Spear gun and pole spear as a self defense weapon?

[Storker]

Now that we have slipped into this slippery slope of topics, I must inform everyone that I am not comfortable leaving a thread that can possibly cause excessive division. I feel it is my responsibility to ask those that can help, to join me in restoring some tranquility and solidarity as divers.

I don't know about others, but at least I am really, really uncomfortable seeing a thread on using guns on people in a forum for hunting. I'm a hunter, and for me killing or maiming people ≠ hunting. Humans aren't game. You might consider asking to have the thread moved to a more suitable forum, like the Pub.

BTW, there's a couple more things about this thread that creeps me out. Really creeps me out:

1. The use of dehumanizing rhetoric. That's the rhetoric of the Holocaust, of the Rwanda genocide, of ISIS. It's not the rhetoric of a civilized society. It's up to you to decide whether you think you live in a civilized society.
2. The fixation on high-violence crime.

Is your country really so dangerous that you have to walk around armed and ready, gun cocked and locked? To me, that sounds like a state of war. Is the US a more dangerous country than Syria? Are home invasions really that common in your neighborhood that you have to count on them as a realistic risk, on par with or above stuff like home fires, traffic accidents and the occasional personal fcuk-up? If so, I pity you (the general 'you') and would suggest another neighborhood. If not, I pity you (the general 'you') and would suggest psychiatric counseling.

 

[phlegm]

Let me take a wild guess, you have never hunted for you own food. You probably think it is barbaric and ****ing weird. Buying plastic wrapped meat full of chemicals at the store is so much more civilized.

hahaha how is this even remotely relevant? are you equating hunting game with killing intruders?

as storker pointed out, people aren't game, and now I think it's a little disturbing that you'd draw that comparison...

(btw, your assumption is dead wrong anyway, I've got no beef (heh) with hunting for your own food (humanely) and think that's far preferable to buying mass produced meat - but again, this has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the thread)

 

[Storker]

I'd swear you are trying to be sarcastic

Congratulations, you got that, at least.

for the life of me I can't see how anything in this thread is about some selfish motive you are attributing to me

You really don't get it, do you? I'm not attributing any selfish motive to you. I'm attacking your hypocritical 'concern' for 'gun-fearing libruls' to hide your own psychopathic tendencies to dismiss the humanity of other people, effectively using the same rhetoric that has been used for centuries to motivate genocide.

I think it has to be, because I can't think of many things more horrifying, than hearing that a Home Invasion just happened to someone that I care about. For that matter, it would be horrifying to hear about this happening even to some of the people that love to pull my chain on SB.

There are a lot of horrifying things happening in the world. However, if you fixate on those horrifying things, it's easy to end up in a rather neurotic state. You might consider counseling.

Personally, I use a rational analysis of risk, which is a function of consequence and probability. Yes, the consequences of a home invasion are terrifying. But what's the probability? Pretty darned slim in any neighborhood I'd even consider moving to. I and, I'm pretty convinced, most normal people, run a greater risk of being run down by a drunk driver, or dying from cancer, or my SCUBA tank blowing up in my face next time I'm filling it, or a lightning bolt setting fire to my home, or a meteorite hitting me in the head turning me into a quadriplegic, than experiencing the type of home invasion scenario you gun jerkers are painting. The probability of that is effectively zero for anyone not living in a high-violence ghetto or a war zone.

I see the 'irrational fear of guns' argument thrown out regularly by gun jerkers. Myself, I believe most gun jerkers are living in a state of permanent, irrational fear of people. I've lived for a year in a city that's on the list of the ten most dangerous cities of the USA, and I never ever felt the need to arm myself. I just took normal, rational precautions to avoid violent crime. And of course I chose not to live in a crack house in the 'hood.

The risk of being hit by a drunk or inattentive driver, though, was pretty high on my worry list. Because, you know, probability.

 

[vincent54]

For example, in 2005, approximately 2.5% of households
experienced a household burglary victimization
(http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cnh05.pdf) while the
current report estimates a rate of 3.2 household burglaries per
100 households (32 per 1,000 households), including ones in
which violence occurred.

Statistically, your chance of having a home invasion is greater than the risk of being killed by a drunk driver(1 in 100,000)NHTSA.
At least, in the USA.

 

[Wayward Son]

here's the thing about self/home defense:

It's highly personal. Everyone has to decide what they think is best for them. If you think that's doing nothing, OK. Your choice, I'm not going to argue with you about it *for you*, but I will argue about it if you try to figure out a way to force that choice down my throat. I'll decide for myself what's best for me & my family.

 

[mjrob]

I keep my spearguns in the safe with a bunch of my other kind of guns. If it says "gun", I figure I'll treat it that way. I do keep one (the bullet kind) nearby (or on me) all the time. To get back to somewhere near where we started: personally, I find a loaded speargun to be much less "stable" than a properly stored and loaded handgun.

We had a punk kill a bunch of innocent shoppers at a mall here a few years ago and I can assure you that carry permits increased dramatically after that. We've had a couple of other like issues that have reinforced that and folks seem to pay attention now. I did notice that the punk at the mall ignored the "no weapons" signs on the doors, failed to return to his car and leave his weapon there and go about his shopping. Don't tell anyone, but I ignore those signs, too. Just seems fair.

I don't ever, ever expect to shoot anyone and 99.99% of people who own guns will never, ever shoot anyone either--nor do they want to. But I can tell you that, if some punk starts shooting and I don't have a gun, I sure hope someone near me does. And yeah, if you break into my house, your chances of lead poisoning ratchet up exponentially.

Your mileage may vary, and that's OK by me.

 

[Max Speed]

Humans were on the open season for hunting list last week in France. It seems that French gun control laws were ignored by the bad guys. I imagine that the staff at the paper wished desperately they had something other than office supplies to defend themselves with.

 

[drmwc]

My house was broken into once while I was in. I slept through the entire episode. The thief got around £50, a leather jacket and a VCR. In retrospect, I'm not unhappy that I stayed asleep. (I have also slept through an earthquake in Japan - it takes a lot to wake me.)

Mind you, I live in England, and I suspect home invasions where the perpetrator wishes harm on the homeowner and their family are incredibly rare. Simple robberies are far more common. I'm not sure what would have happened if I had woken up.

I was also mugged 5 times at around the same time - I lived in quite a poor area. Each time, I gave up £10 to £20 and managed to keep my wallet. There was no violence - merely the treat of violence. (Most of the muggings were at knife-point.) Again,looking back I'm quite glad that these events weren't more serious.

 

[uncfnp]

If it happened on a regular enough basis to be a real concern, I move to another neighborhood.

If it didn't, the risk was way down there in the range of being struck by lightning, and I still worried about it, I'd get some psychiatric counseling to cope with irrational fears.

Couple of things. I hope this is not moved to the pub since I think it has some valuable thoughts and information and that the posters can keep it civil. The thread is about home protection, not guns per se. But any discussion of home security will inevitably involve the discussion of guns.

To Storker,

I respect your view point but trying to leave some of the rhetoric on both sides behind, let's look at it from my prespective.

Look at my avatar. You probably won't find a bigger Bambi lover then right here. But I am also a realist. If there was a Utopia and I could afford to live there... But there isn't and I don't.

The reality is that violence does happen, even to good people. I have not been and do not intend to be a victim. I take responsibility for myself. If my world did not have guns, then yes I probably would not arm myself either. But guns exist and I act accordingly and responsibly.

 

[letterboy]

Using a weapon to defend ones self should be a last resort.

In most cases you can out smart the criminal. Otherwise they would have a good job like yourself, right.

I am a proponent that entry level weapons training classes should focus more on de-escalation of violence vs use of weapon systems to defend ones self.

The most powerful weapon one can have is their brain. Limitless.

Shooting someone/killing someone is not an easy thing to endure.