Aswad
Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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In response to page 5 (Hibiscus, tj444, Rule, hlen5):
Regarding the legality of rooms without windows in Norway, it's obviously more complicated than that once you have a look at the actual building code. Yet, the long and short of it is that no room with a reasonable expectation of being able to get to it in time- along with anyone else in the house- would meet that code. Indeed, the entire point is to have access from the outside, as well as keeping power consumption low due to sunlight during the day. No, alternate means which accomplish the same goals are not acceptable, unless you get a dispensation, which is virtually impossible if the point is related to security (that's the police's job, as far as Norwegians are concerned, which is part of why we're usually killed when someone wants to kill us, then police arrive to investigate and file the case in a drawer somewhere).
I've seen plenty of firearms in real life, most of them in recent years.
The list includes handguns, shotguns, rifles and assault rifles, more than one of these categories from the wrong side of the barrel, but the only time I got shot, it can't have been too bad, though my memory of the event is kind of fuzzy. For the most part, criminals around where I live don't pack anything more than a knife, though some carry handguns. When they're out to do harm, on the other hand, expect anything from a shiv to a carbine, with shotguns and handguns being most common. Still, we don't see much firearms use in crime involving regular citizens.
If you have the money for it, you can outfit yourself like Frank Castle in about 15-30 minutes.
Regarding the measures I suggested as tools for improving home safety, some of them are demonstrably effective against armed attackers. With a robber or casual attacker, they are likely to be sufficient, assuming you don't waste the time those measures buy you, and anyone with half a brain that is smacked with mace and a flashbang on entering a house will leave if at all possible. Most here do not need to consider veritable soldiers breaking down their door to kill everyone inside the house. Those that do, I would prefer to address in a PM, not in public. Suffice to say that a shotgun doesn't address such a situation.
As for bringing a knife to a firefight, there are several issues: skill, range and legality.
Firearms bring range to the table. In a house, the range benefit is substantially less, although not negligible. The risk associated with defending a home is weighed against the risk faced by the household and the legality of the means used to do so, as well as the training that some means of defense require. In the current political climate up here, it's not wise to indicate that you don't leave it to the police, regardless of whether or not you actually do so.
For the most part, when I've been on the business end of a firearm, it's been without sufficient warning to draw.
It's also usually been possible to neutralize the threat.
Remember that unless you're reasonably confident that your attacker isn't going to shoot you, the best bet is to deal with the gun and the person wielding it, not necessarily in that order. That, of course, is under the assumption that the range is fairly short. At a distance, you run, dodge and try to keep something in the space between you and the attacker. Don't even think about pulling a gun yourself if the other person has theirs out. The exceptions to that rule know who they are.
Disregarding for the moment that the lethality of firearms is exaggerated in the popular imagination, at least as regards handguns, it is still necessary for an attacker to hit you. At close range, this is substantially harder if you take initiative, as humans are slower to react than to act. Properly made firearms have the property that they deliver the bullet along a trajectory described by the barrel. Ideally, the gun should be pointing at the attacker's head or torso. Failing that, it will improve the situation quite a lot to have it pointing somewhere else than yourself, or to have something suitable in the intervening space to reduce the potential damages. Should it be impossible to prevent being hit, a less vital area is the preferred location. Contact shots are most depressing, but the silver lining is that contact will usually permit a small rotation of the relevant bodily axis to deflect the barrel. Being hit is a deceptively dull sensation that is best filed under "not important" for the duration, as should the pain from grabbing the slide firmly to prevent the chambering of a second round. Removing the gun will be helpful, and any fingers broken in the process are a bonus. Striking with the grip to the thin part of the temporal bone, while not necessarily immediately incapacitating, will sever a major vessel in the head. The muzzle is better applied to the eye, being quite hot after firing. Don't attempt to fire an unfamiliar weapon after taking it away, unless you can get some distance to work with. Different rules apply to shotguns, but the principles are the same.
In all cases, the encounter is at an end when one of you is on the ground and the other unjams the weapon to fire two shots into the upper torso and one to the head. If that someone is yourself, expect a hard drop unless used to it. Engage the safety, eject the magazine and work the slide once before that happens. Emptying the remainder of the clip is neither therapeutic, nor constructive, nor likely to look good when police finally arrive.
If the gun has been thrown away (not necessarily a bad idea), a knife will substitute. Entry is made above the left clavicle at a down and inward angle to sever the aorta, as it can be easy to misalign a knife or miss the heart when affected by the adrenalin. The throat should wait until the aorta is dealt with, as there have been cases where people have failed to reach the relevant vessels. Attempting entry through the foramen magnum is pointless unless it's the only readily identifiable landmark and the blade has some length to it. Heavier knives can enter through the temporal bone or any of the sutures. Again, expecting a drop afterwards is a good idea, and police may not be entirely understanding as to why it was useful to ensure that the threat was actually over before dropping, so don't hold on to the blade until the drop occurs.
Obviously, if hit during the process, it's a good idea to get someone on the phone with an ambulance, as the numbness is going to pass, at which point it is not un(wo)manly to curl up and make an awful amount of noise, and also not unusual to be in no position to do anything constructive for a long while. Sudoku will not help pass the time until the ambulance arrives, nor lessen the frustration at discovering that they're not carrying any morphine. The upshot is that you will be far more successful at convincing friends and acquaintances to attend a firearms first aid class when you're eventually done with the surgeries and antibiotics and rehabilitation. Assuming you make it, that is. You're unlikely to regret trying if you don't, though, so it's almost like a win-win scenario, except for the winning.
Seriously, though, a gun is one of several components of defense, one of many, and relying on being able to draw it and bring it to bear fast enough is a recipe for disaster, as much as not having one in the first place. A false sense of safety is very dangerous. When things go down, it tends to be at close range and high speed, and if you didn't see it coming soon enough to get the hell out of dodge, you're not going to see it coming soon enough to make your own gun do anything other than let the other person know it's time to put bullets in you or die. Even for attackers not initially prepared to kill you, that will likely end badly. In the home, if you're away from the point of ingress, you may have more warning, but there's other problems to offset that advantage.
Guns are offensive weapons, not defensive ones, and their main role in either capacity is adding range.
Incidentally, prefragmented breaching rounds make decent shells for indoors use.
Of course, if you're serious, consider a flamethrower instead.
3M also happens to sell fire retardant wallpaper...
Health,
al-Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: Blanchard woman shoots and kills intruder - 
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