“If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot,” she said, laughing. “I probably should not have said that. My staff will deal with that later.”
I feel like this a cultural thing because that sounds wild to me.
The penalty for burglary where I am is not death, nor am I a judge or executioner.
We’ve been broken into a lot and it’s usually just some poor asshole who wants to steal things to buy meth. It’s horrible and scary and feels like a massive violation but shooting someone in that scenario just feels like straight up murder.
When someone breaks into your home you don’t have much of an opportunity to figure out why. Many times the reason is not to steal things and buy meth. Sometimes it’s to hurt, rape, or kidnap someone. Why take that chance?
You might be picturing someone slowly walking up and executing a pleading, weaponless burglar in cold blood. In reality these things happen with mere seconds to make a decision about the safety of you and your family. Again, Why take the chance?
If you’re breaking into a house, getting shot is a calculated risk you have chosen to take. If it happens, it’s only your fault. You had the choice to not put yourself or anyone else in harm’s way, and you chose the other option.
When someone breaks into your home you don’t have much of an opportunity to figure out why.
My thoughts exactly. “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote is a true story about burglars who came to steal and ended up murdering a whole family. Awful thing to experience. Great book though.
The bigger problem is that people who buy guns for home defense are acting emotionally, not logically. The cold hard statistical truth is that if you own a firearm, it is most likely to be used by yourself or one of your family members to commit suicide, or to be the cause of a fatal accident, than it is to be used in self defense.
People have this deeply flawed belief about suicide that if someone wants to do it, they’ll find a way. But that isn’t how suicide actually works. Most actual suicides are spur-of-the moment things. And giving someone access, in their, home, to a quick and usually painless method of ending their own life serves to massively increase the risk of suicide. Everyone has bad days. Everyone who lives long enough and isn’t a psychopath will experience deep sorrow. In a drunken sorrow on the night after a bad breakup or the death of a close relative? It doesn’t take much for people to be vulnerable to the call of the void.
Yes, break-ins are scary. But the truth is, most thieves try NOT to break in when someone is home. And home invasions for rape, murder, or kidnapping are even rarer. There are a lot of scary things in this world, but you shouldn’t let that fear control your behavior. Rabies is a damn terrible thing, but it would be incredibly irrational to avoid going on a hike just due the risk of encountering a rabid wild animal.
In the US at least, if you own a gun, it is far, far likelier that that weapon will be used to end your life or life of one of your family members than it will end be used in self defense.
This is why I do not own a firearm. Yes, home invasions are terrifying. But if you own a weapon for the sake of home defense, you are letting your emotions and fear control your life. The simple statistical fact is that, on the net, buying a gun lowers your average expected lifespan.
