Should I Buy a Gun?

American Thinker ^ | November 17, 2011 | John Fricke

[neverdem]

I have never owned a gun. Matter of fact, I have fired a gun a grand total of one time in my life. I shouldered a shotgun out in the north Georgia woods when I was nineteen years old and fired at a milk bottle filled with water as a target. The kick from the gun nearly tore my shoulder off, since I obviously had no clue what I was doing. I have no idea if I came close to hitting that jug.

I have never wanted to own a gun. I fish. No need to shoot fish, though I am sure that takes place. I have never been hunting. I am not opposed to it in any way; it just works out that I have never been asked to join a hunting party by my father or brother-in-law -- and considering my lifetime gun résumé to this point, that is, for their sake, likely a very good thing.

What I have done is held a pistol in self-defense. Robbed at gunpoint when I was working at a gas station off Interstate 20 east of Atlanta in 1978, I grabbed the pistol the owner kept under the counter and (for some silly eighteen-year-old-full-of-vinegar-manhood-thingy) chased the dirtbag out the door. Of course, I had already hit the silent alarm, and the next person yelling at me to drop the gun was the second person who had pointed a gun at me in the span of six minutes -- only he was wearing a cool blue uniform and waving a standard-issue .357 magnum of the DeKalb County Police Department.

So my personal, limited experience with guns is not good. Actually it's just this side of tragic. But I have considered, and now again...

[VeniVidiVici]

It would have been my “first” shotgun but I’m pretty well covered with others; revolvers are favorite - never automatics. I don’t like jams.

I bought my wife her first gun, a S&W Ladysmith in .38. Very lightweight. I thought it would be perfect for her. She valiantly hung in there for a few months at the range before she finally told me she hated it, as it recoiled too much and the trigger was too heavy.

She went the other direction than you. A Sig .380 was first and then she went to a Tomcat for a carry piece.