In the UK, strangely, you DO have less chance of being burgled if you keep a gun - but only because the police (quite rightly) insist on stringent security checks of your house before you can get a firearms licence or shotgun certificate.
However, at the risk of sounding like a reactionary redneck, I think the British firearms laws have now gone too far, prompted by reactionary rabble-rousing in the tabloids and shroud-waving by special-interest groups.
As a Labour Party member, I was personally affronted at the fawning over the Snowdrop campaigners at the party conference a while back.
Yes, to lose someone to a lunatic is appalling, and there should be stringent checks, both medical and social, before anyone can be permitted to own a lethal weapon, but to attempt moral blackmail on such a huge scale and to wipe out an entire sport in the UK is surely not on.
The trouble is, in the UK the whole fieldsports issue (which incorporates shooting) has become highly politicised and is very much a hot potato, polarised into bunny-huggers versus bloodthirsty toffs, neither of which is a fair description. (Personally, I respect people views on animal rights, but only if they themselves are completely vegan and will not wear leather, wool or silk. And there ain't an awful lot of those around.)
It is something which tends to engage people passionately, however. I've had to deal with sabateurs and "antis" when out fowling, and have been called a murder, had my car vandalised and been spat upon by people with whom I could probably quite happily spend an evening at a singaround or session.
Interestingly, in the UK I have known there to be boos, hisses and murmurs of disapproval at the singing of hunting songs (and there are some darned good ones), yet no-one demurs at songs about whaling, murder, adultery, drunkenness or any number of frowned-upon practices.
On the subject of what one would do when confronted by an intruder, if anyone tried to break into my place I'd never get the gunsafe open in time, so it would have to be the cavalry sabre. ;^)
However, the only time it's come near to happening a full-blooded bellow made the little bugger shit himself and turn tail.