Two pence worth
My 2 pence worth as someone who has mixed feelings about weapons and gun ownership.
I’m originally from Costa Rica, a country with non-existent gun-control enforcement. In short, everyone’s packing. And guess what? We are now ahead of the United States in gun murders per capita:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita
I can speak from personal experience as the victim of an armed robbery at home. I was 17 years old, and I was about to drive our car out of the garage so that my mum could take me and my siblings to school. then, two masked men came out of the bushes and pointed their guns at me. They wanted the money and wanted to know who was in the house. I was surprisingly calm, but then my mother came into the garage and saw me, and she freaked out and started shouting. The robbers didn’t care, but assumed that it was all OK. We had a gun in the house; my brother got it, and waited for them to bring us in. They did and he shot one of them (not fatally).
This goes to all of you who have criticised the victims. Unless you have actually been in a gunfight, you cannot understand the feeling of disorientation and shock that fills you. It was a chaotic situation that could have gone either way. My mother was in shock, she could not move, she could not act; I have never seen such thing! Anyway, something snapped inside of me and I grabbed her and ran. No, I never thought about “rushing” someone with a gun, what a stupid idea! I just ran. My brother held the line until we were past and then we all got into a room and barricaded ourselves while calling the police.
What’s the moral of the story? That I was extremely lucky. When my brother shot the robbers I was on their sights, the fact that they panicked was the only thing that saved me, but it would have been very easy for it to go wrong. I am grateful that we had the gun, but if I had died, would my family have felt the same way?
Anyway, whenever I am in Costa Rica, I prefer to have a gun (just in case is always my motto). However, I now live in the UK, where there is a ban on gun ownership, and I have never, ever, even once, missed my gun. Why? Because I have never seen a gun and I do not feel threatened by them in any way.
So I come from both sides f the debate: I prefer complete gun ban and to live in a society with fewer guns. But if I live in a society with plenty of guns, I prefer to have one for self-defence, but I’m aware that such society will have higher violent crime rates and higher murder rates as a result. I still suffer from nightmares, and I would never wish what I went through on anyone.
