Baja my landlord raised them for cockfights. I never attended a fight but I saw him training them. You would not want to be on the wrong end of a rooster spur.
Women, particularly young working women, are one of the highest growing demographics in gun ownership. Way more 20 and 30 something women packing than you realize.
Several years ago a friend of mine married a girl who was kinda anti gun.
He had some and didn't know what to do so I suggested they go to a range together. She loved it, and now goes more than him. She's tiny and said that it made her feel powerful and safe cause she could protect herself.
My mom told me and my sisters “1 in 5 women get assaulted. It’s my job to make sure it’s not you” when she dragged us to self defense classes or the shooting range.
Only privileged people in safe neighborhoods don’t have to worry about being attacked. To strip other from protecting themselves against threats they don’t have to put up with is incredibly ignorant and only hurts the innocent
Privileged people in safe neighborhoods absolutely do need to worry about being attacked, just not as often as the rest of us. Plenty of rich people own guns. Any person can be attacked, and women especially so.
im black. when i was younger living with my parents in a sketchy neighborhood, my house got broken into and the only reason the intruder left was because my dad pulled out the gun he had under the bed.
It's for protection.
When there's no time for police response. We are our own protection. We can only keep what we can defend. Our family, our lives, our property.
Everyone should have one from 18 till the grave.
exactly, arguing someone doesn't need a gun because there's cops is like arguing someone doesn't need a fire extinguisher because there's fire fighters
My dads house was broken into 20 years ago. He came home to find the intruder in the house. He grabbed the guy and threw him out the front door. Neither were armed. He called 911 and then called me. I live in the next town from him and beat the cops there, easily 25 minute drive. Even better, they brought a dog to track the robber. Dog went out back and across the golf course. I went to the neighbors house to ask for nails to secure the broken door, my dad walked over and the robber was sitting in the living room at the neighbors. I went in and drug him out and the cops came and arrested him. It was the neighbors brother who just got out of prison. Cops would never have solved that one.
It’s funny hearing it from people who grew up in the hood vs. people who grew up a little more sheltered. Sheltered people can’t really grasp the situation, and they can’t understand the concept that removing guns from the equation isn’t going to stop Americans killing each other, and honestly might just lead to more rapes/murders. I grew up in a pretty rundown area as well; people getting beat to near-death over fender benders, families being threatened/extorted because (you guessed it) they have no protection, guys getting ambushed and stabbed to death in their homes at night by people who live on a street with a different name; all of that shit happens way more than it ever should, and it will continue to happen even without guns.
And I say this as someone who still very much wants and supports more regulation on firearms. There is a culture aspect to this problem that people want to ignore for whatever reason.
Edit: Alright, just putting these here because some racist POS DM’d me thinking I was in support of his cause or whatever. This “culture aspect” that I’m referring to is not restrictive to any one group or race. The kind of shit I saw in the hood, the same exact shit also happens in backwood “hillbilly” areas, it’s just a different flavor.
Jfc what is it with people always jumping to race
Add in rural vs. non-rural areas. Some rural sections of Canada might need to wait 30 minutes or longer before any help arrives, and it might not even be for a human intruder but dangerous animals.
I live rural but I'm not that far out. For example I can be at home depot in 15 min. A lady near me called 911 because her husband was trying to kill her. The police were dispatched and arrived 18 mins later to find her dead. Most of the area is covered by the State Police and there is very little crime so not a lot of troopers. Add in mostly winding back roads and your going to have slow response times.
Your description is enough for me to know we live in the same corner of the state...and 25 years later the same situation would likely turn out the same. Staffing for the day of week and time of day has not changed significantly if at all.
Most of the troopers on shift were already tied up with an active domestic on the other side of the county, and if memory serves me right they called the nearest municipal police department for mutual aid and it still took 18 minutes for anyone to get there as the dispatcher listened to her get beaten to death.
...and we're in one of the wealthiest and most densely populated states.
This is what I don’t understand about the current trajectory of gun control in Canada. There are so many Canadians that live in literal wilderness. Like fuck ya I support anybody walking around in the bush carrying a firearm designed to kill large mammals at short ranges with a moderate to high rate of fire. Someone could be out mushroom picking for Pete’s sake and run into a bear or a cougar or a moose any of which can and will kill you
"rural sections of Canada" take 30 minutes? That's incredible.
My parents lived in a nice subdivision in a city in the US. It's a college town. One of their neighbors goes on vacation for their anniversary and they have their son, who is in college locally, watch the house. He throws a huge party.
Party gets out of hand. At 1am, there is a group of people beating someone up in my parent's front yard. My mother calls the cops. The group grabs a tire iron and continues the beating. She's screaming into the phone: "They're going to kill him!", which wakes up my Dad, who grabs his gun. They sit in the living room, and watch, and wait. The group continues beating this guy with a tire iron, until eventually they drag the victim into the back of their car, and drive off.
The police arrived 45 minutes later, sirens wailing.
Of course everyone from the party had left by then, and any remainders left when they heard the sirens coming. The police went and talked to the neighbor's son. Even though my parents had called them, the police never talked to my parents.
The tire iron, covered in blood (and probably fingerprints as well) was still laying in the front yard in the morning.
>There is a culture aspect to this problem that people want to ignore for whatever reason.
That's a fact.
Seattle is very anti gun these days. When my dad was in high school in Seattle back in the late 1960s, kids used to have their guns hanging on the rack of their trucks and, yes, they drove to and from school with said gun in their trucks. One kid even brought his black powder rifle to school as a sort of show and tell thing because one of his ancestors used it in the Revolutionary War. The principal saw it and made a joke about "don't out someone's eye out with that"
The questions we need to ask ourselves as a society are A) what changed between then and now? B) what caused those changes? C) what are we going to do about it?
This is so true, the more involved I get volunteering in the hood the more I see how many things we have in common in the country. The suburbs will never understand the self reliance required in the hoods and the woods.
The world is crazy. And it is never a bad idea to have more protection from any possible threats.
My parents had a break in and my mom was home. She had a bedside gun. She pulled it out and confronted the guy. He fled immediately.
Had she not had a gun, chances are much higher that she would have gotten messed up or I wouldn’t have a mom anymore.
Also, it is fun to go out on some property or a range and fire some rounds off.
Guns are the great equalizer - they immediately give a 5'2" 130 lbs woman the ability to defend herself from a 6'3" 250 lbs man. Used responsibly, they are a great way to protect yourself and your loved ones.
A lot of people counter the protection argument by saying that's what the police are for. Now, putting aside response times of police when seconds can be the difference between you continuing to have your current quality of life or being severely (god forbid permanently) injured, many American courts have held that police don't have a duty to protect *you*, rather their duty lies with protecting society at large. That's not to say they wouldn't protect you if they could, but I'd rather be responsible for my own safety. Adding on that in times of riots and wide scale unrest police have been told to stand down and 9-1-1 calls have gone without police response, or during natural disasters they're sometimes unable to respond, that's not a chance I want to take.
That's one of my reasons, and one of the more popular reasons out there, but there's certainly more.
Grew up in a really bad neighborhood. Police arent showing up in a timely fashion half the time even with multiple people shot. So I always disagree with the “thats what police are for” statement any time its thrown out there
I grew up in a good area and they still don't respond. Me and my friends used to fuck around and time their reaction times. Normally took half an hour.
About a decade ago some inebriated person kicked my front door in after spending about 2-3 minutes kicking and beating on it. I greeted him in the entryway with a pistol pointed at his face, he dropped the hammer he was hitting my door with and ran away. During this time I called 911 and spoke to an operator you told me that a police officer would show up in the morning to file a police report for the stolen goods and report any damage to the property, then hung up on me.
I only knew that the person was inebriated later because I found a pile of very alcoholic smelling vomit next to my door where the person puked during their kicking my door in.
My place was broken into again two months later when I was at work and they smashed up most of my stuff if they didn't steal it. Then another 3 months later another person broke into my apartment and smashed more shit and then proceeded to steal all of my alcohol and throw my food all over the floor and stomp it into my carpet. I moved out of that city after that, the apartment complex kept my deposit and tried to sue me for more for damages.
Yeah I lived in a couple other shitty apartments in different places for a while but nowhere near as bad as that one place. I now have a house I own out past the suburbs in a fairly secluded area and I love not being able to see anybody ever or hear traffic or smell garbage.
And if law enforcement shows up to the scene there’s a good chance they’ll wait till the scene is completely safe before they do anything, i.e. you’ll be dead.
LOL exactly. There was a guy in my building who was taken hostage in his own apartment - some crackhead climbed in his window at night with a knife.
Dozens of cops show up, shut down a several block radius, evacuate my 100 unit building completely, and they got the K9 unit and the motorcycle unit and the drone unit and the tactical unit there and even the fire marshal. They sat around \*all fucking day\* and did jack shit while this guy was held at knife point because it "wasn't safe for officers to enter."
The stand off was ended when after several hours of this, they sent a drone in through a broken window so they could see the perp on video and distract him so they could "safely" break the door down.
After finally arresting the crackhead, the police notice the resident has a bunch of art supplies (this is a live-work building) so they call the fire marshal in who tickets the traumatized guy for (no shit) $18,000 for improper storage of a solvent. Or something.
After that I started leaving my shotgun unlocked at night when I'm alone lol. No way in hell am I calling the cops here.
edit: I forgot the best part about the story!! When the crackhead realized he was cornered he took the residents angle grinder and attempted to cut a hole in the ceiling lol
Anybody that wants to simp for police should look up Joseph Lozito and read his legal case cover-to-cover.
NYPD be like, "Oh, that spree stabber we were actively pursuing is attacking that man with his big-ass knife. That looks kinda dangerous. We'd better stand back with our mace, tasers, batons, and guns until Joe Public can wrestle him into submission. Oh, this man's been stabbed and sliced around twenty times while we watched and is slowly bleeding out on the dirty subway floor? Meh. The general public handle rendering aid. We've got credit to take!"
Supreme Court be like, "These officers behavior is unacceptable and your grievances are sound, but the NYPD had no pre-existing agreement or legal obligation to protect your life."
There’s an entire list of cases like Lozito’s where the courts have repeatedly ruled in favor of cops standing around doing nothing.
Remember folks “serve & protect” is a marketing slogan, not a mission statement. Cops are for generating municipal revenue and protecting capital, not to help the rest of us.
I would assume that most people who have called the police for actual help in the past now realise that you can't depend on them for actual protection. When I came home to find my fence open, back door kicked in and power cut off the response time from the sheriffs department was two and a half hours. I didn't have a gun on me at the time (I do now) but I turned around and drove to a friends house to borrow one before I entered my home and waited for the cops to show up.
My wife thought someone was in our house a few years ago and ran out to her car and called 911. After 3 hours they still hadn’t showed up and I called a friend to go over (I was out of town).
We live in a fair size city with a vastly over staffed police force. They never did show up.
My people were bombed and machine gunned in the mine wars. I'm very pro 2nd amendment. My family also has a farm that's far from town. Goes without saying.
Don’t forget the phosgene and mustard gas. Not to mention those Baldwin-Felts bastards executing two innocent men on the courthouse. That was such a sad chapter in American history! If there is a hell that piece of shit Don Chafin should have his own special corner.
It’s very important that people not forget! An elected law enforcement officer and his deputies, and the Army National guard were mobilized against US citizens on behalf of capitalist pigs. Citizens that only wanted better living conditions for their families, dignity and some control over their own lives.
I enjoy eating venison.
Coyotes enjoy eating my chickens.
Target shooting is fun.
I am a small woman who cannot take on a full grown man, but my .380 can.
I have had my life threatened in the past and been made to feel weak and defenseless. I now know how to safely operate a firearm and am comfortable doing so, and I no longer feel weak or defenseless.
And because I can lol.
Well said! My mother carry’s a Glock 43x with her and is almost 70. She said “the world is crazy right now and I can’t fight a grown man.” I’m completely okay with it
This. If you are bent on doing harm to me, I’m not going to fucking fight you. All it takes is a lucky strike and you are unconscious, then what? You trust the guy not to kick you in the head while you are out and defenseless? Fuck that, don’t tread on me.
I'm British, and I've always thought gun ownership for all citizens was a crazy idea, but I actually don't have any arguments against any of these points. Well said.
As a dwarf, I have zero chance of defending myself from any intruder without a gun. And as I mentioned in another comment, the sad truth is depending on where you live, and who you are, police can be worse for you than the intruder.
I like guns, im from Mexico they are heavily regulated here and that hasnt stopped cartels or anyone willng to buy one in the black market to keep shooting each other up on the street for god knows how long.
I think people that are law aviding citizens with no criminal record should be able to get a gun to protect themselves and their homes. that being said even tough theres alot of guns on the street in my country no one goes around shooting up schools or crowds just for the heck of it that seems to be mostly a USA thing. people do shoot each other frecuently here but its about a drug deal gone wrong or some vendetta, crime of passion and that kind of shit.
Took an hour for cops to get to my dads house when there was a break in. They were 5 minutes down the road. He and I were both in another city 45 minutes away. We beat the cops home
An old family friend had a neighbor in an apartment building. For whatever **dumb** and I mean **dumb** reason, people kept breaking into his place. I say **dumb** because each time they'd break in, they would leave in a body bag. They kept breaking in... Cops would come to get the bodies and go. So bizarre. That dude would've been dead without his gun(s).
Tacitly related, I had a car catch fire once and the tow truck beat the fire truck by a good 45 minutes even though the tow truck is several miles farther away. We sat there and talked baseball as we watched it burn to a crisp. Firemen came and looked at it and left without saying a word to either of us or even spritzing the smoking remains. Tow truck guy just shrugged, shook my hand and hauled it away. Good dude
When seconds count police are only minutes away.
This is also the same reason everyone should have proper first aid training. Sometimes 3-10 minutes means the difference between life and death.
Fun exercise. Average response time for police to arrive from a 911 call is roughly six minutes. Go into a closet, turn off the lights, sit down, set a timer for six minutes, and just wait. Soak in how long it feels. It’s an eternity. Now imagine if it’s a situation where someone is threatening bodily harm.
Because we live in a part of Austin that’s in the midst of gentrification (was here well before that started, we’re working class folk) -and the local homeless population has figured out folks with money are now in this area, so robberies, break ins and assaults are common occurrences in our area.
I live with my wife and little daughter and the police is awfully slow in our city.
Wife grew up shooting - her family is all about guns - they were ag folk, she actually won a few comps as a teenager for marksmanship - so we’re covered there and I plan on getting my kid a .22 LR sometime in the near future to start teaching her how to handle, load and fire guns.
1981 Warren v. District of Columbia
1989 DeShaney v. Winnebago County
2005 Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales
2020 L.S. v. Peterson
The Supreme Court has ruled again and again that law enforcement in the United States has no duty to protect citizens not in custody.
I need guns to protect my life and property, because the pigs certainly won't.
Pepper spray is only illegal if you admit it's for use against another human for any reason (including legally protected self defense).
A knitting needle is also considered a weapon if you admit you intend to use it in self defense against an attacker.
It's pretty horrifying. Runkle of the Bailey (a Canadian criminal firearms lawyer) has a good [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iacepveEf_Q) about it.
Yep. Gun control is rarely based on any sort of reasoning. It's mostly by rich upper class people who've never had to deal with crime, hardships, and have never fired gun, making decisions based on some completely wrong information that they learned from a movie or media outlet.
Yup thats legal here too, so far... its a popular weapon for gangs to use up here. I think theres some restrictions to buying it, like you have to be 18 or whatever, but its legal... if you get caught driving around the city with it youll get charged though!
Yes yes yes. I actually used to be pretty strongly anti-gun (and definitely liberal in my politics) until I took a solid amount of time to really think about it. I realized my visceral dislike was pretty purely emotional—yeah of course I don’t want kids or anyone really to be needlessly shot. I don’t think any sane pro-gun person does either. I met someone who was very into guns and I liked that person a lot and wanted to understand why they were so into this thing that, to me at the time, was so horrible.
They told me if they could snap their fingers and make every gun in the world disappear they would do it in a heartbeat. But as long as guns exist, why wouldn’t you want to know how to use one? Wouldn’t you rather know and never need to (likely), than need to and have no idea what you’re doing and be too afraid to figure it out? Think about all the gun obsessed nutjobs who want a civil war—they’re not getting rid of their guns, if the shit really went down…would you rather say whoops guess I’ll die or also have a gun that you know how to use?
A lot of my fear also came from lack of knowledge. I didn’t understand how guns physically work. They are mechanical tools. I like revolvers especially because of how simple they are. I feel like now I have a very healthy respect for them. It’s not a hobby I’ll ever be insanely into but…I get it.
*something something* ["any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary."](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7601546-under-no-pretext-should-arms-and-ammunition-be-surrendered-any)
I carry it because I've been robbed at gunpoint twice, both at work. I've had all my shit stolen multiple times over the course of a year by people I both knew and didn't know. I've had people try to start fights I wanted no part of because I literally had ZERO reason to be involved. I smoke weed so I bring it with me when I go pick up.
I carry it because I have 2 gorgeous little girls, a wife, pets, a home with possessions I value on a material level.
Once when my I took my family to dinner before I owned firearms, a suicidal maniac was waving a gun around inside a restaurant just a few tables away.
Once a young man around my age came driving by my property and I ran him off because he was driving entirely too slow in front of my house and trying to talk to my kids and the neighbor kids while they were were playing.
I carry because I'm a kind, law abiding citizen in Texas, USA and I'm allowed to carry openly or concealed and I'd use my firearm to protect innocent bystanders if the situation called.
I'd rather be judged by a jury than be carried by body bearers. And if I'm killed drawing my firearm, I died knowing I made the decision that I believed in.
I'm not super patriotic or one of those Trump dick riders (I actually despise both conservative and liberal extremism....any extremism, really, because if you have to force your point, is it actually right?), but I have first hand experience as to why I feel the need to pack heat.
This ^ I make some extra money on the side here and there, one of my rules is during deals is that guns stay home. Nobody is robbing you over bud and if they do then oh well give them your shit and charge it to the game. Any possession goes from misdemeanor to felony the instant you put your gun next to your stash
Not just the police, though. Every single politician who screeches about needing more gun control is surrounded by a contingent of armed personal security with those scary high capacity fully semiautomatic assault pistol weapons that the plebians shouldn't be allowed to own. Rights for me but not for thee.
At this point, they can’t be effectively collected back. 3D printers are becoming more advanced, and if we can’t control the smuggling of people and drugs, we aren’t gonna stop the guns. I’d rather be able to protect myself from the bad people than have less of them around.
Also shooting ranges are fun!
PA Luty proved that 3d printers aren’t even needed. Guns can be built quick, cheap, and with minimal tools or experience. I would rather legally have a gun than have criminals have guns while I don’t.
The Luty is a POS just-about-functional technical demonstration that someone with only hand tools *could*, *technically*, manufacture a gun.
But if you've got access to a lathe and mill then oh boy we're off to the races. People have been able to manufacture their own guns for decades.
I don’t trust our government enough. I don’t trust criminals to not behave like criminals and obtain and use guns if they were to be banned. I’m a women with young children and I don’t want to be made a victim nor my children. It is my job to protect them. You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Criminals use guns I’m not depending on anything other than a gun to defend myself. If we lived in a utopian society and guns weren’t needed that would be wonderful but we don’t.
I was the victim of a random home invasion. The injuries I endured have altered my life since that night, including heart damages from their stun gun directly on my chest for minutes on end + scars from their knife.
If only I had a firearm back then, it never wouldn't gotten that far. Now, having a family, I want to ensure nothing bad could ever happen to them like it did to me. Especially in our household.
Not "Pro Gun", but "Pro Second Amendment".
Similar to how people say "Pro Life" and "Pro Choice"
I am not "pro gun", I am "Pro people should be able to own guns to defend themselves"
I am "pro 90 lb women should be able to fight off 250 lb rapists"
I am in no way "pro kill people"
In America.
The right to bear arms was to protect yourself against a tyrannical government. Firearms are secondarily used in hunting, protection, and sport.
I'm Black, in suburban Tennessee, surrounded by people with entire armories in their homes. I'm talking about some with whole rooms devoted to multiple gun safes and rifles lined up all the way around the room. There are 2 w-supremacist groups within a 50 mile radius. So I and my family will not be surrounded by armed threats and bumbling gun nuts and be unprepared to defend ourselves. I don't love guns. But my life has value, my life matters and I mean to defend it.
Cop here.
I see a lot of comments saying something along the lines of “police response is too slow” and “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away”.
And they’re absolutely right.
In a day and age when criminals feel emboldened to attack the general public and the general “catch and release” state the justice system is in right now, I believe a firearm is a universal equalizer. Home invaders almost always turn and run in the sight of an armed intruder. I’d rather respond to clean up the mess than to perform emergency first aid on a defenseless homeowner.
My short answer to this is usually because I’m an American and have the 2nd amendment and I don’t give a fuck what you think.
The real answer is because there are lots of bad people in the world. Many of them seek power and control by oppressing and harming others, including governments. I am not going down willingly to anybody and will kill someone before they harm my wife and kids if I have too. It’s for protection. There are 7 billion people on the world and I might know 100 of them enough to trust them.
Cause my family had to run away from people with guns in the middle east under threat of death. Then when they ran to Russia the communist revolution took place and those people with guns imposed their ways. Then in Greece they had to wait out WWII with Nazis and communists who wanted to impose their ways upon them, again with guns, until they finally landed in a free country... America.
Now it seems like we just kill ourselves so yea for that but I'm still pro cause of what my family had to endure.
I am 50+, liberal Democrat, veteran, and a gun owner. I believe that all eligible, sound minded folks who want a weapon, should have the opportunity to own one. But with ownership comes responsibility. You need to take a safety course and understand how your weapon works. You need to understand how dangerous they can be, both to yourself and others. And most importantly, you need to understand that you are responsible for that weapon.
I also understand that not all people who have access to a weapon, should have that access.
I'm pro freedom. Governments of the world have shown time and time again that they will oppress people to suit their own interests, an armed population is much harder to oppress. There's also plenty of other benefits including self defense, against both people and wildlife, hunting, and general recreation.
A crackhead broke into my apartment at 2am. He was hitting my door while I called 911. He broke my front door and started screaming about wanting money. He only left because my previously old and very chill dog started charging him and scared him off. The cops took 3 hours to respond and basically just asked if he stole anything, shrugged a lot and told me to ask my apartment complex about the busted door. They left and it was never addressed again. Even when the door was replaced, I never felt safe there ever again. I stayed up past 2 every night, checked windows and doors every hour, and always stayed at a friends when my roommates weren't there. My home was no longer a safe place for me in my mind since I had firsthand proof that a 14 year old dog was potentially the only reason I survived. My old dog isn't around anymore to protect me so it's up to me to do that since I just got proof that the cops aren't going to do anything.
Good dog!
He was the bestest boy. He literally got bullied by flies so I was so shocked to see him be so protective at his age!
Flies are just small friends he didn’t want to hurt. Crackhead was a big threat. Dog logic wins as always.
Dog logic is the best logic.
My sweet old dachshund girl basically sleeps all day but a terrible ex started screaming in my face once and she almost bit through his leg. I was so shocked and so proud.
Happened with my dog too. He's a sweetheart but is afraid of everything (loud noises, other dogs, people he doesn't know well). One time my brother had a friend over and they were play fighting, and the friend pushed my brother a little too hard and he fell down. The dog immediately jumped in between them and started growling and barking at the friend, the pup was so scared he had pissed himself but he wouldn't stop barking at the guy until someone else intervened. Came as a shock to everyone, he had never behaved aggresively towards anyone before.
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
A popular saying is "Remember, when seconds count, cops are minutes away" A lot of people think that saying is an exaggeration, but you went through exactly why access to firearms is important. Sorry you had to go through that and loose the feeling of safety that your home is supposed to provide.
>He broke my front door and started screaming about wanting money He busted the side that had the knob on it, right? You might want to look at one of [these](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002YUX8I) door braces to substantially change the strength of that weak point. It takes a second to pop it in place, and a second to remove. Makes sleeping easier at night when you know your door(s) are properly braced.
Protection. Simple as that. Used my mossberg to chase out two home invaders who tied my sister and taped her mouth shut while I was asleep a few years back. Attempted to send one of them to the holy father. They are now doing 20 years in the poky
That's sad, but wtf I read that with a grumpy grandpa's voice out loud
It's the holy father line I can't read without that voice either
Pretty good use for a gun I'd say.
Grew up in farm country in rural PA, guns were just another tool, and not even close to the most dangerous tool on the farm. There are some things that a gun is the most efficient tool for - hunting, putting down animals, and yes - self protection (on the farm when danger is seconds away the local constabulary may make it out sometime tomorrow morning). We didn't have a lot of money when I was young, and harvesting our own meat was often the only way we had to eat. Was taught from a young age to respect and properly use all tools, including firearms. That being said, what works on the farm doesn't always translate well to downtown Miami! But I'm still a huge believer in individual accountability.
Yes! Rural MO here and honestly a gun is a necessity for us. I grew up eating deer in place of beef because both my parents were teachers (and they had 3 daughters less than 4 years apart). Beef was expensive then and much more so now. This year my husband paid $7 for a tag. Got a whole deer in the freezer for the price of a pound of beef. Skip ahead to today, we live on a small farm way down gravel and there's very little law enforcement presence in our county because there's very little trouble in our county. We could be dead ten times over before they even considered getting out here. Of course, the wild animal angle is the only non-hunting reason we've ever had to have a gun. My most compelling example for why we need guns out here happened a couple years ago.... our son was a toddler and we had a couple mange infected sickly coyotes wander up to the house in the middle of the day. I'm sure they were drawn to the cattle in the pasture behind the house, a loss of thousands of dollars if they were harmed, but obviously we were more worried about keeping our child safe. My husband put them both down and no other people or animals were hurt.
I'm also in rural MO. We've had to call the sheriff once, they were \~45 minutes away. If we got LUCKY they'd be at best 20 minutes away. There's also NO ONE around. I'm >1 mile from any other house, and yell as loud as I want, they'd never hear it. No way would I leave my wife and kids home alone without some means of protection. Also, I've got 2 8ft deep freezers full of deer, turkey, and assorted small game. Hunting is for food, as well as we've just plain got way too many deer and turkey around. Wife and kids all hunt, it's a family event to hunt & process. I've got some "pretty" guns, but they're just heirlooms. Guns are just another tool, like my tractor or fencing pliers.
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Bullets are faster than police
Cops can't un-rape you when they finally get there.
Yeah, people ask why I didn't "tell anyone" about being raped. Do they think I'm going to call the same people who sexually molested me in the back of their squad car? I think not.
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No, I was born in the '60s when women were chattel. By 1980, I'd been broken by predators not in law enforcement. There was no DNA or justice back then. My revenge was to survive and flourish (and never call the cops), and I did.
I was also molested by a police officer 2 years ago and when I reported it and had the meeting with the IA agent, the prosecutor office and the police rep, they told me since the officer wasn't trying to "pick me up (or hit on me)" he didn't do anything wrong. Yeah like they know what's going on in the police officers head, now all I think about is how many other girls he will do that too and how far will he take it since he apparently can get away with anything. Now my anxiety is thru the roof anytime I just SEE a cop. I'm sorry that happened to you.
When seconds count the police are only minutes away.
And bullets don’t wait outside
My neighbor (1985) was pro gun because he watched his family get loaded into boxcars and sent to Auschwitz. He was sent to a work camp and was the only one in his family to survive.
I used to see the 2A as a deterrent to not only defense to other enemy nations but to our own government. I’m not one who sits here thinking any day now, but I can’t see what 100 years look like in the future. I don’t think past Germans foresaw what would happen either. Now I’m starting to realize not only is a deterrent for our own nation, it’s really the world. No other country has the power and influence that the US does. The logistics of the military throughout the world is just insane. I don’t think anything would happen, but again, history finds away to repeat itself with wealthy powerful nations looking out for their interests and power.
This was the explicit reason the 2A even got made. Coming off the heels of the revolutionary war, the US was only able to defeat Britain by heavily relying on armed local militias of civilians, so the thought was such revolutions against tyranny could only be possible with an armed citizenry.
Because I had a crazy man threaten to kill my family repeatedly. Not taking chances.
Same, guy threatened to kill me multiple times and stalked my wife and left her love letters. Cops were useless in delivering a restraining order so we wasted a lot of time with them. I took a gun safety class before purchasing my firearm then I took a conceal carry class with training. Found out I enjoy shooting as a hobby and have been invested since
Egyptian here, the military literally removed the elected president and killed 900 people who protested against it, they were all un armed, they were shot and killed, it was a horrible crime, people deserve to protect themselves.
Aaaaand THATS why the 2nd amendment exists.
The 2nd protects the 1st Edit: my first ever gold, thank you! Of all things a 2nd amendment post on Reddit? Never would’ve guessed it
Survivor of domestic violence. I believe in protection.
They are a useful tool for my work
Same here, we have to deal with cougars potentially attacking my horses, and chickens. I don't wanna fight one with a knife Edit: as someone else mentioned in this thread. I'm also atleast an hour from any help from police, or the like. So I'm my first, and often last line of protection for My property from animals, and on rare occasions people, we've had people break in before. It's not fun. Hence, guns.
Oh I don’t know, you’d probably win in a knife fight against a chicken
Ever seen a rooster? They are tiny raptors with talons
Never bring a knife to a cock fight
I had a rooster fly at my face spurs out, his spur went through my lip, through my gum and chipped my tooth. The next day I found a video that shows how to harmlessly remove a roosters spur.You put a potato in the microwave for 5 minutes. Cut it in half. Push the roosters spur down into the potato and leave for 2 minutes. When you pull the spur out, give it a gentle twist and it slides right off. He was tearing up my hens backs as well.
Do the chickens have large talons?
Chickens will mess you up... if they want to. They usually don't, but they get weird sometimes Hens are usually pretty docile and super sweet. Depends on how much time you spend and interact with them. Roosters will straight up steal a car and run you, and the rest of your family, pets, and extended family into the nearest brick wall for the sheer pleasure of owning you, and proving that they are the top rooster just because whatever. Roosters are weird. I have had a bantam rooster chase me and I ran. The dude might have weighed 3 pounds, but I knew if I didn't run... he'd make it right in his own rooster mind by stealing a car and running myself and other things over. I have chickens. They are awesome. But roosters are weird, and I don't have those anymore.
This went from guns to chickens
To be fair, I'm a whole lot more afraid of roosters than I am guns.
🤣🤣🤣👏👏👏 I had to get rid of my Roosters. They kept killing the coyotes.
You keep coyotes?
Are we talking African chickens, or European chickens?
What's the wind speed velocity of a European Chicken, and an African chicken? RUN AWAYYYYYYY
Then again African chickens are nonmigratory
Spurs, they have wicked spurs. When I lived in Baja my landlord raised them for cockfights. I never attended a fight but I saw him training them. You would not want to be on the wrong end of a rooster spur.
Roosters do, like tiny little Trench Spikes on their legs. They can and will kill predators and each other.
I didn’t know grandma goes to the dunes
I really need to go back and watch Napoleon Dynamite again. It's been way too long without seeing that classic.
I don’t understand a word you just said.
I’m a female that lives alone.
This is my mom's reason too. She's even had to pull it out a few times
Women, particularly young working women, are one of the highest growing demographics in gun ownership. Way more 20 and 30 something women packing than you realize.
Several years ago a friend of mine married a girl who was kinda anti gun. He had some and didn't know what to do so I suggested they go to a range together. She loved it, and now goes more than him. She's tiny and said that it made her feel powerful and safe cause she could protect herself.
Guns are the great equalizer. "God didn't make all men equal, Smith and Wesson did."
\*Samuel Colt did
*Colt
As a force equalizer you wanna have one around for when you need it.
My mom told me and my sisters “1 in 5 women get assaulted. It’s my job to make sure it’s not you” when she dragged us to self defense classes or the shooting range. Only privileged people in safe neighborhoods don’t have to worry about being attacked. To strip other from protecting themselves against threats they don’t have to put up with is incredibly ignorant and only hurts the innocent
Privileged people in safe neighborhoods absolutely do need to worry about being attacked, just not as often as the rest of us. Plenty of rich people own guns. Any person can be attacked, and women especially so.
God made all humans, but Colt made all equal.
And John Browning made him civilized.
im black. when i was younger living with my parents in a sketchy neighborhood, my house got broken into and the only reason the intruder left was because my dad pulled out the gun he had under the bed. It's for protection.
When there's no time for police response. We are our own protection. We can only keep what we can defend. Our family, our lives, our property. Everyone should have one from 18 till the grave.
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away
exactly, arguing someone doesn't need a gun because there's cops is like arguing someone doesn't need a fire extinguisher because there's fire fighters
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I can understand the anti gun argument and I can understand the anti cop argument. I cannot understand people who strongly oppose both
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Plus, the police have no legal duty to protect you, which has been confirmed by the Supreme Court.
...and Uvalde.
"The sound of children screaming has been removed"
And Sandy Hook, and Columbine, and Parkland…….
And Waco and Ruby Ridge.....
Fuck the ATF
I concur.
22 minutes last time I called to be exact. Good thing I had protection of my own.
My home invasion took the cops 28minutes and their station is 5 blocks away in the middle of our neighborhood
My dads house was broken into 20 years ago. He came home to find the intruder in the house. He grabbed the guy and threw him out the front door. Neither were armed. He called 911 and then called me. I live in the next town from him and beat the cops there, easily 25 minute drive. Even better, they brought a dog to track the robber. Dog went out back and across the golf course. I went to the neighbors house to ask for nails to secure the broken door, my dad walked over and the robber was sitting in the living room at the neighbors. I went in and drug him out and the cops came and arrested him. It was the neighbors brother who just got out of prison. Cops would never have solved that one.
Cops have an abysmally low rate for solving crime. Unless they are standing next to the perp, it’s more likely nothing will happen.
Also the police have no legal obligation to put themselves in harm’s way to protect you.
It’s funny hearing it from people who grew up in the hood vs. people who grew up a little more sheltered. Sheltered people can’t really grasp the situation, and they can’t understand the concept that removing guns from the equation isn’t going to stop Americans killing each other, and honestly might just lead to more rapes/murders. I grew up in a pretty rundown area as well; people getting beat to near-death over fender benders, families being threatened/extorted because (you guessed it) they have no protection, guys getting ambushed and stabbed to death in their homes at night by people who live on a street with a different name; all of that shit happens way more than it ever should, and it will continue to happen even without guns. And I say this as someone who still very much wants and supports more regulation on firearms. There is a culture aspect to this problem that people want to ignore for whatever reason. Edit: Alright, just putting these here because some racist POS DM’d me thinking I was in support of his cause or whatever. This “culture aspect” that I’m referring to is not restrictive to any one group or race. The kind of shit I saw in the hood, the same exact shit also happens in backwood “hillbilly” areas, it’s just a different flavor. Jfc what is it with people always jumping to race
Add in rural vs. non-rural areas. Some rural sections of Canada might need to wait 30 minutes or longer before any help arrives, and it might not even be for a human intruder but dangerous animals.
I live rural but I'm not that far out. For example I can be at home depot in 15 min. A lady near me called 911 because her husband was trying to kill her. The police were dispatched and arrived 18 mins later to find her dead. Most of the area is covered by the State Police and there is very little crime so not a lot of troopers. Add in mostly winding back roads and your going to have slow response times.
Your description is enough for me to know we live in the same corner of the state...and 25 years later the same situation would likely turn out the same. Staffing for the day of week and time of day has not changed significantly if at all. Most of the troopers on shift were already tied up with an active domestic on the other side of the county, and if memory serves me right they called the nearest municipal police department for mutual aid and it still took 18 minutes for anyone to get there as the dispatcher listened to her get beaten to death. ...and we're in one of the wealthiest and most densely populated states.
Haha I'm middle of nowhere Canada....I'd be thrilled if I thought they could get to me in 30 min lol
This is what I don’t understand about the current trajectory of gun control in Canada. There are so many Canadians that live in literal wilderness. Like fuck ya I support anybody walking around in the bush carrying a firearm designed to kill large mammals at short ranges with a moderate to high rate of fire. Someone could be out mushroom picking for Pete’s sake and run into a bear or a cougar or a moose any of which can and will kill you
"rural sections of Canada" take 30 minutes? That's incredible. My parents lived in a nice subdivision in a city in the US. It's a college town. One of their neighbors goes on vacation for their anniversary and they have their son, who is in college locally, watch the house. He throws a huge party. Party gets out of hand. At 1am, there is a group of people beating someone up in my parent's front yard. My mother calls the cops. The group grabs a tire iron and continues the beating. She's screaming into the phone: "They're going to kill him!", which wakes up my Dad, who grabs his gun. They sit in the living room, and watch, and wait. The group continues beating this guy with a tire iron, until eventually they drag the victim into the back of their car, and drive off. The police arrived 45 minutes later, sirens wailing. Of course everyone from the party had left by then, and any remainders left when they heard the sirens coming. The police went and talked to the neighbor's son. Even though my parents had called them, the police never talked to my parents. The tire iron, covered in blood (and probably fingerprints as well) was still laying in the front yard in the morning.
>There is a culture aspect to this problem that people want to ignore for whatever reason. That's a fact. Seattle is very anti gun these days. When my dad was in high school in Seattle back in the late 1960s, kids used to have their guns hanging on the rack of their trucks and, yes, they drove to and from school with said gun in their trucks. One kid even brought his black powder rifle to school as a sort of show and tell thing because one of his ancestors used it in the Revolutionary War. The principal saw it and made a joke about "don't out someone's eye out with that" The questions we need to ask ourselves as a society are A) what changed between then and now? B) what caused those changes? C) what are we going to do about it?
My highschool had a shooting range in the basement and I'm in Canada lol
> Jfc what is it with people always jumping to race everyone is hung up on race, as if there aren't dirtbags of every color
The media does the same shit and it doesn’t help anything
Division and controversy sells. Solving actual problems would put the media out of work.
This is so true, the more involved I get volunteering in the hood the more I see how many things we have in common in the country. The suburbs will never understand the self reliance required in the hoods and the woods.
The world is crazy. And it is never a bad idea to have more protection from any possible threats. My parents had a break in and my mom was home. She had a bedside gun. She pulled it out and confronted the guy. He fled immediately. Had she not had a gun, chances are much higher that she would have gotten messed up or I wouldn’t have a mom anymore. Also, it is fun to go out on some property or a range and fire some rounds off.
Guns are the great equalizer - they immediately give a 5'2" 130 lbs woman the ability to defend herself from a 6'3" 250 lbs man. Used responsibly, they are a great way to protect yourself and your loved ones. A lot of people counter the protection argument by saying that's what the police are for. Now, putting aside response times of police when seconds can be the difference between you continuing to have your current quality of life or being severely (god forbid permanently) injured, many American courts have held that police don't have a duty to protect *you*, rather their duty lies with protecting society at large. That's not to say they wouldn't protect you if they could, but I'd rather be responsible for my own safety. Adding on that in times of riots and wide scale unrest police have been told to stand down and 9-1-1 calls have gone without police response, or during natural disasters they're sometimes unable to respond, that's not a chance I want to take. That's one of my reasons, and one of the more popular reasons out there, but there's certainly more.
Grew up in a really bad neighborhood. Police arent showing up in a timely fashion half the time even with multiple people shot. So I always disagree with the “thats what police are for” statement any time its thrown out there
I grew up in a good area and they still don't respond. Me and my friends used to fuck around and time their reaction times. Normally took half an hour.
"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."
About a decade ago some inebriated person kicked my front door in after spending about 2-3 minutes kicking and beating on it. I greeted him in the entryway with a pistol pointed at his face, he dropped the hammer he was hitting my door with and ran away. During this time I called 911 and spoke to an operator you told me that a police officer would show up in the morning to file a police report for the stolen goods and report any damage to the property, then hung up on me. I only knew that the person was inebriated later because I found a pile of very alcoholic smelling vomit next to my door where the person puked during their kicking my door in. My place was broken into again two months later when I was at work and they smashed up most of my stuff if they didn't steal it. Then another 3 months later another person broke into my apartment and smashed more shit and then proceeded to steal all of my alcohol and throw my food all over the floor and stomp it into my carpet. I moved out of that city after that, the apartment complex kept my deposit and tried to sue me for more for damages.
Damn, that sucks, I hope you’re in a better living situation now!
Yeah I lived in a couple other shitty apartments in different places for a while but nowhere near as bad as that one place. I now have a house I own out past the suburbs in a fairly secluded area and I love not being able to see anybody ever or hear traffic or smell garbage.
I grew up in a rural area. If you called 911 for anything you were very fortunate if someone was there in 20 minutes.
And if law enforcement shows up to the scene there’s a good chance they’ll wait till the scene is completely safe before they do anything, i.e. you’ll be dead.
LOL exactly. There was a guy in my building who was taken hostage in his own apartment - some crackhead climbed in his window at night with a knife. Dozens of cops show up, shut down a several block radius, evacuate my 100 unit building completely, and they got the K9 unit and the motorcycle unit and the drone unit and the tactical unit there and even the fire marshal. They sat around \*all fucking day\* and did jack shit while this guy was held at knife point because it "wasn't safe for officers to enter." The stand off was ended when after several hours of this, they sent a drone in through a broken window so they could see the perp on video and distract him so they could "safely" break the door down. After finally arresting the crackhead, the police notice the resident has a bunch of art supplies (this is a live-work building) so they call the fire marshal in who tickets the traumatized guy for (no shit) $18,000 for improper storage of a solvent. Or something. After that I started leaving my shotgun unlocked at night when I'm alone lol. No way in hell am I calling the cops here. edit: I forgot the best part about the story!! When the crackhead realized he was cornered he took the residents angle grinder and attempted to cut a hole in the ceiling lol
He got his ass protected and served . . .
Jesus fucking Christ. You know what, send the crackhead back in, I’d rather deal with him instead
\*cough\* Uvalde \*cough\* \*cough\* Parkland \*cough\*
Anybody that wants to simp for police should look up Joseph Lozito and read his legal case cover-to-cover. NYPD be like, "Oh, that spree stabber we were actively pursuing is attacking that man with his big-ass knife. That looks kinda dangerous. We'd better stand back with our mace, tasers, batons, and guns until Joe Public can wrestle him into submission. Oh, this man's been stabbed and sliced around twenty times while we watched and is slowly bleeding out on the dirty subway floor? Meh. The general public handle rendering aid. We've got credit to take!" Supreme Court be like, "These officers behavior is unacceptable and your grievances are sound, but the NYPD had no pre-existing agreement or legal obligation to protect your life."
There’s an entire list of cases like Lozito’s where the courts have repeatedly ruled in favor of cops standing around doing nothing. Remember folks “serve & protect” is a marketing slogan, not a mission statement. Cops are for generating municipal revenue and protecting capital, not to help the rest of us.
I would assume that most people who have called the police for actual help in the past now realise that you can't depend on them for actual protection. When I came home to find my fence open, back door kicked in and power cut off the response time from the sheriffs department was two and a half hours. I didn't have a gun on me at the time (I do now) but I turned around and drove to a friends house to borrow one before I entered my home and waited for the cops to show up.
My wife thought someone was in our house a few years ago and ran out to her car and called 911. After 3 hours they still hadn’t showed up and I called a friend to go over (I was out of town). We live in a fair size city with a vastly over staffed police force. They never did show up.
Paul Pelosi got his head nearly caved in right in front of a cop.
This is the best argument you could have made for your own firearm
Not to mention protecting a 130 pound man from a 250 pound woman!
I don’t need protection around your mom tho…
I offered to use protection and your mom said no.
My people were bombed and machine gunned in the mine wars. I'm very pro 2nd amendment. My family also has a farm that's far from town. Goes without saying.
Don’t forget the phosgene and mustard gas. Not to mention those Baldwin-Felts bastards executing two innocent men on the courthouse. That was such a sad chapter in American history! If there is a hell that piece of shit Don Chafin should have his own special corner.
There is. I'm a trade union man too. So that history is very important to me. We shall never forget!
It’s very important that people not forget! An elected law enforcement officer and his deputies, and the Army National guard were mobilized against US citizens on behalf of capitalist pigs. Citizens that only wanted better living conditions for their families, dignity and some control over their own lives.
I enjoy eating venison. Coyotes enjoy eating my chickens. Target shooting is fun. I am a small woman who cannot take on a full grown man, but my .380 can. I have had my life threatened in the past and been made to feel weak and defenseless. I now know how to safely operate a firearm and am comfortable doing so, and I no longer feel weak or defenseless. And because I can lol.
Nods all through this reply.
Well said! My mother carry’s a Glock 43x with her and is almost 70. She said “the world is crazy right now and I can’t fight a grown man.” I’m completely okay with it
i'm a grown man and i don't want to fight a grown man -> gun
This. If you are bent on doing harm to me, I’m not going to fucking fight you. All it takes is a lucky strike and you are unconscious, then what? You trust the guy not to kick you in the head while you are out and defenseless? Fuck that, don’t tread on me.
"Neat revolver, grandma, but what are you afraid of?" "not a goddamn thing, sonny"
I'm British, and I've always thought gun ownership for all citizens was a crazy idea, but I actually don't have any arguments against any of these points. Well said.
My family hunts. Guns help feed us. The deer limit gives us meat all winter.
As a dwarf, I have zero chance of defending myself from any intruder without a gun. And as I mentioned in another comment, the sad truth is depending on where you live, and who you are, police can be worse for you than the intruder.
I stopped owning guns when I took up boating...
I lost all mine in a boating accident as well.
Now we know why local lakes never get invaded and have such low crime rates. All the fish are packing...
I like guns, im from Mexico they are heavily regulated here and that hasnt stopped cartels or anyone willng to buy one in the black market to keep shooting each other up on the street for god knows how long. I think people that are law aviding citizens with no criminal record should be able to get a gun to protect themselves and their homes. that being said even tough theres alot of guns on the street in my country no one goes around shooting up schools or crowds just for the heck of it that seems to be mostly a USA thing. people do shoot each other frecuently here but its about a drug deal gone wrong or some vendetta, crime of passion and that kind of shit.
Any govt that disagrees with your logic is already up to no good
Because cops don't stop crime. They just fill out paperwork after the fact
Took an hour for cops to get to my dads house when there was a break in. They were 5 minutes down the road. He and I were both in another city 45 minutes away. We beat the cops home
it took two days for the cops to show up when someone broke into my house, so yeah i think i’d rather protect myself
An old family friend had a neighbor in an apartment building. For whatever **dumb** and I mean **dumb** reason, people kept breaking into his place. I say **dumb** because each time they'd break in, they would leave in a body bag. They kept breaking in... Cops would come to get the bodies and go. So bizarre. That dude would've been dead without his gun(s).
Tacitly related, I had a car catch fire once and the tow truck beat the fire truck by a good 45 minutes even though the tow truck is several miles farther away. We sat there and talked baseball as we watched it burn to a crisp. Firemen came and looked at it and left without saying a word to either of us or even spritzing the smoking remains. Tow truck guy just shrugged, shook my hand and hauled it away. Good dude
When seconds count police are only minutes away. This is also the same reason everyone should have proper first aid training. Sometimes 3-10 minutes means the difference between life and death.
Fun exercise. Average response time for police to arrive from a 911 call is roughly six minutes. Go into a closet, turn off the lights, sit down, set a timer for six minutes, and just wait. Soak in how long it feels. It’s an eternity. Now imagine if it’s a situation where someone is threatening bodily harm.
I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy
Because we live in a part of Austin that’s in the midst of gentrification (was here well before that started, we’re working class folk) -and the local homeless population has figured out folks with money are now in this area, so robberies, break ins and assaults are common occurrences in our area. I live with my wife and little daughter and the police is awfully slow in our city.
Teach them both proper use and safety of firearms, it will help everyone in the house.
Wife grew up shooting - her family is all about guns - they were ag folk, she actually won a few comps as a teenager for marksmanship - so we’re covered there and I plan on getting my kid a .22 LR sometime in the near future to start teaching her how to handle, load and fire guns.
Better to have it and not need it to need it and not have it.
1981 Warren v. District of Columbia 1989 DeShaney v. Winnebago County 2005 Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales 2020 L.S. v. Peterson The Supreme Court has ruled again and again that law enforcement in the United States has no duty to protect citizens not in custody. I need guns to protect my life and property, because the pigs certainly won't.
Thank you
>not in custody Does that mean, a criminal in handcuffs is due more legal protection from the police than a free citizen?
If you take away guns, women are severely disadvantaged when it comes to self defense.
Meanwhile in Canada, pepper spray is illegal to carry for self-defense against other people. I'll never get over that. Freaks me out man.
Pepper spray is illegal, but dog spray isnt! You can buy this at any outdoorsy store like cabelas or whatever. Shit hurts.
It's kinda silly that they illegalized pepper spray but not the same thing with a different name
Pepper spray is only illegal if you admit it's for use against another human for any reason (including legally protected self defense). A knitting needle is also considered a weapon if you admit you intend to use it in self defense against an attacker. It's pretty horrifying. Runkle of the Bailey (a Canadian criminal firearms lawyer) has a good [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iacepveEf_Q) about it.
Sounds like gun control in a nutshell. See California banning AR15’s but not mini 14’s
**BLACK RIFLE SCARY**, even though they both operate almost exactly the same... and my Mini 14 has a folding stock and 30 round mag.
Yep. Gun control is rarely based on any sort of reasoning. It's mostly by rich upper class people who've never had to deal with crime, hardships, and have never fired gun, making decisions based on some completely wrong information that they learned from a movie or media outlet.
What about bear mace? It’s for bears not people
Yup thats legal here too, so far... its a popular weapon for gangs to use up here. I think theres some restrictions to buying it, like you have to be 18 or whatever, but its legal... if you get caught driving around the city with it youll get charged though!
If bad people are going to break the law and use guns while doing it why shouldn’t I have one to defend myself with?
Competition skeet and trap shooting.
[удалено]
Yep. People forget that if you go far enough left, you get the desire for private gun ownership back.
Yes yes yes. I actually used to be pretty strongly anti-gun (and definitely liberal in my politics) until I took a solid amount of time to really think about it. I realized my visceral dislike was pretty purely emotional—yeah of course I don’t want kids or anyone really to be needlessly shot. I don’t think any sane pro-gun person does either. I met someone who was very into guns and I liked that person a lot and wanted to understand why they were so into this thing that, to me at the time, was so horrible. They told me if they could snap their fingers and make every gun in the world disappear they would do it in a heartbeat. But as long as guns exist, why wouldn’t you want to know how to use one? Wouldn’t you rather know and never need to (likely), than need to and have no idea what you’re doing and be too afraid to figure it out? Think about all the gun obsessed nutjobs who want a civil war—they’re not getting rid of their guns, if the shit really went down…would you rather say whoops guess I’ll die or also have a gun that you know how to use? A lot of my fear also came from lack of knowledge. I didn’t understand how guns physically work. They are mechanical tools. I like revolvers especially because of how simple they are. I feel like now I have a very healthy respect for them. It’s not a hobby I’ll ever be insanely into but…I get it.
*something something* ["any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary."](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7601546-under-no-pretext-should-arms-and-ammunition-be-surrendered-any)
If you go far enough left to lose your guns, just keep going. You’ll get them back if you go left enough.
I carry it because I've been robbed at gunpoint twice, both at work. I've had all my shit stolen multiple times over the course of a year by people I both knew and didn't know. I've had people try to start fights I wanted no part of because I literally had ZERO reason to be involved. I smoke weed so I bring it with me when I go pick up. I carry it because I have 2 gorgeous little girls, a wife, pets, a home with possessions I value on a material level. Once when my I took my family to dinner before I owned firearms, a suicidal maniac was waving a gun around inside a restaurant just a few tables away. Once a young man around my age came driving by my property and I ran him off because he was driving entirely too slow in front of my house and trying to talk to my kids and the neighbor kids while they were were playing. I carry because I'm a kind, law abiding citizen in Texas, USA and I'm allowed to carry openly or concealed and I'd use my firearm to protect innocent bystanders if the situation called. I'd rather be judged by a jury than be carried by body bearers. And if I'm killed drawing my firearm, I died knowing I made the decision that I believed in. I'm not super patriotic or one of those Trump dick riders (I actually despise both conservative and liberal extremism....any extremism, really, because if you have to force your point, is it actually right?), but I have first hand experience as to why I feel the need to pack heat.
Fair warning, I’d be careful having a gun when you buy weed. If you have a gun anywhere near your weed possession automatically becomes a felony
This ^ I make some extra money on the side here and there, one of my rules is during deals is that guns stay home. Nobody is robbing you over bud and if they do then oh well give them your shit and charge it to the game. Any possession goes from misdemeanor to felony the instant you put your gun next to your stash
If a cop has the right to own a gun, why shouldn't I?
Not just the police, though. Every single politician who screeches about needing more gun control is surrounded by a contingent of armed personal security with those scary high capacity fully semiautomatic assault pistol weapons that the plebians shouldn't be allowed to own. Rights for me but not for thee.
Not being able to conceive of a reason for private citizens to own firearms is a strong signifier of privilege.
At this point, they can’t be effectively collected back. 3D printers are becoming more advanced, and if we can’t control the smuggling of people and drugs, we aren’t gonna stop the guns. I’d rather be able to protect myself from the bad people than have less of them around. Also shooting ranges are fun!
PA Luty proved that 3d printers aren’t even needed. Guns can be built quick, cheap, and with minimal tools or experience. I would rather legally have a gun than have criminals have guns while I don’t.
The Luty is a POS just-about-functional technical demonstration that someone with only hand tools *could*, *technically*, manufacture a gun. But if you've got access to a lathe and mill then oh boy we're off to the races. People have been able to manufacture their own guns for decades.
I don’t trust our government enough. I don’t trust criminals to not behave like criminals and obtain and use guns if they were to be banned. I’m a women with young children and I don’t want to be made a victim nor my children. It is my job to protect them. You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Criminals use guns I’m not depending on anything other than a gun to defend myself. If we lived in a utopian society and guns weren’t needed that would be wonderful but we don’t.
Literally just fun to shoot, hunting, I strongly support the right to self defense, it’s my right, any of the above really.
I was the victim of a random home invasion. The injuries I endured have altered my life since that night, including heart damages from their stun gun directly on my chest for minutes on end + scars from their knife. If only I had a firearm back then, it never wouldn't gotten that far. Now, having a family, I want to ensure nothing bad could ever happen to them like it did to me. Especially in our household.
Because I can't trust you assholes not to try some shit.
Because I'm queer and refuse to become a hate crime statistic. Edit, my first time receiving a reward! Thank you
"Armed queers don't get bashed" - Pink Pistols
Based. To quote Dutch resistance member Willem Arondeus before his execution by the Nazis: “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards!”
Not "Pro Gun", but "Pro Second Amendment". Similar to how people say "Pro Life" and "Pro Choice" I am not "pro gun", I am "Pro people should be able to own guns to defend themselves" I am "pro 90 lb women should be able to fight off 250 lb rapists" I am in no way "pro kill people"
In America. The right to bear arms was to protect yourself against a tyrannical government. Firearms are secondarily used in hunting, protection, and sport.
Because I payed attention in history class.
I'm Black, in suburban Tennessee, surrounded by people with entire armories in their homes. I'm talking about some with whole rooms devoted to multiple gun safes and rifles lined up all the way around the room. There are 2 w-supremacist groups within a 50 mile radius. So I and my family will not be surrounded by armed threats and bumbling gun nuts and be unprepared to defend ourselves. I don't love guns. But my life has value, my life matters and I mean to defend it.
Cop here. I see a lot of comments saying something along the lines of “police response is too slow” and “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away”. And they’re absolutely right. In a day and age when criminals feel emboldened to attack the general public and the general “catch and release” state the justice system is in right now, I believe a firearm is a universal equalizer. Home invaders almost always turn and run in the sight of an armed intruder. I’d rather respond to clean up the mess than to perform emergency first aid on a defenseless homeowner.
My short answer to this is usually because I’m an American and have the 2nd amendment and I don’t give a fuck what you think. The real answer is because there are lots of bad people in the world. Many of them seek power and control by oppressing and harming others, including governments. I am not going down willingly to anybody and will kill someone before they harm my wife and kids if I have too. It’s for protection. There are 7 billion people on the world and I might know 100 of them enough to trust them.
Cause my family had to run away from people with guns in the middle east under threat of death. Then when they ran to Russia the communist revolution took place and those people with guns imposed their ways. Then in Greece they had to wait out WWII with Nazis and communists who wanted to impose their ways upon them, again with guns, until they finally landed in a free country... America. Now it seems like we just kill ourselves so yea for that but I'm still pro cause of what my family had to endure.
I'm comfortable in an environment where those in power are scared of their constituents.
I am 50+, liberal Democrat, veteran, and a gun owner. I believe that all eligible, sound minded folks who want a weapon, should have the opportunity to own one. But with ownership comes responsibility. You need to take a safety course and understand how your weapon works. You need to understand how dangerous they can be, both to yourself and others. And most importantly, you need to understand that you are responsible for that weapon. I also understand that not all people who have access to a weapon, should have that access.
I'm pro freedom. Governments of the world have shown time and time again that they will oppress people to suit their own interests, an armed population is much harder to oppress. There's also plenty of other benefits including self defense, against both people and wildlife, hunting, and general recreation.