Gun ownership
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And it’s not just about owning a gun, it’s about feeling the need to carry a loaded weapon around in case of a violent incident. I wonder about the intelligence, maturity, and common sense of a guy with these beliefs. He could keep his family safer by learning how to react and respond in a shooter situation, leading you all to safety, than he ever could by taking out a weapon and trying to hit the shooter… while you and your kid(s), what? Stand behind him? Run for cover like you’re supposed to and get separated from him? It’s just foolish.
ETA, yeah, what Vathena said about paranoia. Is he also big into conspiracy theories?
@Golfergal, your husband sounds super safety concious which I applaude and as mention of no kids, then fine. It’s your & his decison on how approach this. I will point out that there is literally thousands of articles on the internet about how to get around biometric gun safes, however. Both kids & intruders could read up on it. Also a lot of these safes come with a key, just case…
You also said he was like this about guns when you met, so you had a chance to decide if being in a relationship & his stance on guns was fine with you. This LW’s husband grew to be like this, so now she’s faced with a decision 6 years in & when they’ve got children.
You have to decide if you can feel satisfied that your husband is taking every precaution.
Police officers, for example, routinely carry and store guns off-duty in their homes. They are trained in proper gun use. Is your husband willing to work hard to be as safe as possible, including using a safe, going through classes, etc.?
Put your foot down if there is no scenario on Earth where you feel a gun is safe in your home (or if your husband will be sloppy or haphazard about it). He has gone this long without one, after all. It’s a reasonable ultimatum. Pepper spray is a good self-defense alternative.
Lastly: There are 300 million guns in the US (a conservative estimate), so there are LOTS of families living their lives with guns in the home safely and responsibly.
I hope you can come to a conclusion that satisfies you both.
It’s not enough for someone to be responsible. Responsible people are not perfect. They may lock up a gun or clean it safely or whatever 99 times out of a 100, but it only takes one time for something bad to happen. And it’s not like, oh, I didn’t signal I was turning, and I got rear-ended — it’s accidentally shooting oneself or others, it’s a child shooting themselves or others. In order for someone to truly be ready to protect themselves at a moment’s notice, they can’t lock up a gun or keep it unloaded. I’ve never understood that argument. If someone breaks into your home at night, if you keep your gun stored safely, you will not have time to go to the gun, unlock it, load it and then go after the person. The sort of situations a person wants a gun for protection are essentially emergencies that can’t be predicted and happen quickly. I mean, if this were the wild west, and you had time for your neighbor to run down and tell you a band of outlaws was on the way, that’s one thing. But life isn’t like that. And even cops accidentally fire weapons. Training doesn’t make one perfect either.
I also think that if a couple marries and they do not own a gun, then it’s not an automatic right for one of the partners to be able to up and decide to get one and keep it in the home. If you marry someone who owns a gun, that’s one thing. But if you marry someone who does not, and then they decide to later, then it becomes a something that the partner should get a say in.
I don’t have anything personal against guns.
But I do rage silently against people who think that a gun is going to stop a mass shooter. Again, if there’s a mass shooting–get to cover. Don’t stand there and try to shoot at the shooter. You run the risk of getting killed when the police come in. Also, I’d like to point out (as Kate did), that never once in the history of mass shooting has anyone ever shot back at the shooter. There’s way too much confusion going on to think shooting back is a viable option.
Instead of a gun, devise a plan AND practice if someone breaks into your home or attacks y’all while out. Make sure that the kids know what to do, and you know what to do. That might go a long way in easing his fears.
There are so many ways to protect the family before a gun needs to be pulled.
Just knowing where the exits are would go far in keeping you all safe. Look at a map of an event venue ahead of time. Note and sit near exits at movies and such. At restaurants, sit with your back to a wall and facing the entrance. Be prepared to run and know the most effective strategies for getting away, how to barricade in a room if you can’t get outside, how to fight back as a last resort if your only other option is getting shot…
But seriously, if he’s letting paranoia take over, that’s not good.
You have to decide if having a gun in your home, even with every safety precaution and act of responsibility taken, is a deal breaker for you. If it is, it is and you say so and tell your husband you’ll leave him if he gets one (the problem here though is that you’re still going to have to let your kids visit him and then you’re back to the problem: your kids being in a home with a gun). If it’s not a deal breaker, you hold him accountable to every safety precaution he’s promised to take. I’d be curious though why all of a sudden he feels the need for a gun, especially given our the national discourse around guns, and what that says about his values and how those might conflict or complement yours in general.
If it were me, I’d leave my husband if he got a gun and I’d do everything in my power to keep my kids out of his home. But that’s me, and I respect people’s choice to have guns and to marry someone who has guns.
I grew up with a couple of hunting rifles in the house, but I don’t think dad ever loaded them in my lifetime. Oh, I think one old WW-2 era handgun, too. More keepsakes/family heirlooms than anything. I wouldn’t mind at all if my husband had something like that.
It’s the concealed carry that would bother me, and the fact that there would be a *loaded* gun in my husband’s possession wherever he went. I don’t think I’d ever be alright with that.
It would also worry me, a lot, that my husband had suddenly become so frightened of everyday life that he felt he had to be armed at all times. Yes, with the advent of 24/7 cable news and the internet, we hear about a lot of incidents that we wouldn’t have heard of before, and yeah, it’s terrible to think of something like that happening to. you. But we don’t live in Afghanistan or Somalia. There are not daily gunfights erupting in the streets. And if you did happen to live in an area that dangerous, he’d be doing more to protect his family if he moved you out of there than by carrying a gun.
Have you noticed any other personality changes lately?
I think everyone has provided a lot of good information or things to research so that you can articulate your position. I agree that the likelihood of a mass shooter, while higher than anywhere else in the world, remains quite low. However, those who have lived through this and are gun owners almost universally say that while they were carrying they were afraid that had they pulled out their gun in order to take down the shooter- they chose not to because they would most likely be shot by any first responders.
That is a huge thing to consider. Your husband, although meaning well, would likely be risking his life if he pulled out a weapon during a mass shooting.
Not only that, but unless your husband is 100% accurate with his shots, it is likely that he could aim, shoot, miss and hit someone else. Police and military are trained to not shoot in crowds because other people get hurt. It’s happened in recent events – I think in NY when the cops shot at someone and hit bystanders. Could your husband live with that?
He couldn’t be 100% accurate. Law enforcement officers on TV are saying – in response to the idea of arming teachers – that on a clear blue day, officers hit their stationary targets with 85% accuracy. That goes down to 18% in an active shooter situation. For men and women who are trained professionals. And yeah, if they could hit their mark less than 1 out of 5 times, where are the other 4 bullets going? Not to mention, like Leslie said, if the cops arrive and you don’t have your empty hands in plain sight, they could absolutely think you’re the shooter and shoot YOU.
Not that this scenario is ever going to happen, but…
@Kate – I hadn’t heard that statistic regarding the active shooter situation. That’s precisely my point though – no one is ever 100% accurate. Not even the sharpest of sharp shooters and snipers are 100% accurate. But add in terrified bystanders and the probability that you miss the “bad guy” and kill an innocent person goes up. It’s not a chance that I’d want to take.
No it’s not, is it? Every piece you read says to get the fuck out of there to safety, grab people who are scared to run, and let the first responders do their jobs. Statistically, it will be over in 10 minutes, and you need to get away from the shooter’s line of sight and either keep moving or hide yourself in a barricaded room until it’s over. The idea of pulling out a handgun and shooting at someone with a semiautomatic rifle to keep your family safe, rather than getting them away from the shooter, is absurd.
