gun at the ready while home

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I keep my carry gun on me or in arms reach always. Before I had kids I always kept a 12 gauge pump shotgun by my bed but because I've got a house full of crazy little boogers now I keep a handgun on me or in my direct line of sight. I live in a quiet suburban neighborhood where nothing ever happens but I don't go to the mailbox without a firearm. I'm not paranoid at all, just realistic .
 
Three handguns hidden in various locations in the house, a wall rack with a SxS 12 ga, an AK with a 40 rd. mag, and a .357 GP-100 hanging from it next to the bed, plus some "non-firearm" weapons available for - - -. :D
 
Stashing weapons around the house would not serve me well. They would be more difficult for me to access than a firearm on my person, they would be accessible to others, and I would have to strap on my carry piece wen leaving the house and handle it when returning.

My pistol stays on me.
 
I do keep a dedicated home defense gun in my FAS1 safe that is bolted to my bed frame. I don’t stash other guns around the house because I always have my .380 in my pocket when home.

I do have customers with multiple quick access safes mounted around their homes. Seems pretty common and I do know one guy that has 8.
 
My grandpa always had his 38 in his pocket, hip, or on his end table next to his chair. No one ever called him paranoid. But my wife calls me paranoid for doing the same. If my pants are on I’m armed. Pants off something is within arms reach.
 
I really like this pic ...

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... it just feels, um, comfortable to me. :)
 
I'm just not sure about the intimidation factor of a knife of any size, regardless of how it's held to a bad guy with a gun. A good guy with a gun has to worry about the law and the complications that shooting someone with a contact weapon can bring. They might hold off and try to get the knife-wielder to give up or leave. A bad guy has no such concerns and can start blazing away as soon as they see something that worries them at all.

At the most basic level, there are three scenarios of a defender armed with a knife against a single attacker.
1. Attacker unarmed.
2. Attacker armed with a contact weapon.
3. Attacker armed with a gun.

My assessment (for me) is that two of those scenarios have a huge potential for a negative outcome--even if I survive, the chance of serious injury is very high. The remaining scenario is less horrible, in terms of the likelihood of serious injury, but still not great.

Then we get into the possibility of there being multiple attackers and that makes me even less enthusiastic about my chances of not going to the hospital or the morgue.

Everyone looks at things differently (not that the actual reality is necessarily that different--I'm just saying that risk assessment is generally fairly personal) but my personal feeling is that while I like knives, have decent self-defense knives and always have a knife handy, I would never put myself in a situation where I was relying on a knife as a self-defense weapon over a handgun.
Well thought out.

But you plays your odds as you sees 'em.

Let me put it this way. The intimidation factor of not having a knife in your hand is zero. The intimidation factor of having a knife in your hand is not zero, regardless of the armament of the attacker.

As a crippled, but armed, poster on another board has said, "I may not win, but I'm going to be a real pain in the ass for a minute or so."

I'm not recommending a knife for defense. I'm saying, like others have said, in extremis, use anything that comes to hand as a weapon... a letter opener, a stapler, a ball point pen, a frying pan, whatever.

Better, it should be a 10" kitchen knife. And at less than two bucks apiece, I could afford to salt a bunch of them around the house. (Some on high, for the "hands up" situation..)

"I would never put myself in a situation where I was relying on a knife as a self-defense weapon over a handgun."

That sounds like a conclusion to refute my argument, when that was not my argument.

Terry, 230RN

Edited for housekeeping.
 
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I don't know if this attitude is widely shared, but I am horrified by the idea of being cut and would have to think pretty hard about whether I'd rather be in a knife fight or a gun fight. A big part of the reason I signed up for instruction in knife fighting is that I am so intimidated by it.
 
I don't know if this attitude is widely shared, but I am horrified by the idea of being cut and would have to think pretty hard about whether I'd rather be in a knife fight or a gun fight. A big part of the reason I signed up for instruction in knife fighting is that I am so intimidated by it.
I take anticoagulants. A slight cut would be fatal.
 
I take anticoagulants. A slight cut would be fatal.

I am sorry to hear that, Kleanbore. A number of my older patients come in to the hearing clinic covered with bruises and band-aids, and of course we know why. I am sure the thought of fighting with a knife must be even more horrifying for you than it is for me.
 
It's a rare time indeed, when I don't have one within reach, usually on me. Even in PJs, I take it back out with me to watch TV or whatever, and lay it on the table next to me. In the sticks now, but spent a lifetime in the Detroit area. Those memories don't fade.
 
Let me put it this way. The intimidation factor of not having a knife in your hand is zero. The intimidation factor of having a knife in your hand is not zero, regardless of the armament of the attacker.
I agree that a knife defense is preferable to a bare-handed defense and that a knife will be more intimidating than having no knife.
That sounds like a conclusion to refute my argument, when that was not my argument.
Ok, I went back and re-read your initial post again to see if I had jumped the track somehow.

What got me thinking you were advocating knives over firearms was this comment:
Besides, as the saying goes, knives are useful for fighting your way to a handgun, and handguns are useful for fighting your way to a rifle, which is useful for fighting your way to a shotgun.
It’s worthwhile to note that defensive encounters don’t seem to frequently involve “weapon upgrades”. Usually a non-LE defender ends up using the first weapon available, rather than fighting to a better one, then maybe to an even better one, etc.

So does it make sense to set up a defensive situation so that a knife is the first weapon will likely be available instead of a handgun? I certainly wouldn’t do that if I had a choice. Rather than stashing knives for use in self-defense, stashing handguns would be a superior strategy. Carrying a handgun would be even better yet—it’s always within reach, always in exactly the same place, and you only need one, (or maybe one plus a spare in the safe in case something happens to the one you're carrying and you don't want to have to wait while you buy another one).
 
I’m in my bedroom right now and there’s a 38 revolver next to my bed, a Remington Tac14 12ga next to the nightstand and a SBR AR 15 within arms reach. And that’s not counting the other 15 or so guns that are not loaded, in my bedroom. The rest of the house is well armed.
 
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