Lazs I don't know how many times I have to repeat it but buying a handgun to protect my home would be the equivalent to me as dragging a rubber dingy behind my mercedes in case I'd happen to run it into a water filled sinkhole.
It's pointless for you to stick with the 15 minutes lazs. I doubt I'll ever need to test the response time in personal distress and even if I did, my home door is capable of holding the perp for 15 minutes, which is usually enough. Even if he did enter, he's not likely to be armed as every joe down here doesn't carry a gun.
I've read stories about tourists driving with rented cars on your highways and getting stoped at gunpoint by the police for a traffic violation. I've seen episodes of Cops and I have to say the police down there expect to see 10x violent crime compared to here.
Godzilla: In addition to the fact that you didn't read my post properly (the text in marks was a quote of lazs2) I can see how it might be hard to understand how someone can feel safe, relaxed and not threatened. It's just how things happen to be here and large parts of europe. When people have a social security network behind them, they don't have the need to be desperate. Despiration leads into desperate acts, riots, drug abuse and drug related crime.
The world is changing though. Many european countries are getting pested by illegal (or even legal) immigrants from russia, georgia, albania and the likes. The albanian problem is rampant in greece, where people resort in putting bars on their windows now. In italy and spain there's a constant stream of illegal immigrants from libya and other african countries. There are regions where 80% of the crime is already done by minorities from the eastern block. It's one of the challenges of our society to block the influx of bad material looking for a better life, often via crime. So far it's quite successful in my country, worse for some others.
