Family problems with guns

[AntiHippie]

If my parents came around so will yours lol. They were not OK with it but they dealt with it the few months between getting home from Afghanistan and moving back out to school, and I had a 26 gun safe I lugged into my room.

The idea that you can win everyone over is false. I'm surprised your siblings have an issue with it, both mine (still being young and impressionable) enjoy shooting/like guns and have no problem with them. Both are definitely not bleeding hearts like my parents either.

As far as the homeless thing goes... Use your GI bill, get a degree and have a roof over your head/food for the next 4 years. I can't tell you how pissed it makes me when I hear vets whining about how they don't want to go to college (not saying you are). If you have a great job, fine. But a lot of these dudes are making 11 bucks an hour and have full education benefits they will lose in 10-15 years if they don't use them. If you go to school in the Boston area on top of school coverage you are raking in close to 3K a month for a living stipend. You are literally throwing away 100s of thousands of dollars in education benefits if you don't use it, let alone lost wages over a lifetime which could range from nothing (unlikely) to millions (more likely).

Mike

I just looked it up - E-5 (w/o) BAH rate for Boston MHA is $2250 a month. Two thousand, two hundred and fifty tax-free dollars a month for taking a few free classes. The Post-9/11 will pay us $27,000 A YEAR TO TAKE CLASSES THAT ARE ALSO PAID FOR!

I'll never retire near Boston, God willing, but if I do and my kids don't use my benefits (that's plan A), I'd be tempted to take a few classes, even if I finish my Bachelor's before I retire, just for the BAH $$$. I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't take advantage of it.


OP: This Mike agrees with that Mike - enroll somewhere, learn a trade or get a degree, and get paid to do it. Find a school that interests you, get their zip code, enter it here http://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/bahCalc.cfm , select E-5, then multiply the w/o rate by 12. That's how much you will get paid to go to that school every year. I'm sure it will be at least enough to cover rent, and probably food and utilities, too.

 

[Point37]

imo in this situation it's not worth fighting over with family...basically, like others have said try and change their minds if you can...like others have said try education, try bringing them shooting if they will accept it (like i believe was previously mentioned maybe use one of their girl friends to help leverage them into going shooting with you if you are friends with any of them)...i always bring up the fire extinguisher analogy "Q: why do you need a gun?...A: for the same reason you need a fire extinguisher, just in case"...if none of that works then start taking the necessary steps to get your own place and a job but don't rush into it and put a financial burden on yourself...take your time and do it right...in the meantime conceal inside the house...if they are still calling you out cause they can see that you are concealing just lock it up in a safe or pistol box in your room...if the crime rate in your area isn't bad then it shouldn't be a big deal for the time being...cause if you move out you won't be protecting them anyway...so if protecting them is going to cause serious issues between you and your family then maybe you should lock it up while home...at least you may still be able to help if a situation arises but at the same time you maintain peace in the house...shit i live not from from the border of a town that's in the top 5 for violent crimes per population and i don't carry when i'm home, maybe i should but i probably won't...but that's just me

http://patch.com/massachusetts/wilmington/these-are-10-most-dangerous-cities-massachusetts

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/table-8/10tbl08ma.xls

 

[crazymjb]

I just looked it up - E-5 (w/o) BAH rate for Boston MHA is $2250 a month. Two thousand, two hundred and fifty tax-free dollars a month for taking a few free classes. The Post-9/11 will pay us $27,000 A YEAR TO TAKE CLASSES THAT ARE ALSO PAID FOR!

I'll never retire near Boston, God willing, but if I do and my kids don't use my benefits (that's plan A), I'd be tempted to take a few classes, even if I finish my Bachelor's before I retire, just for the BAH $$$. I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't take advantage of it.


OP: This Mike agrees with that Mike - enroll somewhere, learn a trade or get a degree, and get paid to do it. Find a school that interests you, get their zip code, enter it here http://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/bahCalc.cfm , select E-5, then multiply the w/o rate by 12. That's how much you will get paid to go to that school every year. I'm sure it will be at least enough to cover rent, and probably food and utilities, too.

You get the BAH with dependents regardless

Sent from my cell phone with a tiny keyboard and large thumbs...

 

[TonyDedo]

Hard to believe your family is as tight as you claim, if they're going to kick you out and "make you homeless" because you own a gun. But as they say, "My roof, my rules."

Perhaps it's time to man up and get your own place...

 

[AntiHippie]

You get the BAH with dependents regardless

Sent from my cell phone with a tiny keyboard and large thumbs...

Cool - even better. I knew it was regardless of whether or not you had dependents, I just couldn't remember if it was the E-5 'with' or the E-5 'without' rate that everyone got - so I assumed it would be the lesser one instead of doing the smart thing and taking two minutes to Google it.

That makes it an even better deal - $2817, or $33,804 a year for Boston MHA. That's a pretty damned nice perk. I know a few guys that have gotten out in the last few years and have gone back to school, and lived on the BAH part of it. One even bought a house and is paying a mortgage instead of rent, and still coming out on top.

 

[M&P]

One of my sisters lives at home, who is probaly the most uncomforable with guns. Which will either cause me to move out or they'll have to kick me out

I carry concealed with I'm out, of course..but if I'm at home I'm not going to wear a jacket or something baggy. That's a bit ridiculous to hide something in "my" own home

first - thank you for your service. What you guys do means a lot to us.

Second, I can empathize. I have a number of folks in my family that don't like it. So I don't bring it up to them. You can explain all you want, but you can't force someone to like it.

If you feel you're a good/ patient teacher, you could ask for them to go to the range once. There you could let them shoot, see that it's not intimidating or an object that can shoot by itself. I've done this a few times, taking the opportunity to talk about disparity if force, armed attackers and the inability to receive immediate protection from emergency services. In away that is digestible. Don't scare them or over do it. Break it down in terms they understand. Keep it matter of fact and don't make it sound like you're a cowboy. Demonstrate that you've got good military training and have a firm understanding about responsible self defense, and that is it's only purpose. To protect you and your loved ones until help arrives.

As for your parents, I'm inclined to believe that your sister has as much right to feel comfortable there as you do. You guys just happen to be on opposite sides of the issue. I agree with other posters - get your own place. Even better, room up with a buddy who has similar views and is a responsible gun owner themselves!


As for concealing in the house, I generally wear a Glock in an uncle mikes tucked into my gym shorts and boxers with a baggy tshirt. It's that easy. It's cumfy and doesn't require a lot of work to conceal. Don't touch it, grab it/ adjust it while in the same room as your sister. It will just draw attention.

Just my 2 cents.

Again, thank you for your service and good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Varmint]

Why does it make you so nervous when someone carries around children? I'm just perplexed on why you feel nervous.

I mean someone in my house long term with a gun, I'm not talking about we're at the mall and someone is carrying. Considering how many Special Forces operators have come home and killed their wives or families (I think it's usually just the wife, not kids), I can see how people would get nervous.

Or how about if I'm carrying and I come over to your house to buy a gun from you while your kids are home. Would that make you nervous?

 

[AntiHippie]

Dude - really?

 

[Laderbuilt]

I mean someone in my house long term with a gun, I'm not talking about we're at the mall and someone is carrying. Considering how many Special Forces operators have come home and killed their wives or families (I think it's usually just the wife, not kids), I can see how people would get nervous.

Or how about if I'm carrying and I come over to your house to buy a gun from you while your kids are home. Would that make you nervous?

There is so much fail here.

 

[Varmint]

There is so much fail here.

Nothing says intelligent conversation is beyond you like a cliche'd "so much fail" post.

In 2002 there were 4 murders at Fort Bragg, then 4 more in 2007 and 2008. And that's just Special Forces, a pretty small group.

By 2005, Fort Bragg had already counted its tenth such “domestic violence” fatality, while on the West Coast, Seattle Weekly had tallied the death toll among active-duty troops and veterans in western Washington state at seven homicides and three suicides. “Five wives, a girlfriend, and one child were slain; four other children lost one or both parents to death or imprisonment. Three servicemen committed suicide—two of them after killing their wife or girlfriend. Four soldiers were sent to prison. One awaited trial.”In January 2008, The New York Times tried for the first time to tally a nationwide count of such crimes. It found “121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war.”
The Times found that about a third of the murder victims were wives, girlfriends, children or other relatives of the killer, but significantly, a quarter of the victims were fellow soldiers. The rest were acquaintances or strangers. At that time, three quarters of the homicidal soldiers were still in the military. The number of killings then represented a nearly 90 percent increase in homicides committed by active duty personnel and veterans in the six years since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Yet after tracing this “cross-country trail of death and heartbreak,” theTimes noted that its research had probably uncovered only “the minimum number of such cases.” One month later, it found “more than 150 cases of fatal domestic violence or [fatal] child abuse in the United States involving service members and new veterans.”
More cases were already on the way. After the Fourth Brigade Combat team of Fort Carson, Colorado, returned from Iraq later in 2008, nine of its members were charged with homicide, while “charges of domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault” at the base rose sharply. Three of the murder victims were wives or girlfriends; four were fellow soldiers (all men); and two were strangers, chosen at random.
Back at Fort Bragg and the nearby Marine base at Camp Lejeune, military men murdered four military women in a nine-month span between December 2007 and September 2008. By that time, retired Army Colonel Ann Wright had identified at least fifteen highly suspicious deaths of women soldiers in war zones that had been officially termed “non-combat related” or “suicide.”

And the suicide rate among service members has skyrocketed since the Iraq/Afganistan wars. And with PTSD it's not always obvious that someone is hurting inside.

Even if statistically these numbers aren't that large (the military is very large, and often these killings/suicides are by non-combat vets), the perception is out there.

So yeah, war veterans with guns in the house might make some parents nervous.

 

[dbott63]

The difference between a liberal and a conservative is the conservative might be nervous about your gun, but only the liberal wants to pass laws to take your gun away.

Ummm...interesting anecdote but it's not quite what I was getting at.

 

[fencer]

Or how about if I'm carrying and I come over to your house to buy a gun from you while your kids are home. Would that make you nervous?

No, not at all. I know for a fact that you have passed at least three background checks including the State police and FBI, have never committed a violent crime, and you just walked into a house where three people are armed, shoot regularly, and are on their own turf.

If anything YOU should be nervous. I am the one who is armed to the teeth who has someone in another room with a loaded AR.
At this point i should probably apologize to Todd Dubya who came to my house once to conduct a trade. Sorry Man.... and my son still loves that Walther!

 

[Hellbound]

Just bring up lone wolf terrorists making threats to kill veterans. Problem solved.