My wife wants a handgun but......[Vanity]

May 21, 2010 | B.E. Radtke

[bjorn14]

I was having breakfast on the terrace with my wife the other day and out of the blue she says to me "I think I want a handgun but I don't want it to be able to kill someone"

My first thought was "What's the point?"

Well alot of back and forth discussion, so any suggestions/comments/advice?

[Viking2002]

Beats the hell out of me - it's on my Christmas wish list. But if she only wants to do something useless like wing the guy, five rounds of birdshot ought to be enough to at least split his lip. Or at least piss him off.

"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away, for his name is Obama."

[wvguy]

LOL! I’ve done that with my in-laws! ;-)

[HiTech RedNeck]

This would be suitably genteel, I think.

[matt1234]

Have her buy it and show it to you. Then borrow it from her long-term. It’s always good to have a second set of prints on “your” guns.

[marktwain]

“cops shoot to stop. theyre not ingrained with the intent to kill...just to stop the threat.”

Exactly. The wife's comments are not that far away from what good defensive police is. All those who made comments that indicate that you buy a gun to kill people, those comments could come back to haunt you in court.

[Billthedrill]

I dunno. But I can tell you not to do what a friend of mine did. His wife was a tiny and very sweet Filipina lady, maybe 90 pounds fully dressed. He was headed out on a deployment an didn't have a lot of time, so he taught her to shoot their .22 and said "If you ever need to, do the same thing with this 12-gauge. It's exactly the same thing."

That was fine until the day she went shooting with some friends and took the 12-gauge along. They didn't know that she didn't know. I heard the story from her later. Something about how Ron would be needing a proctologist when he got back...

[paul51]

tell her to leave the wet work to others until she is ready to defend herself

[freedumb2003]

>>cops shoot to stop. theyre not ingrained with the intent to kill...just to stop the threat.<<

And stopping the threat is usually lethal, given the best targets: the chest and head. As I said, they are NOT taught to attempt to wound. And they are taught to keep firing if the target does not stop.

[Tennessee Nana]

Dont load it ???

[EdReform]

Recommended reading:

Why the Gun is Civilization

Pacifism: The Ultimate Immorality

A Nation of Cowards

[laotzu]

There are a lot of very cool pellet guns out there.

Plinking is great fun.

[Taxbilly]

You're always one step a head of me. :) I am learning to type with two fingers so my speed should double.

[PapaBear3625]

A gun is not a magic talisman. Waving it does not necessarily make the bad guy go away, particularly if he senses a lack of willingness to use it.

Ideally, the assailant should not spend time contemplating whether you have the guts to fire. His first sight of it should be obscured by the muzzle flash.

[bjorn14]

It wasn’t totally out of the blue...we’ve had getting the handgun discussion about three months ago. The ‘hood is great but more people are transiting (not transients) through it and she sees all this bad stuff on TV and in the papers. She feels a bit uneasy, I think. This is a woman who spent 45 years in pacifist Norway who wont let you own a gun for personal protection.

[softwarecreator]

Bwahahahaha ... perfect!

[MHGinTN]

Get her a TAurus Judge and load it with bird shot ... sheesh

[JimWayne]

Get her a water pistol.

[Jeff Chandler]

Not to kill? Get her a .22!

Oh, they can kill. It's just usually not RIGHT NOW when you need your assailant dead.

[SatinDoll]

“” Not to kill? Get her a .22! “”

Dang! Guess I need a 357Magnum.

[PapaBear3625]

I thought law enforcement officers, in particular, were trained to shoot to disable, rather than kill, their targets.

Utterly false. Police are trained to shoot at center-mass (chest), and keep shooting until the perp is no longer a threat. In a practical sense, if the perp drops his weapon, then no shot need be fired. If the perp does not, then they will empty the magazine into him, reload, and re-assess.