The thread is going surprisingly well except for a few rather dumb comments recently.
Yes I do own a handgun, but its an older one and mostly just here for sentimental resons. I have no ammo for it.
I have considered getting a shotgun to ahve for home defense or even a pistol just for target shooting. I'd like to think that if we had concealed carry laws in IL that I'd carry every now and then when I go somewhere that I feel less than safe. Honestly I think those who can and do carry are helping to protect those around them. For me though my palm pilot gets in the way so with a gun would be real akward.
I'd urge anyone to not be afraid of coming to the us. Maybe its just living here in the midwest but our schools have no metal detectors or kids shooting each other. I just got out of high school 3 years ago and never did I feel unsafe as far as someone with a gun. As far as shooting here, the most recent in my mind was some guy going into the hospital threatining people with a gun. The police came, he wouldn't drop the weapon and they shot him in the parking lot. I'm sure there have been others more recently than that but they aren't as innocent as some guy walking down the street and getting shot for his wallet. They are more like drug related in bad neighborhoods, so unless you're a crack dealer in the bad part of town you're probably safe.
I work in a bit of an unsavory area though I'll admit. One of our employees had his car stolen not too long ago. A few days ago I was walking back from the local mcdonalds through a parking lot. The guy walking nearly parallel to me kept looking at me and then looking all around as if looking to see if someone else was around. Its very possible that I was over reacting, but I tend not to do that and it was truly suspicious looking. I altered my course and avoided intersecting path's with him. Had he changed direction to follow me there would have been little I could do. He could have outrun me and might have had a weapon where running had done me no good. I would have felt considerably safer in that situation had I known that I had a good method to defend myself if necessary.
This has gotten alot more long winded than necessary but I guess there is a central point. Are you willing to potentially die to prevent your neighbor from having a gun? If it comes down a situation where someone would take my life, I would do everything I could to preserve my own, using whatever tools I had available.
So antigun people, put yourselves in someone's shoes in a bad situation. You're the dad in a family of 4. You live in a house with your wife and 2 children. You hear the sound of glass breaking late at night. You silently slip out of bed and begin to search the house as quietly as possible. You work your way through the dark house back to your bedroom. You see 2 shadowy figures inside the darkened room. Suddenly a gruff voice tells you to come into the room or he'll harm your wife. You enter the room as instructed and you see the robber has a gun. At this point there are so many possible ways this could go. What if he tied you up and raped you wife? What if he killed you all after robbing the house so you couldn't identify him? The scenarios are endless. You've seen the gun. The robber has threatened violence. At this point you could either be the guy who has a handgun and slipped it into his pajama pants pocket before he entered the room. Then you might be able to save your family. Or you could be anti-gun and allow whatever happens to your family to happen.
Now I know that probably isn't near the best example in the world, but its late and I'm tired. The point it, at some point in time your safety or the safety of those you love could depend on you being able to defend yourself. If you choose not to have a gun that is fine, but do you feel as though you should be able to tell someone else they cant defend their loved ones?