Statistically speaking, you are more likely to use a gun to kill yourself or a loved one than a home invader. Some folks live in particularly dangerous areas or have particularly dangerous jobs, but outside of that, guns seem like a bad bet. IMO, for the average person, having a gun for personal safety is kind of like using lottery tickets as a retirement strategy.
Statistically you are possibly correct as long as you account for a statistical field which includes all instances where firearm ownership is neutral, benign, uneventful, even boring.
You could be talking about anybody, or their dad, or granddad, or even grandmothers.
I knew quite a few old grannies that packed, a few old Italian nonnies in New York, a few North Carolinians who moved up to the DC suburbs for those good postwar civil service jobs with the gummint. I knew four mothers of friends of mine, one white, the other two black, and one Ojibwe, who all packed.
None of these people ever did anything, and nothing was ever done to them, nothing of consequence anyway.
All these old folks lived out their entire lives, with a gun around them for their entire adult lives, and nothing ever happened.
And that is by far the largest statistic.
So what you're arguing for might, at least in part, suggest some kind of miracle 100% guarantee that no gun violence will ever happen, because there are no guns.
I can respect that. I do respect that. But it's not real.
And what we can both respect is the idea of trying to right some of the wrongs that lead to too many sick people going over the edge and doing stupid things.
And we can make dents in that sort of thing, from many angles, some which might at first blush, sound surprising.
So yes, statistically more people wind up doing stupid things like shooting themselves, accidentally or intentionally, or their loved ones, also accidentally or intentionally. Yes, that does happen.
Instances where a firearm owner actually winds up using their piece for self-defense are rare.
But they are no less real, is that not so?
That is the reason you are statistically more likely to use a gun to kill yourself or a loved one than on a home invader, or a robber, or a carjacker, or a rapist...because instances where one DOES use it on a bad guy are rare.
I don't view either of those essential truths to be a determining factor in my own personal firearm ownership.
Besides, what kind of a world would it be IF legitimate firearms use outnumbered stupid accidents and tragedy?
I'll tell you. It would mean, for one thing, that you're living in a world without legitimate law enforcement, and that is because the majority of people DO rely on professional law enforcement, and that is not a bad thing.
Here's why, at least for me anyway:
I don't give a **** about any notion of seeing myself as some kind of citizen enforcer, or vigilante, or any other George Zimmerman-esque alter ego fantasy. I think I stated earlier that I view my firearms as appliances, and the use of them as nothing more than another option. I don't harbor any delusions about my chances being better in a tight spot because that is impossible to say unless you can predict what each situation is going to be like.
So, Mister Exo...you might be making good points but please take care not to be too quick to plaster some kind of 1-size-fits-all one dimensional generic overlay on all gun owners. I've just been around them most of my life and they never were any big deal. They were just there, that's all.
