The NRA 2008 Firearm Salesman of the Year...

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I own a gun for self defense because I would have a hard time repelling an invader due to mild cerebral palsy on one side. I also own a gun in case there is a big earthquake or some other form of civil unrest (the area I live in isn't that nice). If I intend to come out on top of any such emergency, I'd need a gun.

The several reasons for owning a gun are highly dependent upon being justified by excellent reasoning abilities in a crisis situation. The petite pretty girl who has been primed to defend herself in a bad situation by previous bad experiences has a good chance of injuring or killing someone mistakenly by misinterpreting an innocent intent. Fear obliterates reason. The police frequently shoot innocents.I wouldn't trust myself with a gun. It's just too powerful an instrument.

I have lived in New York during its worst crime rate and spent time with black friends in Harlem (I am white), marched with CORE in Tennessee in the early 1960's and had a cross burnt on my lawn by the KKK, been in Israel during the 1967 war and later visited deep into the West bank with Arab friends, lived in Berlin when it was isolated by the Russians in 1962 and was under siege, and never needed or wanted a gun. Maybe I was extremely lucky or maybe I saw the world through different eyes.

Haliphron:

It's a crappy reason because if someone has a firearm simply to defend themselves, they tend to think of it as a cure for any situation. Your lady friend has a pistol, GOOD. She probably should, it's a crappy world. I'm all about owning firearms for pretty much any reason.

But when people who don't like firearms buy them for self-defense, they do so with a warped view of the weapon itself. They tend to not practice, not mentally prepare, they just grab the weapon while they're scared and shoot. They think life will turn out like "The Brave One" or something.

People who enjoy using firearms, they practice, they clean them, they handle them enough to feel comfortable. Firearms are like any other tool; if folks don't use them often, they don't often do what they're supposed to. The way I see it, if "ammo cost" isn't an entry in your monthly budget, you probably shouldn't be carrying a weapon for self-defense.

It's your choice, but a skill with a pistol is like any other skill. Practice makes perfect, no practice makes things worse.

T-Rav20:

I'm with you, man. As long as we aren't talking about killing people, or *doing* dangerous things with our firearms, they ought to leave us alone. We aren't hurting anyone, why does it matter what we do with our money, on our time, out of their way?

Sand:

Good for you, you made it through some tough s*** and lived to talk about it. That's cool, and it's good that you see a way for people to exist without needing weapons.

But why don't you focus more on removing the reasons we feel we may need to defend ourselves, and less on taking our firearms? And guess what? If we don't feel threatened, our actions and mannerisms may reflect that, and we'll simply be the folks down the street who go out shooting once a week, and give out elk steaks once a year.

You are definitely *not* lucky if you were in all those places at those times. You've probably got some of the worst luck in recent memory. If you believe in luck, anyways.

Honestly, I have held and used a .45 Calibre Revolver....and i'm glad in my country people cannot easily aquire one to carry around, sure it was black powder, but if a proper cartridge loaded is more powerful it makes me slightly scared at the thought that someone could decide the fate of another human being, a person who could be misunderstood, merely scared or truly insane, I fired 12 shots, down at targets, but it didn't feel good, it didn't feel good because I thought that if I shot that at a person i'd leave a massive atomic structure lifeless, mindless, empty, with a dead brain comes utter nothingness and its then that you realise that you were too late. I have also used a .38 Winchester, a fine mechanical device, but that is where it ends, I find guns fascinating as pieces of technology, but their function makes me feel far more malicious than I should, i'm glad Obama is anti-gun and anti-nuclear weapons, we don't want another Bush now do we