Rural gun ownership.

[Yo_Mama]

20. That's the truth

Like a ladder. Most of us don't use them constantly, but when we do need them we really need them.

On the farm we usually have to shoot a critter a couple times a year. Most often snakes, occasionally a rabid racoon or something like that. But when we do shoot, it's a danger either to humans or livestock. Wild hogs can be danger out here - they can get very large and sometimes, if they are hungry, will even break into livestock pens.

And truthfully, you do need a gun for self-defense. I have only ever picked one up once for that reason, and I don't know what the outcome would have been if I hadn't had it, but I was glad I did have it. I didn't have to shoot anyone or point it at anyone, I just slammed the door, dove for it and the prowler ran, knowing what I was doing.

I would also like to point out that AR-15s are often used for hunting around here.

A lot of the poorer people around here eat from hunting and fishing. Obviously you don't need a rifle for fishing, but you do for hunting. Times are not getting any easier for rural folk - higher energy costs generally cost them more of their incomes than for urban people, and they compensate by gardening, hunting and fishing.

And, btw, when a hog or deer or fox are eating out your garden or your chickens that you eat to live, it's a very real threat to your family's welfare.

Nor are those guns going to be locked up in a safe unless we're not home. There's always two loaded rifles in the house out when we're home - one with rat shot for poisonous snakes, and one for prowlers. The house has an alarm system, but it will be ten minutes at least before anyone gets there, and when we're sleeping or awake there's a loaded gun ready.

All the houses around where I am, including ours, have been robbed multiple times. Usually they mean no personal harm - they just want to take something to sell. And around here, the one thing they try NEVER to do is to break into a house when people are there, because they expect to get shot. The one time I had to go for the weapon, my car was in the garage, and my husband had taken the dogs and the truck, so I realized later that the guy who tried to break in just didn't realize anyone was home.

The biggest safeguard to life-threatening crime around here is the fact that just about everybody has weapons and knows how to shoot. Unfortunately, that means that anyone who does try to break in when you're there is maybe on drugs or vicious, so I would go for the gun if confronted with someone.

So I am of two minds in this whole debate. I don't need a 30 round magazine and I don't have one. but I do think that around here guns save a lot of lives, not because they're used but because everyone knows they're there to be used.