Not that I agree with the person you're replying to, but it makes some sense. (caveat: i'd never confront an intruder without my life or my families life in danger.)
Guns have hosts of failure modes, and require specialized knowledge on their operation to ensure safety. Guns can even fire accidentally, with an accidental discharge on dropping the firearm being a possibility on any gun without a firing pin block (which is practically any long gun, the kind you can buy at Walmart in some states, with no waiting period in some states). A poorly handled gun may shoot in a totally unpredictable trajectory, and a first time user would be unlikely to consider collateral damage. (Nursery behind the attacker?)
A knife mishandled usually leads to non-life-threatening self-injury. A knife can be dropped, but will only damage those around it that are wearing inappropriate footwear. A knife has very few mechanisms, and only has as many mechanical failure modes as there are gimmicks on the knife; with some having zero mechanical failure modes possible besides faults that are metallurgical in nature. A knife can be wielded poorly with zero training; a first time gun user may never find the safety without assistance, let alone loading and reloading. A knife results in very low collateral damage.
Basically : I'd rather put a limiter on a novice in combat than give him or her weapons in which they put themselves and their family in even greater danger by their own naivety. With proper training, a gun will be the best choice; my personal problem with that decision is that I've met very few properly trained gun enthusiasts that treat firearms with the respect they need to be handled with, and that's not to say I know very few of them.
This comment made me get off my ass and remember my YC login. Your post parses correctly, but what you're saying doesn't really correspond with reality.
> Guns can even fire accidentally, with an accidental discharge on dropping the firearm being a possibility on any gun without a firing pin block (which is practically any long gun, the kind you can buy at Walmart in some states, with no waiting period in some states).
Poppy cock. Modern firearms don't just go off [0]. It is true that many long rifles and shotguns don't have a firing pin block. They have hammer blocks instead (the difference being a firing pin block is activated when the shooter grasps the grip, while a hammer block prevents the hammer of pin from making contact with the cartridge until the trigger is actually pulled). Most firearms incorporate multiple safety systems.
Furthermore, every firearm made in America in the last century has been certified as drop safe. The test is that the gun is dropped from a certain height (I think it's 39 inches) onto a concrete floor, with the hammer back and a round in the chamber - ie the worst case 'I was about to shoot something but butterfingered and now my live firearm is falling to the ground." That was instituted by firearms manufacturers after a spate of bad press when a factory defect meant a batch of Colt 1911's could fire if dropped with a round in the chamber (for those interested, the problem was with the strength of the firing pin spring; after several thousand rounds were fired through the weapon, the tension on the spring would be low enough that it could be over come by inertia). The 1968 Gun Control Act made drop testing mandatory.
> A poorly handled gun may shoot in a totally unpredictable trajectory, and a first time user would be unlikely to consider collateral damage. (Nursery behind the attacker?)
Yes, and an orphanage across the street in case you miss popping your own kid.
Here's the thing - everything you're saying is based on some pretty big assumptions that just aren't true. A study conducted back in 2007 by the Force Science Center where people who had never fired a hand gun before were put through simulated gun fights found that "naive shooters ... are amazingly accurate in making head shots at close range." [1] Point and shoot is something we humans tend to do really really well.
The biggest issue you aren't considering is that the biggest advantage of a gun is that you just have to have it. Power isn't shooting someone accurately - it's bringing a gun to a knife fight. Having a knife means you have to close to the target to engage - having a gun means I can stand back and project power.
[0]There are cases where guns will fire accidentally. These are extraordinarily rare, and are generally due to trying to use an unmaintained firearm in a way it isn't supposed to be.
>You think you need a gun in order to kill a would-be assailant.
No. A gun also scares them off - and much better than a knife. A gun is an equalizer. Is an 85 year old lady with a knife going to be threatening to some young thug? Not likely. Will an 85 year old lady holding him at gunpoint be scary? Very.
I think the GP's point is - if the assailant expects the homeowner to have a gun, he'll bring his own with him. Now you have two guns on the scene (the escalation GP mentioned), which seems to me to be strictly worse than having no guns on the scene, only if because it's easier to kill someone in a panic with a firearm than with a meelee weapon.
Did you read the story? The woman held a 17 year old kid (who was already "cowering in a corner") at gunpoint.
"Smith made the burglar call 911 as she kept her firearm pointed at him."
We're always hearing stories about "responsible gun owners". Well, how responsible is that? It's basically guns 101 that you don't point unless you intend to shoot. Luckily she didn't end up killing the kid, but it could quite easily have happened.
tl;dr - the point of a weapon in this situation is to project and multiply force, not to kill. Firearms are the best means of doing so.
> You think you need a gun in order to kill a would-be assailant. The OP says he used a knife to scare them off. I know which I prefer.
I guess the point I'm trying to make and I should have phrased this more clearly, is that the primary purpose of having a weapon in this situation (either as a criminal or in the case of home defence) isn't to kill someone - it's to project force. Guns and knives are both force multipliers, it's just that a gun is much more efficient and therefore a much better force multiplier. The point isn't to kill someone, it's to coerce them with the threat of force to do what you want them to.
OP was making that threat when he scared off his home intruder(s) by holding out a knife and 'leaving them an exit' - in essence he was saying "leave my home or I will use potentially lethal force on you." The situation doesn't fundamentally change if OP is armed with a knife or a firearm; it's just the strength of that threat is greatly increased.
Another way to look at this - if OP and his assailant are rough equals in terms of ability to do harm to each other, it doesn't matter if OP has a knife or a gun, as long as he has one or the other. Anything that amplifies his ability to enforce his threat of force should be enough to tip the balance of power is his favour (assuming a rational adversary). Guns only become necessary or useful when there's a disparity between the assailant and the now hypothetical OP. There's a moderately well known case in America where a Texas woman's home was being attacked by two men (it turned out they wanted to steal her husband's prescription painkillers). Her ability to coerce these men without a weapon was extremely limited. However, she had a firearm, and was able to stop the attack through the threat, and use, of force.
> I think the American style of "bringing a gun to a knife fight" just escalates everything.
I mean, you're right. The problem is that a) things have escalated, and b) de-escalating it would mean deep systemic changes to the American Constitution and the perceived balance of power between the State and the Citizen. The reasoning behind the 2nd Amendment is two fold - first it's to provide for common defense in the form of a State militia, which is largely a moot point in this country. The second, and this is a bit controversial, is to provide citizens with a means of resisting the Federal government in the event of tyranny. One would think this would be a moot point as well, in a country that spends an obscene amount of money on its armed forces, but it has moral significance - saying that at the last, the citizen is responsible for the protection of their own liberty, and preserving the means of that protection. </rant>
In my case standing back with a knife seemed to project enough power to convince the intruders to leave (3 people the first time and 2 the second time).
> The biggest issue you aren't considering is that the biggest advantage of a gun is that you just have to have it. Power isn't shooting someone accurately - it's bringing a gun to a knife fight. Having a knife means you have to close to the target to engage - having a gun means I can stand back and project power.
Brandishing isn't something a gun is for, i'm sorry. It's an extraordinarily bad idea to use a gun as a tool for threatening a would-be attacker for both your health, and your legal well-being.[0][1]
> Furthermore, every firearm made in America in the last century has been certified as drop safe.
Single action revolvers have absolutely no safety other than the geometry of their design to prevent accidental discharge and (sometimes) an external safety. Here is the first list of them I found for sale readily on google.[2]
Here's a list of de-certified firearms [3], I'd like you to notice the amount of modern guns de-certified just last year for sale for being deemed unsafe (for these varied reasons[4]). I apologize for the CA-centric data, it was just easiest to find.
Competition shooting pistols often have absolutely no safety devices at all, and plenty are manufactured within the United States.
Many pistols are heirloomed or sold privately, those pistols are not required by law to conform to any safety standards, and can be sold indefinitely. Their high value nature aids the used gun economy, another incentive to have a gun sans modern safeties.[4 :relics and curios/heirloom footnote]
> Poppy cock. Modern firearms don't just go off [0].
Well, here's a blog post with enthusiasts arguing over that.[5] I have a few guns that were left to me by the deceased, but I am by no means an enthusiast.
Here's a blog-post that used wording similar to yours regarding the last century, but he describes drop-safe guns as 'a vast majority' rather than 'every', further explaining about which (modern) guns are never drop-safe.[6]
Now, let me say that I sincerely hope that someone who is going to take the effort to arm their house with a gun will do the homework to figure out a safe firearm to do so with, and with the proper training; but we don't live in that world. People will grab something convenient, just like anything else in life. That means cheap, old, or a knock-off.
Guns have hosts of failure modes, and require specialized knowledge on their operation to ensure safety. Guns can even fire accidentally, with an accidental discharge on dropping the firearm being a possibility on any gun without a firing pin block (which is practically any long gun, the kind you can buy at Walmart in some states, with no waiting period in some states). A poorly handled gun may shoot in a totally unpredictable trajectory, and a first time user would be unlikely to consider collateral damage. (Nursery behind the attacker?)
A knife mishandled usually leads to non-life-threatening self-injury. A knife can be dropped, but will only damage those around it that are wearing inappropriate footwear. A knife has very few mechanisms, and only has as many mechanical failure modes as there are gimmicks on the knife; with some having zero mechanical failure modes possible besides faults that are metallurgical in nature. A knife can be wielded poorly with zero training; a first time gun user may never find the safety without assistance, let alone loading and reloading. A knife results in very low collateral damage.
Basically : I'd rather put a limiter on a novice in combat than give him or her weapons in which they put themselves and their family in even greater danger by their own naivety. With proper training, a gun will be the best choice; my personal problem with that decision is that I've met very few properly trained gun enthusiasts that treat firearms with the respect they need to be handled with, and that's not to say I know very few of them.