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Comment by monkmartinez | Hacker News Reader

Not a fun thought experiment to be sure. I own a gun, and I am constantly awoken in the middle of the night for my "real job" so I have an unfair advantage. That is, I generally have my wits about me very quickly post eye opening. Still, I am not sure that discharging a firearm in the darkness of my house would be easy. I am in good shape due to said job, but that doesn't mean the burglar comes after me, they may have my 7 y.o. "hostage"... or something.

I would probably try to negotiate with a burglar. The only thing I really care about are pictures, videos and my family. They can literally have the rest... funny that sometimes I am a bit jealous of people when their houses burn to the ground. They get to start over... I always hope they keep offsite backups of what really matters.

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> funny that sometimes I am a bit jealous of people when their houses burn to the ground. They get to start over... I always hope they keep offsite backups of what really matters.

As someone who has had a house destroyed by water damage twice... It's not worth it! The stress from dealing with insurance and displacement is far more than the time you could spend minimizing!

Let's say you have your gun stored properly. How quickly would you be able to arm yourself if the starting point is when you are sleeping? Quick enough to defend against an intruder who knows you are home and still enters? (Honest question. I don't own a gun, never used one. I am thinking of getting licensed for fun at the range.)

Quick access safes are common - usually with either a keypad or biometric access. If you want warning invest in other measures like alarm systems and dogs.

Good call on the training if you're not familiar with firearms.

I would question whether pictures or videos really matter. I think it's the memories that are more important (I'm assuming these pictures and videos have sentimental value, and minimal financial value). It's why I really don't take many pictures when I'm on vacation, at family gatherings, etc.

Pictures can help relive the memories. When I take pictures on vacation, it's not to show off to my friends how cool of a place I'm at (ok, sometimes I'm guilty of that). It's so that afterwards I can look at the picture with my family, and remember the experiences & feelings that went along that static picture.

And who knows what state my mind will be when I get old: those pictures may come in super handy in a few decades.

Why not backup the pictures and video off site as well so the entire house is disposable?

When I'm on vacation or at family gatherings, I rarely take photos too. So many photos taken nowadays that I don't need to take any unless I see something that others aren't paying attention to. People are always very willing to share given the tech these days.

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