Let's not stop there...let's apply this to all the top 12 leading causes of death:
Heart disease
Cancer
Accidents (most commonly:poisoning, falling, car)
Chronic lower respiratory diseases
Stroke
Alzheimer’s disease
Diabetes
Influenza and pneumonia
Kidney disease
Suicide
Septicemia
Chronic liver disease
How's that gun helping you preserve you and your family's life with the causes of 75 percent of deaths each year? Has that bullet stopped diabetes yet? No? Then why do you even have it? What good is it? Nothing!
I get it people have guns like people have umbrellas. Somehow it's going to keep the rain away... But statistically speaking- it's not. I get that it's an emotional thing to worry about self defense and your families self defense, and nothing seems too crazy and holding something to pacify your fear and feel some measure of power and control of a shit situation- just in case you do need to use it feels like EVERYTHING. Everything. It's fucking lifeline, a miracle machine to save a loved one.
So why wouldn't you be prepared obsessively for a super scary event that might happen a fraction of a percent on any given day? It might happen. And if you've experienced any violent or traumatic experience/experiences or live a risky life it feels.even more likely to happen. And yeah, depending on some variables like where or how you live increases the chance of violence dramatically. Violence is a daily reality for some people.
I do get it. I once carried a tire iron and baseball bat in my car for self defense for a couple months at one point in my life. I've bluffed my way out of midrape with a knife at my throat. I once carried a knife with me. Took self defense classes. But I personally draw the line at carrying a gun casually. Because I know I'd panic and just use the gun and kill someone instead of even considering anything else. Oddly, it feels more powerless to me to have a gun then without. So I opt out so I have more choices rather then one choice because of my flight and flight response. You maybe have better reactions then me. But feel free to judge away because I do self defense a little differently because I don't want to ever cause a gun death. If I kill someone, I don't want it to be as easy as pulling a trigger. Perhaps I have too much rage in me to use a gun. And too much mercy for those that I think don't deserve death. But I don't fault someone for protecting another or oneself by using a gun. It's good to protect. And In some ways I get that it's like splitting hairs over tools for the same job.
You mention burglary alot, so I looked this up: It's far more likely for someone to die in other gun homicide or gun accident related deaths then by burglary (0.75 percent).
So, yeah... what about the danger to your family because of others having a gun? Could be someone with an anger management problem with a gun, could be a teenager shooting up the neighborhood in the passenger seat of his friend's car. Or the danger of a reckless person owning an auto mobile. Or anyone eating a McDonald's hamburger over and over?
Once again, I point out the accountability and responsibility aspect behind laws. Like what New York is doing with guns that you are all upset about. They are not taking away guns. Or a right to self defense. As I've repeated over and over and over.
Control is NOT a ban.
If you own a vehicle you are somewhat accountable and responsible for, you have the car registered. You take a test, you do driver's Ed. You get a license renewed. Their are laws about use of cars, and safety. You get pulled over by police if you don't obey them and get ticketed. You can get a license revoked. You can get fined, You can go to jail for manslaughter if you run people over in a reckless rage during a Christmas parade... No republican is complaining about a lack of right to have a car that I know of.
Anyway...New York wants similar accountability and responsibility.for guns. Yet lots of people are claiming such infringes on their right to have a gun.
Will it be a little more of a hassle to get a gun legally? Yes. But so is buying and operating a car legally. Why is that a bad thing? Is there more good in making owning a gun as easy as buying an apple then a car? Would you be unable to own a gun due to New York's new rules? And are worried?
Perhaps if we do as the UK and many other countries do...someday we will find that gun control measures protect your family from gun violence far more then you carrying a gun around obsessively does. Criminals and police won't even have guns. We won't have to worry about mass shootings, drive bys, shits fired at the grocery store or when police pulled someone over on the highway one day. Perhaps we will find other ways to deal with a home invasion then pointing or firing a gun-like so many other countries' people do. And their will be more knife fights and wounds, but less deaths. they all seem horrified by the gun violence we have in America. perhaps we could learn something from them. Perhaps we won't excuse all the homicides and mass shootings because we are scared of a one in a million chance of something truly bad happening and actually being there and have the time to react and fire a gun.
I guess you can't be a good guy with a gun without allowing "bad guys" with guns to run around. Thing is most people don't start off as bad guys.
And thing is-you can be a good guy without a gun. And you can be a good guy with a gun who registers his gun and get a permit and does gun training and gets screened for mental illness.
That's what I think anyway.
No doubt, we'll agree to disagree and you'll wish someone would teach me a lesson via wishing a home invasion with intent to harm and a lack of police to me all over again-as though that will suddenly change my mind about guns and make everything all better again. And who knows maybe if it was bad enough and broke me it would change my mind, and if I didn't kill myself, I'd carry a gun everywhere. Hell of a way to convert people into gun owners, don't you think? At least Brownstone just wants me to leave the country.
I'm glad your thoughts on guns are defensively minded. I've been around people who would rather cause trouble with guns before. It wasn't good.
Anyway, I hope you live somewhere with little violence and never ever have to use any of your guns, and I hope your guns are never part of any accidental deaths or suicides either. It sounds like you try to keep them locked up, which is good.
