You Can Take the Hoplophobic Girl Out of Brooklyn, But It’s Hard Getting the Hoplophobia Out of the Girl

A Brooklyn friend once told me a story about the time she rented a house in the country: As she was standing outside in the middle of nowhere, a stranger pulled up, got out of his car, and started making conversation in a way that made her uncomfortable. The man eventually drove away and nothing bad happened, but she found it unnerving, even terrifying. Along with many of my other city friends, she thought I was crazy to move upstate.

They weren’t entirely wrong. One of the big differences about living in a rural area is you feel as if you are on your own here, in a way that you don’t in the city. Your neighbors will help you out, of course, but they don’t share a living room wall with you; they can’t, well, hear you scream. Our water comes from our own well, we manage our own septic tank, and we pay for our garbage removal. The town doesn’t provide these things for us. We have never had a break-in, and our local police blotter is mostly about domestic violence or drunk driving—very rarely stranger-on-stranger crime. Emergency responders can get to our house quickly, but we can go days without seeing an authority figure. This changes how the world looks. I feel the need to be self-sufficient, to prepare for the worst. Lately there’s also part of me that thinks, I have a right to bear arms, and I want to exercise that right.

The seeds of this feeling were planted after Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Shocked and confused, I heeded the exhortations to “get out of your bubble,” and began reading conservative news outlets, where I quickly discovered how differently so many stories were reported—including those about guns. Accustomed to reading left-leaning media, I had absorbed the idea that using a gun for self-defense all but guaranteed the gun would be apprehended by the aggressor and used against the victim. Now I learned that there are actual instances of a “good guy with a gun” stopping a crime—like the dad with a concealed-carry permit who used a handgun to incapacitate a man who opened fire in a busy McDonald’s. They happen all the time but are virtually never reported in certain outlets.

But I still didn’t think about getting a gun for protection myself—not until the dogs died. In their absence, especially on the nights when my husband is out of town, I feel exposed and vulnerable. My house has many ground-floor windows, and my kids are grown up and out of the house. I could get more big, loud dogs, of course—but they are a liability. Ours were daunting enough that we advised friends not to bring their pets to our house, as it was too much trouble, and too risky, to introduce their dogs to our wolf pack. My huge livestock guardian loved to roam, and we were constantly upgrading our fences in an attempt to keep him in. As much as I miss my big dogs, it’s a relief not to worry about them anymore; I can go away for the weekend, or just out for the day, more easily. But the fact remains that I don’t feel secure without them.

At the same time, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that handguns are guaranteed to cause death and misery to everyone in their vicinity. So I decided to look at the statistics. I learned that the vast majority of American gun owners have never been involved in a criminal shooting, an accident, or a suicide; that safe storage is a critical factor in preventing them; and that women are more likely to follow safety protocols. According to one study, about 82 percent of all firearm victims in St. Louis are male, most of them between the ages of 12 and 18. As a white, middle-aged female, the only significantly elevated risk I’d encounter from keeping a safely stored firearm would be suicide. But with no history of mental health issues, that likelihood approaches practically zero. If I got a gun, it would be locked up except for occasional target practice. I’d almost certainly never feel the need to use it. …

And yet, I haven’t purchased a gun, or signed up for more classes.

Why? Because I remain torn. Perhaps it’s the partisan fog still clouding my judgment. But as invigorating as I found it to shoot a pistol, it was also sobering to remind myself how much death and damage these small, potent objects can inflict. We really do need a rifle on the farm. We’re going to get one. As for something more than that, a handgun for protection and peace of mind, well, that remains to be decided.

— Larissa Phillips in Should I Get a Gun?