You (probably) shouldn't buy a gun

To be clear up front, I’m not saying that no one should ever own a gun. (That ship has sailed.) And I’m not in the business of making demands about how others decide to keep themselves or loved ones safe.

I want to address this topic because some good friends who’ve reported on the worst of America have, of late, told me they’re pondering buying a gun to protect themselves. I’ve also seen trans folk in similar conversations on social media, after witnessing tens of millions of dollars in transphobic ads during NFL games, not to mention countless veiled threats against and direct harm done to to them around the country on a regular basis.

Given all this, a gun might seem a natural tool to turn to in this moment, especially when pondering just how many guns there are in the U.S. Your neighbors might already have some! But for the overwhelming majority of people, getting a gun for self defense is like trying to drink water from a firehose.

There are some exceptions. People from scapegoated groups who live in remote areas might reasonably ponder the question of getting a long gun more deeply and weigh the risks, especially if they’re without close neighbors or if Proud Boys move in next door. If you’re career military or are looking at forming a leftist self-defense protection community, you will have training and organization outside the scope of those for whom this post is written.

I’m not going to detail all the possibilities. Each person knows their own situation better than anyone else. But after seven years of teaching self defense to thousands of people, launching a violence prevention research newsletter a lifetime ago (RIP, little newsletter), and spending a couple years after that transcribing police interviews in cases where people got shot, I’ve had a good look at how wrong things can go. So I’d like to offer a few points worth pondering to individuals thinking about bringing a gun into their home.

I won’t spend a lot of time on all the reasons you’ve probably heard before, even though those are the most important ones: the increased risk of suicide, the high success rates of suicide via gun compared to other methods, the ways that even friends or family knowing you have a gun in the house could draw in someone who wants to steal it, and the staggering number of firearm deaths that are accidental, especially the devastating cases involving children.

Access and proficiency

The first thing to consider is one catch-22 of safe gun ownership. To prevent those accidental deaths, people who observe firearms safety rules will necessarily—and should—keep their weapons unloaded and locked up at home. Keeping critical safety measures in place can, however, mean a delay in accessing a gun quickly, which limits the instances in which it can be used.

Just as significant an issue is that many who buy a gun don’t get adequate training but nevertheless feel as if they’ve resolved the issue of safety—all of which can create more problems without solving any. Unless someone has grown up shooting guns or does so regularly, they’re unlikely to be able to respond the way they might imagine they would in a crisis.

Anyone who’s ever been in a street fight or jumped, or even in a car crash or other emergency might recall how common it is the first seconds or even minutes of a violent encounter to lose a lot of mental and physical skills. Once adrenaline kicks in, people can move very quickly. But in the beginning, there’s usually a hitch and a skill collapse.

This is why in good physical self defense courses, instructors teach simple effective moves and repeat them a lot. A gun might seem more straightforward, but that tends not to be the case.

The shift in stakes

Aiming a gun at someone telescopes the options for those involved in dangerous ways, leaving fewer choices for how an encounter might end with everyone still alive. Pulling a gun on someone without planning to shoot it is dangerous. Pulling a gun on someone and being willing to shoot it without assessing what’s happening is often worse.

People, including at least one Supreme Court justice, imagine using a gun to de-escalate violence, to deter a thug, or to defeat the masked intruders featured in ads for door cameras. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his unfortunate Heller opinion that a handgun “can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police.” It’s a fantasy version that doesn’t correspond with how most gun encounters unfold.

When a gun comes out, it often goes off. And while people tend to want a gun to protect their families, drawing a gun in a place where children are present doesn’t necessarily make anyone safer.

Deterioration of other skills

Another key issue is that once someone owns a gun, they can get emotionally invested in it as their main safety tool. Instead of thinking through keeping themselves safe, they put their faith in a talisman they haven’t learned how to use or handle. When it can’t be accessed in an emergency or when the situation requires another response, they have to adjust on the fly and may not have backup plans.

Alternatives include verbal skills of boundary setting, escalation, de-escalation, and negotiation. Self defense classes that don’t teach these are incomplete. Full-length courses should also include physical skills for standup fighting and fighting on the ground. Running away (really a great option), yelling, distracting someone, throwing objects, or using what’s at hand can often be more effective than any taught skill. Bystander intervention training can often go further in helping you protect those around you in public spaces than a gun will.

I grew up around hunters, but I’m not really a gun person. My last visit to the range was in 2023, training with a variety of firearms in order to get certified to carry a rifle for defense against polar bears in the Norwegian High Arctic.

The Arctic is one of those peculiar places where people sometimes need a gun. Since scientific teams have to be focused on particular research tasks and won’t be able to protect themselves moment to moment, it makes sense to deputize someone to carry a weapon as a means to protect others. But even there, it’s common to have an assortment of responses and tools, all of which are used much more often than shooting at bears.

When I was just out of college, I had a Ruger 9mm pistol (one very much like the photo above) held to my head in an extended retail robbery that nearly went sideways more times than I like to think about. Quick thinking on a coworker’s part and stalling on mine led to the gunman’s arrest. He entered a guilty plea and served his time, and honestly, I’m much happier not only for not having gotten shot, but also for not having shot someone. More than once, I’ve been grateful that there was only one gun present in the store that night.

In the end, it’s up to you. But if you’re part of an at-risk community, even if you use a gun the way you imagine you might, and the police show up to find you holding a gun in an encounter, you may have fended off one problem to face an even more dangerous situation.

Whatever you decide, it’s worth getting some hands-on self defense training locally. That way you’ll know how to use what most of us have with us at all times—a body and a voice and whatever happens to be at hand—before you outsource too much of your safety to a lethal, inflexible tool.

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