Oh I live in the United States like lots of other people, its a fairly rural place with not a lot of crime which is why I can confidently walk down the street without worried about being raped or murdered. For most people having a gun doesn't help them in life in the least, at least statistically the amount of positive uses of firearms by citizens far outweighs the negative uses. I know there's some source out there which claims a million people every year use their gun for self defense in the US, but those statistics are always open to a lot of error.
How Often Do We Use Guns in Self-Defense? - Businessweek
Point being what really guns under my skin about gun ownership isn't that a lot people own or carry guns is that they do so in a state of ignorance, they don't understand the risks to themselves that guns can create, or the risk to others if they improperly carry or improperly secure at home. I think gun advertisers are completely insane in how they advertise, which does so in a way that encourages and promotes unrealistic and unsafe ideas on how to own a weapon or what owning a weapon is like. I don't think enough people understand the responsibility that comes with owning a weapon, I don't think enough people take the time to think about how carrying a weapon could change their approach to problems or dangerous situations. Something called "weapon effect" where the fact that carrying something so powerful changes the way you think
Weapons effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Its not something I say happens to everyone but its something I've personally experienced with some people. None of this is me saying "this applies to everyone all the time," ultimately it comes down to that I don't feel people taking gun ownership seriously enough and my solution to that isn't bans or confiscation, which are political or practically feasible, but rather that people should be educated and seek education into how to be a responsible gun owner.
I'll give another example of what I mean real quick, I made a post a while back where I said if you own a gun and look at the top round in your magazine that YOU are the person most likely of all the people in the world for that round to end up in if it were to find its way into a person. There's self-injury of course but I was referring to suicide, gun owners are about 3 times more likely to kill themselves with their gun than anyone else (legally or not). Why is that? Well suicide is already a bigger problem than homicide but more specifically it has to do with the ease of the act, suicidal people typically seek out the most painless method because even to a suicidal person the final moments are spent in extreme psychological pain, part of your brain is always rebelling against the act and its easier/less painful if you can do something which overcomes that part of the brain in just a second. So the solution is simple, if you're suicidal find somewhere else to place your guns, if your friend may be suicidal talk to him about his guns and of course about his thoughts. Thats it, that's all I'm saying, no bans, no confiscation, no mark on your record so if you go to buy another gun sometime in the future you're flagged for having been suicidal at one point and can't make the purchase.
You'd be amazed, well maybe you won't, how much people will rebel against discussing simple things like that
Maybe this comes from my time in Afghanistan, where the biggest enemy was yourself. There were more deaths/injuries to suicide and accident than ever by combat, and in just about every single one them you could look at see that negligence towards appreciating risk was the cause. Ya you might get really unlikely and johnny-taliban might get you, but odds are you or your friend is going to do you in.
eace
