Decius wrote:

The legal ruling that the District's citizens can keep loaded handguns in their homes doesn't mean that they should.

Just nine of those shootings were legally justifiable homicides or acts of self-defense; guns kept in homes were also involved in 12 accidental deaths, 41 criminal homicides and a shocking 333 suicides.

In Atlanta, a city where approximately a third of households contain guns, a study of 197 home-invasion crimes revealed only three instances (1.5 percent) in which the inhabitants resisted with a gun. Intruders got to the homeowner's gun twice as often as the homeowner did.

I know a lot of people who explain their gun ownership based on the theory that they are going to defend themselves from some sort of home invasion. I think of this a bit like I think of Ralphie Parker's dreams of fending off Black Bart with his BB gun. In general, your home is not going to be invaded while you are there, and you are not going to defend yourself this way if it does happen. Shooting can be a fun hobby, but you're not John Wayne.

I would agree with that assessment, but the data doesn't back that up. Although it's hard to find credible and objective data, if you Google around, you'll find that the stats show that gun possession in homes that are invaded shows a higher percentage of thwarted attempts (ie, the owner wounds the perpetrator). From my own data points (I have a lot of friends who own guns for some strange reason), I can tell you that if it's a male, then it's likely to go well for the gun owner. If it's a female, it does not. Females, even when trained and very comfortable in using a gun, failed to use it in cases where they needed to protect themselves. Either way, I think that it's perfectly acceptable to own weapons in your home for sport, protection, or collection. Although I do have serious reservations about the TYPES of weapons owned. You can collect WW2 rifles or even historic machine guns, but there's no reason why someone should have an operational M2 or an AK47, both of which I know of several people who possess.

RE: Guns for Safety? Dream On, Scalia. - washingtonpost.com