Are Firearms an Efficient Means of Home Defense?
This is a question so many of us have considered - should I have a gun in my home to protect my family in the case of an intruder? Many people strongly believe that this is the only option when it comes to protecting your home, but is it?When we were researching gun safety and statistics, what we found was mind blowing. In the US, 60% of gun deaths are caused by suicide. Day to day, we rarely hear about a suicide caused by guns, but we certainly hear about gun homicides - why is that? It is crazy to think about how your emotions can take control sometimes and make you do things you wouldn't typically do. While most of us couldn't fathom using a gun on ourselves, statistics show it does happen - and, I can't imagine that every single victim of suicide had intentions of doing harm to themselves.
Beyond this terrible reality, in order to really feel safe with a gun, I feel like I would have to lock it up in a place that is out of reach to children - and also have a safety on it. Doesn't that feel like a lot of steps just to get to the thing you are depending on to keep you safe when under the stress of a break in?
Then there is always the chance that the person breaking in is actually innocent - a child, a family member, you just never know. So, in using the device, you'd have to live with the fact that you may actually take someone's life - whether you wanted to or not.
Finally, because so few of us have perfect aim, and can actually shoot a target under stress, a gun just doesn't feel like a good option as safety measure.
This is why we built Salt for our family, a gun that can incapacitate an intruder, without perfect aim, but can't kill them.
What do you think about guns for home safety?
