yelnad said:
My husband has a shotgun and a handgun, but I won't touch them. I insisted on a gun safe when we met, I grew up with all sorts of guns in the house, as my father, brother and grandfather were all hunters, so I'm comfortable with them around. I had plenty of opportunity to learn to shoot and never took anyone up on the offer.
They do not make me feel safer against intruders. Around here my husband uses them to get rid of critters who intrude in our garden and pick fights with our dogs (porcupines!).
Spouse and I had an interesting discussion on this the other night. We're both qualified (no longer proficient) on a wide variety of military hardware, but we don't see a reason for owning them here. (No porcupines in Hawaii...)
The night after the Mt Pinatubo eruption I sent a stakebed truck into Olongapo to look for a dozen MIA crew. We were pulling guys off the streets and one was still trapped in a collapsed building (all survived). Subic Bay was one of the PI's less "lawful" places at that time and we had quite the spirited debate about arming the rescue party before we sent them out. However none of us really wanted to carry and the party willingly went out unarmed. We didn't want to behave as ugly Americans around "defenseless" foreign citizens, we didn't trust our paranoid sleep-deprived triggerhappy officers or sailors (despite all their training on the use of deadly force), and we wanted them to focus on rescuing their shipmates. In other words we wanted them to go looking for our crew but not for trouble, even if they had to turn tail and run back to the pier for reinforcements. There were plenty of options and enough time to escalate as necessary.
I, too, am the designated "noise in the middle of the night" homeowner but we've never owned personal firearms. Spouse grew up with a 9mm Beretta but her father sold it before moving to Hawaii. Good thing, too-- she says he used to keep it locked & loaded in his nightstand and he thought the kids didn't know about it. I'm glad our kid never visited Grandma & Grandpa at their ol' homestead.
Spouse & I still feel the same way. If the hurricane flattens our neighborhood then we'd willingly share with our neighbors. If looters visited in the middle of the night then we'd point them toward the pantry and run away fast. I'd like to think that the lack of weaponry would encourage us to hunker down, stay alert, and avoid danger instead of swaggering down the street at high noon. I can defend myself with a kitchen weapon or martial arts but the more important thing is that we know how to avoid confrontation in the first place. I'd much rather behave like a scared bunny rabbit and wait for civil order to return. Hopefully that works and you don't see me on CNN coming out the front door of Wal-Mart with a towel over my head and an M-16 in my arms.
That's another issue-- there's a substantial hassle factor to owning firearms in Hawaii. We can only legally own whatever has less firepower than the police and we're required to register. The police treat you in a totally different manner at a traffic stop after their firearms database pops up your name. Too many injuries & deaths around here are facilitated by firearms instead of avoided by them. I think that if we owned a weapon then we'd feel obligated to keep the family trained & proficient, and eventually the knowledge that we were packin' heat would be used against us.
Now I'm gonna have to ask our 12-year-old how many families on the street own firearms... the kids know that stuff.