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Megan, I believe that every free citizen should be armed. It only incidentally has to do with fending off thugs, crack-headed or jack-booted; it has little to do with statistics; and Mary Rosh (I see what you did there! So clever!), it has not a thing to do with confusing guns and penises.

It has to do with accepting personal responsibility for your life. Period. Eric S. Raymond, in his crucial essay,  “Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun“, outlines the key lessons of being armed:

• It all comes down to you.
• Never count on being able to undo your choices.
• The universe doesn’t care about motives.
• Right choices are possible, and the ordinary judgment of ordinary (wo)men is sufficient to make them.

He expands on these points, then continues:

The Founding Fathers of the United States believed, and wrote, that the bearing of arms was essential to the character and dignity of a free people. For this reason, they wrote a Second Amendment in the Bill Of Rights which reads “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”.

…Thomas Jefferson’s question, posed in his inaugural address of 1801, still stings. If a man cannot be trusted with the government of himself, how can he be trusted with the government of others?
…
Too many of us have come to believe ourselves incapable of this discipline [of responsibly arming ourselves]. We fall prey to the sick belief that we are all psychopaths or incompetents under the skin. We have been taught to imagine ourselves armed only as villains….

But it’s not so. To believe this is to ignore the actual statistics and generative patterns of weapons crimes….

To believe one is incompetent to bear arms is, therefore, to live in corroding and almost always needless fear of the self — in fact, to affirm oneself a moral coward. A state further from “the dignity of a free man” would be rather hard to imagine. It is as a way of exorcising this demon, of reclaiming for ourselves the dignity and courage and ethical self-confidence of free (wo)men that the bearing of personal arms, is, ultimately, most important.

Everyone, please: read the whole thing, then come back and talk to us. You may still choose not to arm yourself, but if you want us to take you seriously, you must be able to answer Raymond before criticizing our choice to arm ourselves.

I have pointers to this and other essays for those considering arming themselves here.

On the practicalities:

1. Even if Heller goes against D.C., there will still be a long, hard time before D.C. police and other agents acting locally become accustomed to honest citizens being armed, even in their own homes. Prepare yourself for a very high level of official suspicion and hostility. Right now, the only people they see with guns are themselves and the goblins. You will have to do your part to make being armed honorable and normal again. And, of course, Heller is merely the first crack in the formidable legal wall against exercising your Second Amendment right.
2. As a corollary, until new case law is established, you will literally not be able to predict, before you are arrested and appear in court, what is legal and what is not. This is one of the huge problems with allowing broad legal restrictions on a fundamental right.
3. Frankly, I don’t care what the decision is, as far as my own behavior goes. The 2nd only protects a right you have always had. The Constitution does not grant us privileges; it only tells the Government what it may and may not do. It’s time and past the Government remembered that.
4. I heartily concur with the advice above that before you arm yourself for self defense, you must mentally and emotionally prepare yourself to kill. Decide now when you will and will not kill–deciding at three a.m. when you hear your door getting kicked in is a recipe for guilt and self-loathing.
5. Is your DVD player worth a life? The goblin thinks it is–your life, to be specific. He set the rules of engagement the instant he entered your home. Fight by his rules, or lose. Remember, “losing”, here, could mean being raped, tortured, or murdered.

I’ve edited out my comments on what firearm to buy; others have already made my points. I do strongly encourage you to take a basic firearms course and try several different kinds before making your selection. And, of course, you can always buy more than one. Many folks think every household should have at least a handgun, a shottie, and a rifle. And some would not include a .22 as the rifle–those should be as unremarkable as screwdrivers and hammers, and .22 ammo as plentiful as sugar and flour.

Welcome to freedom and responsibility, Megan. And remember:

“America keeps her freedom in five boxes: Soap, ballot, jury, witness, cartridge. Use in that order.”