Are you considering purchasing a gun?

please note that this is more about the act of purchasing a new/used gun than it is about general gun ownership, hence lack of "I used to own a gun but I got rid of it" options

I can't see it doing me much good, and I've read too many horror stories about kids + guns to ever feel comfortable having one in the same house with children, so no.

If lived out in the boonies and it was just me and my wife? probably.

November 9th was the first time in my adult life that I ever gave any serious consideration to the thought of buying a gun. That's where we are now, I guess.

i don't really want a gun at all, even if extreme precautions are taken the idea of my kids finding a gun and playing with it scares the shit out of me, it happens often enough that it is something i strenuously want to avoid and not owning a gun is the easiest way

xp outic otm

my brother-in-law keeps a shotgun in the house but has no ammunition, for protection in the case of a break-in the threat of a shotgun is pretty strong so i can see the logic in that.

it hasn't crossed my mind honestly

One of the first sentences my wife said to me on November 9 was "I want to buy a gun." I had already had the exact same thought.

Probably will not do it as long as we live in NYC because (1) license is very expensive and hard to get here (2) not sure my apartment has a good place to secure a gun and (3) gun as home defense in an apartment seems like a big risk of just harming your neighbors (on top of the already present risk of harming family). I also imagine that btw licensing, training, the gun and some sort of gun safe I'd be looking at a couple thousand dollar investment.

Still considering it though.

I have been considering a gun purchase since June

I thought about it very, very briefly in the days after the election, and mentioned to my wife, even acknowledging at the time that it was fear-driven and irrational. And that the most likely outcome of having a gun in the house would be me harming myself with it, either through incompetence or when experiencing low points in my depression. We both decided it would not be a good idea.

I also acknowledge that as a married white middle-class male, I am not one of the ones who needs to be afraid enough to buy a firearm. But if any of the African-American or Latino families in my neighborhood have bought one since 11/9, I would neither be surprised nor would I think it was a bad idea.

well really to be more accurate I've been considering purchasing a gun since the death of Eric Garner but I did't start talking about it until June

I think the country is absolutely becoming a more dangerous place but I don't think owning a gun ultimately makes your life safer, so no, until the government actually collapses I'm never touching a gun

and djp - especially w/r/t state condoned violence, possessing a gun *definitely* doesn't make your life safer

thank you for the patronizing advice

The gun I currently own is actually my wife's, a pistol which she purchased years ago when living by herself. She had stored it with her parents until we had a reason to be concerned that they could not safely keep it, at which point we retrieved it and brought it into our home. We benefit, at this point, from not owning any ammunition for said gun.

I have wanted more guns for years, the desire for which falls into the following two categories:

1.) I have often dreamt of taking up hunting, which would require a gun, but have not been able to take this dream seriously enough to go through with buying one.

2.) During the past several years, I've been disturbed as I watched conservatives who were wildly out-of-touch with reality stockpiling guns at every opportunity. It has occurred to me that they are now the ones who are incredibly well-armed. There is a seriously lack of balance in this regard in America. My head keeps playing out worst case scenarios to our national nightmare. God knows what is going to happen? My wife is more gung ho than I about having a gun for protection, and brought up her desire to have another gun on November 9. I still do not at this moment think I will buy another gun for this purpose, but the consideration is becoming more serious.

My mother has a safe full of my dad's guns that I can have my choice of if I want, but I don't want. Ideally there'd be some gun buyback program where I could decommission them at a profit. A small part of me wants my mother to sell them and split the proceeds with her kids, but the guns are safer right where they are, out of anybody's hands.

I also imagine that btw licensing, training, the gun and some sort of gun safe I'd be looking at a couple thousand dollar investment.

In addition to the general truth that guns actually decrease a family's safety, this has been the major impediment for me. I have home repairs that need to be done that I can't afford.

everybody's situation is different but for me personally and in the neighborhood where i live i think i would be much better served and protected by getting to know my neighbors and having them get to know me and my family

my fiancee would leave me if i bought a gun, so no

also the sheer thought of holding a gun is terrifying to me

recently began considering it, will most likely not

Wait, why would I need a gun?

to shoot nazis

i've only considered getting a gun to prepare for a collapse-of-government, mad max post-apocalyptic world. but i figure even if i had a gun in that situation i'd get killed within the first week by all the gun nuts who own .50 cal sniper rifles and machine guns and have been preparing bunkers filled with 10 year old sardine cans

i would never, ever buy a gun.

I'm down to two guns because 'gun culture' is such a cesspool it's not even fun to target shoot unless I'm the absolute only soul at a range, no plans to own more and I have no interest in them as offensive or defensive weapons. Viscerally I can understand the desire despite statistics, etc., but I'm a single adult male in a fairly low-crime area. If there's a threat to me it's in property theft of some kind (burglary or robbery) and that guy can have my iPhone or TV or whatever.

Whenever my dad dies it's going to be a nightmare selling all of his but I think they should be able to pay off the mortgage so my mom will be secure at least in terms of living arrangements.

i figure even if i had a gun in that situation i'd get killed within the first week by all the gun nuts who own .50 cal sniper rifles and machine guns and have been preparing bunkers filled with 10 year old sardine cans

otm

if life turns into a shitty action movie i will play the role of Extra #4 who gets shot through a restaurant windows and dies off camera during the first 10 minutes

trump is mandating gun ownership for every citizen I saw a very official looking faceBook post

One caveat to no more guns - I have no plans to go vegan any time soon so if the opportunity presented itself to hunt game and get out of the industrial meat system I would invest in a hunting rifle.

I would, literally, rather be deported to the gas chambers than ever own a gun.

A gun is like the home equivalent of trying to take a bath in a Yellowstone geyeser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfgfKpnTCrM

I would, literally, rather be deported to the gas chambers than ever own a gun.

I, on the other hand, would not.

yeah I'm not going willingly

voted never but yeah i could imagine some universe in which i owned a hunting rifle

Has anyone ITT considered emigrating as much as if not more than buying a gun?

yes

how i would make a living elsewhere is the Q

I get the increased desire for personal safety, but this is comparable to deciding not to take planes anymore and just drive everywhere john madden style in the name of safety. and I guess john madden is getting some emotional comfort from riding around the country in a bus, it's not like that comfort is worth nothing to him, it's clearly worth a lot. but it is still ultimately not a rational decision and you're putting your own life and your family's life in marginally increased danger to get that comfort.

guns are good and fun just don't shoot your neighbors or whatever

I am 95% sure that I'm eligible to receive German nationality because my paternal grandfather was deprived of his in 1941 by the Third Reich. Once I get that figured out and have a German passport that's basically my Plan.

In ascending order of likelihood, I have considered buying a gun, leaving the country, moving somewhere very remote and isolated, and staying put and trying to figure out how to interface positively with my immediate community while the country at large voids its bowels in a protracted death spasm.

i'm too poor to buy a gun, let alone leave the country

Honestly I feel like if the USA, aka the most powerful nation on earth by far, becomes so bad that I need to emigrate, it's hard to imagine where I'd feel confident in my safety.

and i'd be more likely to kill myself than "protect" myself or whatever
i'm white and male btw

I have to say I've also thought a lot about leaving New York City and moving somewhere much less densely populated (but still liberal).

I'd leave the country if it was an option, but that's generally been true regardless of President. I have no particular allegiance to the US as an institution.

Another thing that gives me pause about the gun thing is that it seems like it takes a lot of practice to really be able to use it effectively, like it's a big commitment. I suppose there's the deterrent effect and maybe that's more important. OTOH I also have a feeling I'd be a decent shot based on my sharp eyesight, icewater blood and skill at laser tag and virtuacop, lol.

Decided a while back I would rather be killed for my beliefs than kill for them. No.

I will never leave California

When I consider a gun as a functional tool, I do not foresee having any use for its functionality. It would be like me buying an arc welder, even though I have no need for it and no training in using it.

nah shit's performative, you know?

yes and no... about a quarter of the people I know here (moreso in my hometown but it's all Texas) have guns at least in their cars at all times, some concealed on their persons. they never talk about it unless I mention wanting to get myself a gun or go to a shooting range. I only learned one friend carried recently when I mentioned buying mace to take with me on walks in Houston and he was just like "already have a gun when I'm on the trails so don't need mace".

can't say I haven't considered buying a gun to keep at home, either, since my certainty that police are useless and will be of no help if someone breaks into my house is now a solid 100%. wouldn't even need to buy one really, just tell my relatives that I want one and they'd no doubt offer me a selection to choose from, give me one, and take me to the range for lessons.

(I haven't yet because I believe more in the math than the utility... having a gun in your house increases your chances of being shot, and I don't feel the risk from a home invasion where I currently live is a rational fear)

I have both a .22 revolver and a .22 single-shot rifle but it would take me ten minutes to dig them out and load them so not much use in a home invasion

(I refuse to keep a loaded firearm in the house)

my certainty that police are useless and will be of no help if someone breaks into my house is now a solid 100%

I think I've mentioned this before, but my town literally has no cops. There's just the county sheriff, and I only ever see their cars out when I drive to the nearest city.

If someone murders you in Oakland, they'll suggest creating an online report detailing your murder

My favorite song about this is Fred Eaglesmith's "Time to Get a Gun," in which the narrator recounts a neighbor's car being stolen as a reason to think about arming himself. But as the song goes on, it's clear that what he's really looking for is some sense of control over his life and the world that he thinks he is missing. ("I could afford one/If I did just a little less drinkin'")

Anyway, I live in a lower-mixed-income neighborhood with a fair amount of petty crime (cars will get rifled if you leave the doors unlocked), and we hear the occasional burst of gunfire. A woman got shot to death a few blocks away late one night, while waiting in drivethru for a burger at Krystal — a fight had started in the parking lot of a now-shuttered nightclub across the street and she caught a stray bullet. But none of those circumstances make me want to own a gun. My position is that I'm 55 and I've been in a lot of different settings and situations in my life, including some violence, but have never once wished I had a gun. Plus I like to make fun of all the concealed carry dorks who take their handguns to their suburban grocery stores.

I have shot guns a few times on firing ranges, including a dang machine gun, and it taught me that those things can be fun but they are dangerous as hell and I don't want them around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziQqfd-dP9U

My neighbor down the street, who is gay, told my wife the day after the election that he and his husband were buying guns and hitting the range for training.

Afaik the only people I know with guns is a hunter friend of mine and I *think* my Aussie fam, who have a rifle at their middle of nowhere farm. But of course in Australia, it's the (literally) unarmed things that will kill you.

I got into an argument a year or two back with a more (some kind of) conservative friend of a friend who said they had guns at home. I asked them why, and they said they grew up with guns. Then I asked why that meant they had to have guns themselves, and they said they were just a familiar part of their life. So I stressed again, OK, but why do *you* have guns *now*? And they said for self-defense. So I asked, self-defense from who, and they gave me a home invasion hypothetical. So then I asked them, do you really believe that if you are woken up in the middle of the night, in the dark, groggy, maybe without glasses on, in your pajamas, by someone that wants your shit badly enough that they broke in, someone who is likely armed themselves, that you could safely and quickly get to your gun, prep it (if/as needed), and defend your home? And they said yes, and I said OK (and immediately though no, you probably couldn't).

I've been in a lot of different settings and situations in my life, including some violence, but have never once wished I had a gun.

Yep.

Home invasion is everyone's nightmare scenario, but it's sooooo rare. According to what I can find, the burglary rate in the US in 2023 was 250 per 100,000 population, so that's 1/4 of 1 percent of the population. And that's all burglaries, the percentage where they break in while someone is in the house is much lower — because most burglars want to break in when people aren't home. (The one time in my life I had a home burglary — which was in the U.K., fwiw — they broke in while we were gone. Also, we were pretty sure we knew who to blame for it but couldn't prove it.)

Also, I do know one person who confronted actual home invaders with his handgun. They shot him. He survived, but not exactly a ringing endorsement of armed home defense.

I think most home invasions are fairly targeted - i.e. they know you have drugs, or they target immigrant groups that are perceived to keep large amounts of cash at home

What Tipsy says... I have some degree of fear about my house getting broken into, but I know it's irrational. Just driving my car is far more dangerous and I never even think about that risk.

To be honest, the overriding reason I haven't got a gun is that I have tinnitus and I know firing a gun would make it way worse!

You thought MBV live was loud? It's nothing compared to firing half a dozen shots from 9mm pistol!

oof very true

I was raised with guns, got a 22 as a xmas present when I was in 6th grade. I’m comfortable with them and don’t want one in my house. I don’t hunt and the idea of keeping one as self-defense where I live is ridiculous.

Shotguns are about as simple as a firearm gets but that bargain basement bullpup shotgun is terrifying. If I'm placing bets on which gun is going to misfire, blow up and take out half my face a $300 semi-auto 12 gauge is my call.

I'll never own one, because I'll never be able to outgun the 2A enthusiasts around here. They make me very nervous when they carry in the restaurant where I work. I fired a variety of long and hand guns when I was a teen, took a gun safety course, went dove hunting once, etc. One of my high school buddies bought a .357 Magnum just like Harry Callahan's (he was kind of scary in retrospect) and I fired it once on a camping trip. I was 18 or 19. I blew a can of Cheez Whiz into the next universe and it was terrifying — never touched a gun since. I let my brother and sister fight over my dad's gun collection. I said "how about having them all destroyed?" just to make them quit talking to me for a while.

i'm glad gun ownership is still a firm no for me. i don't need that kind of risk in my life. in spite of western state ancestry. including losing uncle to gun suicide. mental health issues run in the family. mace and self-defense skills seem like acceptable alternatives to me if i ever feel like i need em. that and knowing my neighbors.

To be honest, the overriding reason I haven't got a gun is that I have tinnitus and I know firing a gun would make it way worse!

When I was target shooting regularly with my dad I had to double up on plugs and earmuffs (both ~25db rated, I don't know how that combines but probably a 30-35db reduction total?) at indoor ranges to not get a headache.

Instead I just gave myself tinnitus with power tools and bad sound at teen punk shows.

Ive fired guns for recreation in my youth and had guns pointed at me in anger as an adult (thankfully not fired), and since then just being in the same space as any gun gives me a complete panic attack and I have to get away asap.

I have a law-enforcement family member who carries a pistol, and the first time he visited me I had a very difficult time getting him to understand that I wouldn’t allow a gun anywhere on my property. I tried to get him to weigh odds of a drug cartel doing an Assault on Precinct 13 to my modest suburban ranch house, versus the odds of him accidentally killing me when I get up to use the bathroom in the night because he thought he heard a prowler. All that shit just amounts to cartoonish power fantasies. I honestly feel sorry for people who truly imagine that they might someday get into a shootout and survive.

A story I heard recently for the first time. My grandma on my dad's side eventually had full-blown dementia, but earlier there was, as one might expect, a decline. At some point on the way down she was convinced someone had stolen some piece of jewelry and called the cops. They showed up and were pretty quickly able to find what was missing. She was predictably embarrassed, but told the police to wait a minute. She disappeared from the room and came back with a handgun that apparently used to belong to my (by then passed) grandpa - it used to live behind the bar where he worked - and politely asked them to dispose of it for her. She might have had dementia, but she knew she didn't want that thing around.

Another gun story. My dad was in the Air Force somewhere c. Vietnam. He was a pediatrician, so had no real threat of being shipped out, but on one of his first days on the base one of the other more tenured airmen gathered together a crew of new arrivals, some other doctors and other folks not going anywhere, and asked them if they wanted to learn how to shoot guns. It took them all just a few seconds to offer a resounding "nope."

My hunter friend, he would always tell me how difficult it was to hunt turkeys. You had to wake up in the middle of the night, you had to dress to be invisible, the slightest sound or smell could send the birds running away, and then to top it off, iirc you had to target just males, and in order to distinguish them from females you had to get close, which made all the aforementioned prep even more important. So, he would say, proudly, it's really hard work! But, I would answer, you have a gun. It might be difficult to kill specific birds in a very specific way for a very specific purpose, but if the goal is just to kill, guns don't take much thought or effort at all.

And if often got me thinking, just about every little kid knows more or less what guns are, how to hold them, how they work, probably. The same but more so for adults. So in our gun-saturated culture, what percentage of people with no training whatsoever could nonetheless pick up a gun and figure it out just enough to hurt themselves or others? Probably a lot.

your hunter friend should come to minneapolis, the turkeys here dgaf

Again, I don't think just killing turkeys is the point. There's a reason the phrase "turkey shoot" exists!

was in a room w/ a glock recently and it just freaked me out on a cellular level. it felt like standing on the ledge of a very tall building. simply not for me

Home invasion is everyone's nightmare scenario, but it's sooooo rare.

is the home invasion boogieman one of those fearmongery fads from the late 80s/early 90s? i have been thinking about the concept of home alarm systems recently because i spent more time than normal at my parents' house over the holidays, and my dad is fanatical about the alarm being set at night, and i just accept it as the natural order of life, but i bet nobody in their neighborhood has ever been the victim of a home burglary. afaik, the only time the alarm ever came into play was one time many years ago when it started going off with nobody home and the fire department was dispatched and their front door w/ axes only to find a completely empty house. my parents had to pay out of pocket to get a new door

i'd be curious to read stats on alarm system ownership broken down by age group, tho it also wouldn't surprise me if everyone who buys a new home now just gets the alarm system w/ it as if it was the same as having gutters

My parents didn't even lock the doors growing up, I didn't have a house key until I was old enough to stay alone while they were gone for a weekend or whatever. That transitioned with age until my dad had a revolver in the console of his truck for the last couple of years he was alive. (Though as someone who was super into old west mythology I think that may have played a bigger role than any actual fear.)

I met someone last week through work who has a camera/alarm that she set up to send an alert to her phone whenever someone WALKS OR DRIVES past her front door. In Brooklyn. I stg I was in the room with her phone for a few hours and it goes off literally ever 90 seconds and she would rather have that than a lick of sense.

J0rdan, my house had an alarm system that I of course didn't install or subscribe to, but it has little motion detectors and keypads and - of course - a sign in the yard.

Enough houses in my hood have those signs in the yard that I suspect most of them just have the sign and count on the neighborhood just looking like a place not worth burgling. Like herd immunity.

Another thing that occurs to me is that many people just don't have as much stuff worth stealing anymore. Mug me? Sure, my wallet is $2 and a bunch of easily canceled plastic rectangles. Break into my car? Good luck fencing 57 Cheerios and an Edie Brickell CD.

House? Wtf are you going to do with some shabby IKEA furniture and 5,000 books? I promise you the thieves have bigger TVs than mine. Our dishes are from Crate & Barrell but it's an incomplete set and anyway the pattern is discontinued.

I met someone last week through work who has a camera/alarm that she set up to send an alert to her phone whenever someone WALKS OR DRIVES past her front door. In Brooklyn. I stg I was in the room with her phone for a few hours and it goes off literally ever 90 seconds and she would rather have that than a lick of sense.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Monday, January 27, 2025 6:25 PM (twenty-four seconds ago)

yeah i forgot about ring cam culture, altho to me that feels less motivated by fear of burglary than it does our distinctly modern culture of heavily scrutinizing the actions of delivery workers

one only needs to google the words 'toddler accidentally shoots' to find out just how dangerous it is to have firearms in the house (or car)

who has a camera/alarm that she set up to send an alert to her phone whenever someone WALKS OR DRIVES past her front door

this is why I don't look at NextDoor anymore lol

I went to a local police meeting a few years back, and they reaffirmed that most burglars want the path of least resistance. Door locked? Try the next door. It's locked? Just keep moving down the block or alley until you find an unlocked one.

is the home invasion boogieman one of those fearmongery fads from the late 80s/early 90s? i have been thinking about the concept of home alarm systems recently because i spent more time than normal at my parents' house over the holidays, and my dad is fanatical about the alarm being set at night, and i just accept it as the natural order of life, but i bet nobody in their neighborhood has ever been the victim of a home burglary. afaik, the only time the alarm ever came into play was one time many years ago when it started going off with nobody home and the fire department was dispatched and their front door w/ axes only to find a completely empty house. my parents had to pay out of pocket to get a new door

i'd be curious to read stats on alarm system ownership broken down by age group, tho it also wouldn't surprise me if everyone who buys a new home now just gets the alarm system w/ it as if it was the same as having gutters

We had an ADT system for a couple of years in our previous apartment (the one we lived in for 29 years without any kind of crime incident). Our shitty downstairs neighbors got robbed; it was never solved, but the general verdict among everyone else in the building was that it was probably one of their lowlife friends who grabbed their stuff (money and jewelry, no appliances or electronics taken) during a drunken evening, or something like that. Eventually we let the subscription lapse. No one ever came to uninstall the equipment so it just sat idle - keypad on the kitchen wall, control box in a closet, sensors at the front and back doors, sticker in the front window. Still there when we moved out.

The whole scenario that this woman who lives in South Brooklyn or on Staten Island (and also is boomer-aged and also an immigrant to the US, possibly Russian if I had to guess) in a statistically safe neighborhood is getting anything out of receiving 300 alerts a day, every part of it is illogical and detestable. Her ginned-up fearfulness with no actual exposure to risk and then the generational digital illiteracy that leads her to not see the uselessness of alerts that she's not paying any attention to... lol I hate it. Anyway that's the same kind of person whose male partner swears that they need a gun to shoot home intruders.

was in a room w/ a glock recently and it just freaked me out on a cellular level. it felt like standing on the ledge of a very tall building. simply not for me

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Monday, January 27, 2025 3:07 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

other than a couple of times back when I lived in vermont, which was 10 years ago, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gun on a non-cop. I think I’d react the same way

After a childhood fascination with guns via ttrpgs, I got drunk and high with some 3Ls a couple of Fridays into law school and they took me shooting: a 12 gauge, maybe a .22 rifle, a 9mm, and a .357 or .44 magnum revolver. They had an AR-15 but I don't think we brought that. I felt so incapable of controlling the guns and their recoil it terrified me and I've never so much as held a gun in the nearly 30 years since.

I grew up in the woods south of the Twin Cities and our house was specifically targeted for a robbery, I believe by a former friend of mine, who specifically stole all of my CDs, tapes, and the component stereo system we were using which had belonged to my dead brother. My father got an alarm system shortly after that.

I understand the statistical likelihood argument but it lands very differently when the statistics haven’t broken in your favor. For most of us, the emotional response is going to overrule the logical response.

I understand the statistical likelihood argument but it lands very differently when the statistics haven’t broken in your favor. For most of us, the emotional response is going to overrule the logical response.

Given the events of the last few days, I'm less worried about people breaking in than worried about making it 60 miles to the border. I might be better off keeping a gun in my car than in my apartment.

For most of us, the emotional response is going to overrule the logical response.

logical me does not buy a gun specifically to prevent emotional me from using it.

Yeah, this is ultimately why I am not thinking about getting a gun this go-round

I've been considering weaving a balearic sling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHyK6r1Jbng

If it looks like shit is about to get really real for real, I'm much more likely to buy a cyanide capsule than a gun. I presume they can be easily procured from most major retail stores.

we have a Glock 19, we have not fired it or removed it from its lock box in several years. I am not very worried about having to use it in Philly. that said, i am glad that we have it, if only because i have paranoid visions of Christofascist martial law coming down. that these seem more likely to come true now than during the first Trump admin, which was when we bought the gun, doesn’t fill me with good feeling. still hope we can just melt it down at some point.

I have no idea what I, as one person, would do with a gun if the people who have all the guns decided they were going to do something untoward to me. It's like walking under a waterfall while holding a parasol above my head with the assumption that it's going to somehow keep me dry.

Went to the gun store while running other errands. They’d have to order the $300 shotgun; it’s popular. It would take a week. I did not order one.

No. But also a little yes. Like 1% of the amygdala. Or even if I don’t maybe look into whether any leftish groups want an instructor for people who aren’t cis white guys.

"Currently there isn’t a law anywhere in the country that would prohibit weaponizing a robot."
https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/should-robots-wield-guns-states-move-to-draw-the-line

We’ve already had a Robocop reboot, too soon for another.

The Jews already have space lasers, we need to keep up

Gun, with occasional Robot

leftist gun clubs