Tony -
Exactly.
We have a number of guns in the house. Two of them are handguns (yes, they're all legal and everything). One of them is here exclusively for self defense (the other is for training and taking pot shots at the neighborhood kids - ya know, fun stuff
). That gun is unloaded and unclipped - to fire a shot, the clip has to be loaded, a round introduced into the chamber and the safety turned off. We've never used it, and we expect that we never will have to. It's there ONLY if someone is doing bodily harm. You might be really pissed off if the neighbor's kid breaks in and steals your computer at night, but you'll feel real bad if you KILL him for it. Most law-abiding gun owners that have them for protection (and hunting, though I do not - and target shooting, which I have been known to do on occasion) value life - that's why they have guns protecting themselves in the first place. It's a very rare occasion that we'll actually find it necessary to use one. And so we don't.