Home Carry—carrying a gun at home—is patently ridiculous. Make that dangerous. When you Home Carry you carry a gun at home. At home! A gun! A gun that fires bullets! That could hurt someone! A gun could hurt someone! Sure the risk may be small that your home carry gun would shoot you or your loved ones. But it could happen. You could drop it. Someone could take it from you and use it against you. What about suicide? A kid could take your gun from your holster and BAM! shoot themselves. Or they could fool around with it and shoot a friend or a sibling or your spouse or you or everyone! That’s right, everyone could be killed in a murder suicide. Clearly, Home Carry’s just not worth it. But try telling that to a gun rights advocate. You need more rhetorical firepower. So here are three good reasons not to home carry . . .
1. It’s paranoid
We’ve run the numbers before, so I’ll summarize the concept: the chances of a home invasion at your place are lower than the odds of Miranda Kerr sidling up to you at a baccarat table in Monte Carlo and asking you to join her (full stop) for a quiet drink on the Prince Abdulaziz megayacht.
That’s “you” as in white middle to upper class man/woman living in a nice neighborhood where illegal drugs and those who purvey them are not welcome. You who doesn’t own anything particularly expensive (jewelry, firearms collection, etc.) and, if you do, no one knows about it (including the people who sold it to you). You who doesn’t carry cash, ever.
You who doesn’t have any business enemies. Whose teenage daughter doesn’t have one of those psycho stalker “boyfriends” lingering in the shadows. You who’ve never had carnal relations outside your marriage with a potential bunny boiler. You who doesn’t interact with odd people on the internet.
You, sir, need a gun a firearm on your hip in your home like a gangsta needs a raison d’etre.
Sure, random home invasions do occur. You might as well plan for a meteor strike. As I said at the beginning, Home Carry is dangerous. If a break-in does go down chez vous, you can console yourself that with the fact that it could have been FAR worse. You could have had a firearms accident, suicide or spree killing in the house and then a home invasion.
2. There Are Safer Ways to Protect Yourself
While Home Carry is a joke, there’s no reason not to have a handgun in the house—in a safe. That way it’s safe. No snatch and laugh tomfoolery, no chance of a negligent discharge as you slide your heater in an out of your holster. And once it’s in the safe and locked up tight, you can get it if you really want. And you [will] succeed at last because A) you’ll have lots of time to react and/or B) you’re fast and clever.
From the moment you’re aware that there’s a threat in the house to the moment you have your home defense firearm in hand will be what, ten seconds? Twenty? Thirty? That’s plenty of time to wake up, get to the safe, remember the combo/fit a key, extract the weapon, reorient yourself and get on with the business of self-defense.
That’s provided we’re talking about a BITN (Bump in the Night) scenario. While there’s no hard data on the subject, we know that many home attacks happen during the day. That’s where the speed thing comes in. You will have to win a footrace to your gun, avoiding any close contact with the perp or perps. How hard can that be?
If, however, the attack comes straight through the front door (trick or treat for UNICEF!), you’re going to have to fast and clever. Clever enough to do something to slow the perp or perps down enough so you can win that all-important footrace to your gun, open the safe and extract the weapon. You could throw something. Or tell the perp to wait while you go and get your money.
Don’t worry, you’ll think of something. I mean, it’s definitely not going to happen. But if it does, you don’t need a gun on your hip to deal. You may want one, but you don’t need one. Not really.
3. You Look Like A Wacko and Might Act Like One Too
Who the hell carries a gun around the house? Gun rights extremists. Paranoid fantasists. Gun rights extremist paranoid fantasists. Open Home Carry makes you look like a nut job to non-gun folk. It sets a bad example for the children, who become “normalized” to defensive firearms—to the point where they might see a bad guy with a gun and not turn into a mass of quivering passivity.
Of course, you could carry concealed around the house (even though quick access is critical to armed self-defense and it’s not a bad thing for the handyman community to know you’re packing). Slip a Smith & Wesson Airlight snubbie in your pants and your secret . . . would still get out. Former friends will snigger about the weirdo gun guy who tools-up 24-7. Soccer Moms will shun you.
And then there’s the problem of emotional escalation. If you’re packing heat while having a domestic tiff, it could lead to ballistic threats and then to a tragic crime scene. Who amongst us has the psychological strength to draw an inviolable line between a rip-snorting argument and murder most foul? Given the odds that a home invasion will ever occur, why take the chance?
And there you have it: three reason not to Home Carry. Now please excuse me, I’ve got to answer Miranda’s email.