"If someone gets into your house, which would you rather have, a handgun or a telephone? You can call the police if you want, and they'll get there, and they'll take a picture of your dead body. But they can't get there in time to save your life. The first line of defense is you."
I'm really curious about how this is meant to work in large cities, where there are often lots of people living in a small amount of space, with very flimsy walls between them and so on.
Surely firing a gun in such an environment is likely to cause yet more harm (with bullets flying through windows/walls), even if you do manage to hit the intruder?
Here[1] is an example of said ammunition. The corrolary, of course, is that if something won't go through an inch wall material (most of walls are hollow, after all), penetrating inches of skin, fat, and muscle are also unlikely. I've read of some people who put the first couple of rounds using the safety slugs and then hollow-points for the rest, figuring if somebody isn't going to stop with a couple, fairly large, relatively surface wounds, then they aren't going to stop without something more serious and house mates are in danger in that situation anyway.
Regardless, before I would ever keep a gun for personal protection[2], I would make sure I have enough experience shooting it and hitting my target that my likelihood of missing at short range is exceedingly low. Stress and all that will impact your abilities, of course, but enough training can significantly reduce that risk.
The idea is that, as a general rule, people will fire the gun if the situation is pressed. Knowing that, criminals will back down when a gun is presented. It's not bluffing, just threatening.
The essence of the argument is the emotional appeal of self-defense, which makes these considerations less important. Someone facing a violent intruder in their house is not likely to think about their neighbors. They are going to do whatever they can in that moment to defend themselves.
It's a tricky one. If I fire a gun, I put everyone living immediately around me at risk. If an intruder has a weapon though, does potentially disabling him or her outweigh the risks against everyone around me?
It's something I really struggle to work out, to he honest.
I'm really curious about how this is meant to work in large cities, where there are often lots of people living in a small amount of space, with very flimsy walls between them and so on.
Surely firing a gun in such an environment is likely to cause yet more harm (with bullets flying through windows/walls), even if you do manage to hit the intruder?