My local police department has a handout on safeguarding your house, and owning a gun isn't on the list. In fact it's discouraged. Maybe because, as the Brady campaign argues fairly convincingly, your gun's most likely victim is you. And I'd add to that my doubts that an amateur could get the better of a well-trained criminal, in a shoot-out.
On the other hand,
The 34-year-old mother of two grabbed a shotgun that had been pointed at her face early Wednesday, starting a struggle that ended with one intruder killed with his own weapon and another in the hospital.
I'm grateful to all the people who do keep guns in their homes -- 50% of homes have guns, so they say -- for acting as a deterrent, providing that small but definitely non-negligible and fatal occupational risk all burglars run. I suspect that in the absence of that deterrent, there would be many more burglaries.
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