MachIVshooter
Member
but as a deterrent to home invasion a gun is essentially useless. In fact, the more people who know you have a gun (or many guns) the more that particular layer is actually an attraction.
That depends. Where I live, a would-be criminal can bet on over 90% of homes being armed. And out here, kids learn to shoot young, so an 11 year old girl may well be just as lethal as her daddy. My buddy's daughter just turned 12, and her present was a S&W M&P 9mm (her request). Shes been shooting since age 3. My daughters are 18 months, so about halfway to their first range session.
There are also a lot of self-employed people, stay-at-home parents and home-schooled kids out this way, so unlike suburbia, you can't bet on a home being unoccupied in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. There are also a great many homes out here with 3 and even 4 generations inhabiting. I actually expect someone to be home in virtually any residence around here at any given moment. Additionally, it's pretty normal for each property to have at least 4 or 5 vehicles on it, so you really can't go off the presence or absence of cars in the driveway.
Case in point, if someone were to bust through my window right now, guess where I am? I run my business on the property. Someone could watch for me to leave, but that's no guarantee that my wife did. There's also no way for them to know if I'll be gone 5 minutes or half the day. And unfamiliar vehicles exhibiting suspicious behavior do not go unnoticed; On more than one occasion, I've left, noticed such a vehicle, and circled around to come back a few minutes later. Other times, I wasn't going anywhere, but noticed an unfamiliar car parked down the street, so grabbed the spotting scope and got vehicle description and license plates, just in case.
So while the odds of finding a gun to steal in any given home are very high here, so are the odds of being shot by one of the occupants if you break in. The chances of being noticed while engaging in nefarious activity are also very high. That, IMO, does make the gun ownership rates and general demographic a serious deterrent.
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