So, I’m a guy that’s got a better selection of firearms in his own basement than you can find, in stock, at any one gun store in my area.

It’s kinda nice.

Given that I can pretty much pick anything I want to be my “house gun” at the drop of a hat. I consider the house gun to be one that’s always loaded and kept handy for whatever might arise. The most important scenario, but one that isn’t very likely, is a home intruder.

A Remington 870 with a nice short barrel isn’t a bad idea, and I’ve got one of those. A good full sized pistol isn’t a bad idea, and I’ve got more than a few of those too. Heck, for the area I’m in an AR or an AK aren’t terrible choices either.

That said, I rely on one of my least “tactical” firearms in the armory for house gun duty: A Marlin 1984C. Worse: I keep it loaded up with .38spl LRN ammunition and don’t even bother with a proper .357 loading.

Why? Simple: That’s the gun that goes with to the range almost every time I venture out. It’s fun to shoot and damnit, I can peg a paper plate at in-home distances without even having to think about what I’m doing. I can then repeat this simple feat 8 more times and dump 9 rounds into a grouping smaller than a man’s head.

Reflecting upon this I’ve decided that from here on out my advice to first time guy buyers looking for a piece to defend their homestead with is going to be: Pick that one that you think will be the most fun to shoot.

Do that, feed it ammo on a regular basis, learn it, love it, enjoy it, and be confident that while it might not be the high speed, low drag, uber-tactical wundergun that everybody says you should get, at least you know how to use it effectively.

An excercise I often use when looking at physics problems is to blow them up to their extremes on each side. It helps me to visualize things. For instance when I’m thinking about vehicle collisions and mass vs. speed I picture a crotch rocket vs. a semi truck. I find this helps with a lot of problems: You take one point of the equation and examine the polar opposites and evaluate the different outcomes.

Now, lets apply this to the Virginia Tech shooting situation, but we’ll use age.

For the sake of argument we’ll presume a number of even variables betwen two different groups. There are no legal firearms present, and the strength of the victims is roughly equal. I would hazard a guess and say that your average 16 year old is about as strong as your average 72 year old. That is, at least on paper.

Any young whipper-snapper knows that going up against an older man leaves you at a disadvantage. In my youth we termed it “old man strength.” Some of us experienced it first hand.

So, let’s think about this one: A man breaks into a room of 30 16 years old and opens fire. What happens? Well, we’ve seen what happens there, ala Columbine, and it’s pretty much a free-for-all for the gunmen.

Think the same would happen with a group full of 72 year old men? Sure, they lack the strength, on paper, to do much more than the 16 year olds, but theyv’e got experience working in their favor.

It’s been said, “Never fight an old man. He’s got nothing to lose and knows every dirty trick in the book.”

If you absolutely must, to visualize the dichotomy between the two different mindsets likely prevalent within these two age groups feel free to imagine that the group of 72 year old men are WWII vets.

It’s the experience that gives the group of old men the edge, at least in my mind.

Now, let’s up the force of the inexperienced group a bit, lower their experience level, and keep the 72 year olds disarmed. Like I said, I like to think in extremes to figure out which particular point of data is the most imporant.

Take 30 boys, age 8, all armed with .22LR rifles at a Cub Scout training outing. Armed gunman shows up, blows away the instructor, and sets in on the boys.

Tragedy will ensue, and I’d imagine greater than that of my hypothetical room of random 72 year old men.

While armed to deal with the attacker those 8 year old boys posess only the hardware to deal with the problem and not the software and there is nothing wrong with that.

This is what makes mass school shootings possible more than any other single criteria out there.

Yes, I said it, it’s not the “gun free zones” that create these great shooting pools for mass murderers. It’s that we pool people that are so vulnerable into nice tight spaces that make them such easy pickings.

Unfortunately that’s not something we can get away from.

In regards to the attack of the killer raccoons out in Washington GeekWithA45 weighs in and nails it:

All that pain and suffering, for failure to properly apply $98 worth of hardware?

Where I grew up, this would have never made the papers.

It’d have been taken care of about 2 minutes after the pattern was discerned.

The obvious action item would have been delegated to the nearest 12 year old.

Ayup. Shoot the little fuckers.

I figure the only thing we differ on is choice of caliber. He’s thinking .22LR, I’m thinking a break-action 20 gauge. The later being good for anything from pesky birds to something the size of a deer depending on the shells used. My choice would be a bit loud, I suppose.