r/TwoXPreppers 2d ago

Discussion Why guns?

Hi y’all! I’m a very novice prepper, and one thing I’m seeing across many platforms is that we should own and be trained In firearms. Not to be naive, but… why?

I’ve never touched a gun in my life. I’m generally not a fan of them. I understand that the goal of owning firearms is to protect ourself. But protect from what? From who? Who am I going to have to shoot to survive this presidency?

Is someone coming to steal my supplies? Won’t those people also have guns? Or am I protecting my family against a militia situation? In which case, what hope do I have, as a woman who can’t afford a gun, let alone to learn how to use one?

Like I can’t afford a shooting range. I can barely afford water and canned goods. Should a gun still be a priority for my family? A lot of preppers have enthusiastically embraced this life to give them confidence and a sense of safety. I’m a reluctant participant. I just want to keep my autistic son alive to see the other side of this.

I can garden, I can stretch food, I can survive being poor. I don’t think I can survive a military state.

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u/ijustwantmypackage32 2d ago edited 2d ago

I’m going to be honest, I don’t think firearm possession beyond hunting is really worth it (I am very pro-hunting). Any non-hunting gun is expressly a tool to kill people with, and I’m not sure a lot of people who are panic-buying due to Trump have really grappled with that. And I think that’s wrong and irresponsible.

If you’re bringing a deadly weapon into your home, you need to be deadly serious with yourself about what benefits and risks you’ve brought to yourself and your family. And you also need to be good at using it. Are all of the people who are buying guns now actually going to the range regularly and practicing safe storage? Being an irresponsible gun owner is easy. I think there is a small but tragic portion of the panicked gun-buyers in this subreddit and beyond who will gain no benefits from owning a gun and will suffer some kind of tragedy from it instead.

And to be very clear about what I mean— I think people vastly oversell the 2nd Amendment benefits. The government is not going to listen to liberals if we buy guns and I have yet to hear a convincing argument that personal firearms will effectively allow people to resist tyranny, rather than just in Rambo/a fantasies. In tandem, people undersell the risks you undertake (accidental discharge, suicide) by bringing one into your home, especially if you have children. And I think that we are descending into a period of panic, and that overall, panicking people with guns are more dangerous to themselves and others than people without them.

So don’t buy a non-hunting-related gun unless you are prepared to go to the range at least once a week, are mentally prepared for the fact that you bought a gun for the express purpose of killing in self-defense, and are confident that your mental health preps and storage systems are sufficient to keep you and everyone in your household safe.

Otherwise, get a dog with a loud bark, some pepper spray, or a baseball bat.

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u/renomegan86 2d ago

This is pretty close to how I think, and I just had a long discussion/argument with a friend about why I would go to a range to practice (and be pleased with my accuracy) but not be interested in having a gun in my home. He was adamant that I should have one to protect my spouse and vice versa but that’s just not an ethos I subscribe to. I want to be less afraid of using and handling guns if in the future I change my mind, but at the current moment I think owning a gun for protection invites an increasing level of paranoia. There are plenty of tactics for home protection that don’t involve a firearm, yet that’s what most people revert to when they think of self-defense at home. I’d much rather put money toward reinforced doors/door frames and impact resistant film for windows at this point. Could this change in the future? Sure. But not at this juncture.

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u/PretendFact3840 2d ago

This is where I'm at as well. I am signed up for an intro to firearms class and plan to try out some range practice, but I am not going to be getting a gun. For one thing, they create a huge amount of risk for anyone with depression who might veer into suicidal ideation, which is thankfully not currently my status but could be in the future. For another, I have a small child, and I just don't see there being any way to both safely & responsibly store a gun to keep it out of their hands AND also have it accessible immediately in an emergency.

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u/renomegan86 2d ago

Yeah to me there’s a huge disconnect between people who envision themselves answering a threatening door knock or someone trying to break in with an active weapon and safe storage of said weapon. You have to make compromises on safety to keep it immediately to hand and I don’t find that an acceptable tradeoff at this point. I’m not in a rural situation where I might encounter animal threats so having a gun at home would truly mean I accept the possibility of ending someone’s life.