Nah just couple of sentries and loud alarms would do. US is pretty solid surveillance state and robbers would rather try where they can escape the consequence.
Where I live it’s mostly compulsory for young adult males to serve in the army. Every following year up until your thirty something birthday you have to go and serve for a short time to not forget the basics sort of thing. So basically for about ten years every household will have at least one rifle hidden under the bed (literally under the bed, not in a safe or whatever). Ok the military does keep the bullets and not give them out to reservists when they go home after their top-up training. But still, how hard would it be to keep a bullet or two? Surprisingly on the news we might hear about robberies with knives or something but not with those military rifles. Nor are they used for self defense at home. Well, at least the news don’t report that.
Killing people, killing animals for meat, killing targets. Wait, this makes me sound like I’m a psychopath. Oh well, suffice to say there are many psychos living here.
If a criminal points a gun to you, then you can't do anything anyways, so having a gun home is pointless IMO. The best way to deal with criminals is to buy a house in a safe area.
2 things. 1. 50s give me big ol' raging hard on's so Id say go for it if you are convinced about the condition of it. 2. the ammo is where you are really going to destroy your savings dude. last time I shot a 50 it was like 3$ a round.. and lets be real youre not shooting just a couple of rounds.
actually some people beside terrorist group do have their own gun but they usually keep it to themselves and hidden.