I'd say that the OP, given the situation at hand, is moving in the right direction in getting a gun in the house. Once that's done, and his wife sees that the world hasn't ended, he has made progress. There wouldn't be any benefit to have a big fight over the guns. She'd probably just dig in her heels and never forget the fight. That is not progress at all. It has been my experience that most (but not all) people that don't like guns are just fearing something that they don't understand and that they consider (due to negative info on TV) to be terribly dangerous. You have to take tiny little steps to get her from where she is to where the OP wants her to be. Happily for me, I found my wife recently out on the stockpond dock, in her underwear and hair curlers, shooting turtles. She paused party preparation for that. Turtles eat catfish food, and she loves her pet catfish. She's a darn good shot with rifle or pistol. Not so good with shotgun. She didn't used to like guns. We have made progress. Still, she won't shoot deer, but will shoot hogs. She says that hogs are ugly and deserve to die. As I get older and uglier, that comment haunts me.