Here is when I bought my first gun

[laundry_queen]

148. Yep.

The gun the OP owns means his family is now at a bigger risk than it was before his gun.

I had a friend who, had she had a gun, would've killed someone. Some drunk wandered into her house at 6 am while she was downstairs nursing her newborn. She freaked out, took her baby upstairs where her other kids were, and yelled for her husband. Her husband went and confronted the guy, who was simply drunk and wandered into the wrong house - he was visiting his friend and wasn't even from the area and they had been at a party down the street and he had forgotten what his friend's house looked like. My friend's husband had left the door unlocked after starting his car (winter here at the time) and the drunk wandered in. The drunk guy apologized profusely and left. My friend said had she had a loaded gun, that guy would be dead, because her or her husband would've started shooting. And if she DID have a gun in a safe (since she has small kids) and the intruder DID mean harm, oops, it would've been far too late.

Lack of guns saved one innocent life here. I'm guessing lack of guns in those types of circumstances usually saves more lives than it takes.