People who see a handgun on my wishlist, almost always ask that question.  It’s fairly obvious from their tone why they ask it too.  I sometimes talk down about myself.  Mostly jokingly.  Sometimes yes, I do feel that life has just gone the wrong way for me.  Yes, I do have anxiety and depression.  Though not enough to feel I need to be medicated for it.  On top of that, I do have heart disease and struggle with medications and doctor bills.

Let me make this abundantly clear.  It’s not for suicide.  Some folks know how I feel about suicide.  I’ll make it public here.  I have absolutely no sympathy for folks who commit or even ponder the option of suicide.  This is from watching people my age when I was in high school do it over bad grades and home stress.  You want to take the easy way out of this world?  Fine.  As far as I’m concerned, get off my planet.  As screwed up as the world is, suicide is not the answer in my opinion.  If you can’t find help, it’s because you aren’t looking hard enough.  Some people have it all and take that method.  Some have nothing and do it.  As a teenager facing the real world knowing that I’d grow apart from my friends, I too was scared.  I wanted the easy way out to not have to face it.  I quickly realized how idiotic it was and came to how I feel now about it.  We all have problems, some way worse than others.  But there are billions of people on this rock, someone is out there for you.  Find them.  Hey, I’m still looking and I’m 45.  So, it might take a while.  Plus, if I’m not mistaken, God kind of frowns on the whole taking your own life.  Although I’m not an expert on that.

The reason I want a handgun is purely for self protection.  This world is nuts sometimes.  You risk your life everyday.  Sniper in Virginia randomly killing folks.  Mass shooting while watching Batman at a theater.  To name two of thousands of incidents from shooting in malls, schools and drive-by killings in America.  Although I don’t plan on carrying a gun everywhere I go just yet.  I personally have been robbed four different times.  I should have owned a gun years ago.  Just they are so damned expensive.  Never been lucky enough to have a relative or friend give me one of their extended collection.

Grayling Michigan in 1990.  Man was high on cocaine and managed to break into our home and spend some time moving things into the yard and trying to hot wire our car.  The wife and I woke up to find him cowering at the foot of our bed.  We managed to jump over him and run out the open front door to the neighbors across the street to call the police.  Needless to say, I don’t sleep naked anymore.  (Although I was much sexier then 🙂 )

Williamsburg Virginia 2008 and 2009.  The first time was someone simply stole my wife’s purse through the kitchen window that was cracked open.  Chase tried to warn us, but we just thought he was barking at the neighbors walking by like he did so often.  The second time we were robbed at that house, we had just left to go somewhere.  When we got back the house had been ransacked and things like jewelry and small, easy to carry things were stolen.  We installed an alarm system, that went off several times after that in other attempts to rob our house.  It was a bad neighborhood.  There’s a reason some folks get stereotyped.

The last time I was robbed was at a mini storage unit.  Which is why I have the wish list in the first place.  I own next to nothing.  What I do own I have insured.  But I want to protect myself and my personal belongings.  As in every single case, the police did little to nothing about it.  Reports were filed, but in the majority of it all.  Very little was recovered and next to nothing was done about it in the way of investigating or punishment.