I like my idea of flashing lights and an air raid siren better. Any option that involves me being anywhere an intruder might see me or get to me or my family is not a good one.

For all I know, he might have robbed a neighbour first, found a loaded gun in the bedside table and brought it with him.

No. Wait. I don't live in the US. Phew.

••

Not to be so %^&#ing paranoid!

Seriously, I wonder what kind of scenario you imagine, in which a bad guy intent on doing harm to you and your loved ones had entered your home and cornered you in such a way that there is no escape --- and yet you can still get to your gun!

Americans as a species are very concerned about empowerment. It lies at the heart of most conspiracy theories, for instance. The Government/Big Oil/Big Tobacco/the Commies, etc, are Out to Get Me, but I KNOW they are, so immediately I have the advantage. I am EMPOWERED. This can be very important when, in reality, the individual has no real power at all.

And, of course, guns are REAL power. A 98lb weakling can take down a 300lb attacker, if he has a gun and his opponent doesn't.

Yet, as I note above, the scenario in which the gun protects the homeowner and his loved ones from an intruder bent on doing them harm has certain elements automatically left out. Like, where is the gun? How easy is it to get to? Is it kept loaded? And if so, why are you endangering your loved ones yourself? "Let's play with Daddy's gun!" Harrumph harrumph say the gun owners. "I have taught my kids not to do that." Sure. And the parents of the five year olds who shoot their brothers/sisters/neighbors/mailman think they did the same thing.

Tasers are illegal in 7 states, plus Washingting DC.

Handguns are legal in all 50 states.

Try to follow that logic.

I'm not going to elaborate further with "what if" scenarios and I am not paranoid.  I live in a very quiet community just outside of a small city (New Bedford) with a population of 100,000  that has it's fair share of problems just like every other community.  Gangs, drug dealers and an occasional whacko have left their mark on neighboring communities.  All I want to do is live my life and further my search for liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I am a peaceful person but I have no problem doing whatever needs to be done to protect myself and my wife if necessary.

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Seriously, I wonder what kind of scenario you imagine, in which a bad guy intent on doing harm to you and your loved ones had entered your home and cornered you in such a way that there is no escape --- and yet you can still get to your gun!

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To be serious for just a moment JB.  My bedroom is on the second floor of my Cape Cod style home.  My front door opens up with the staircase  just to the left of the front door.  If a perp were to come up those stairs, I have no way to safely exit my home.  I suppose I could jump out a second story window down to the ground below but then, that would not be a safe exit.

I can effectively "still get to my gun" because my gun cabinet is in my bedroom.

I can effectively "still get to my gun" because my gun cabinet is in my bedroom.

••

So, now we begin to see the Plan fraying at the edges. You open with a scenario in which your gun is a last line of defense against an aggressor who is bent upon doing harm to you and your loved ones. But this has become a scenario in which you are grabbing your gun as soon as the bad guy comes thru the door. You are ASSUMING his intent is to do you harm, when in fact, knowing you to be upstairs in the bedroom, he might restrict his movements to the ground floor.

And this is assuming he conveniently breaks in when you are IN your bedroom, and near you gun cabinet.* What if he comes in while you're in the kitchen? What if he has a gun? How dead are you, before you get to your gun cabinet? Maybe everybody should have a shoulder holster. Or maybe we should all carry our guns on our hips like Wyatt Earp.

The fact is, in any scenario in which the home owner imagines a gun is going to protect him/her from an intruder, there are a whole string of assumptions as to how easily the gun will be accessed, and how much time the intruder is going to allow for that access (not much, I'm guessing). So, unless you are planning on emerging from your bedroom with guns blazing, at the first sound of someone coming up the stairs, seems like your plan of "protection" doesn't amount to much. In fact, it seems like your notion of "self-defense" is a whole lot closer to cold blooded murder.

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* Gun cabinet in the bedroom. That just makes my head hurt.