Mass shootings aren't a real problem. Well, not compared to all the other shootings. If you wave a magic wand and end all mass shootings in the US once and for all, you will hardly make a dent in the gun death statistics. — SophistiCat
Just because you can't accept anything but applause at attacks on gun ownership doesn't make the analysis dull or or dense. — Hanover
It just makes the point that there is not a meaningful risk of loss of life to being shot by a gun in the US if you take the simple precaution of not choosing to have a gun nearby. — Hanover
The math doesn't support widespread efforts at gun control to reduce the negligible risk guns pose to those who, like me, have never owned, nor will ever own a gun. — Hanover
If a criminal right now, were to God forbid, attempt to trespass onto your home with violent intentions, one larger than you, what would you do? Call the police? — Outlander
The likelihood that I be able to produce a gun and use it effectively is lower than that gun being used otherwise to cause me harm. — Hanover
That's my point. You're not safer owning a gun all things considered. — Hanover
Life is about reducing risks. — Hanover
and hope that the government never turns them on you. — Leontiskos
The likelihood that I be able to produce a gun and use it effectively is lower than that gun being used otherwise to cause me harm. — Hanover
So the advice to not own a gun has a lot in common with the advice to sell this or that stock. It is highly time-dependent advice. The advice will become outdated once a few contingencies change. — Leontiskos
To me gun ownership makes sense if you're at very low risk of suicide and you get something positive out of the gun. Say hunting, target shooting, collecting, skeet etc. — LuckyR
If you live in a safe area then there indeed seems little reason to invest time in familiarizing yourself with a firearm. But not everyone is so fortunate. — Tzeentch
I could find no data suggesting that gun ownership increased one"s safety in more dangerous areas. — Hanover
It is common sense. When I am unarmed and someone is coming for my life, I have virtually zero chance of survival. With a firearm it will be significantly higher. — Tzeentch
The data shows a gun currently provides 4 times more danger than protection. — Hanover
But there's going to be a set of people for whom that's not true. If I'm a single male in a high-crime area, I don't see how keeping a gun in the apartment will put me in more danger. In the aggregate, — RogueAI
Why can't you let the stats speak for themselves and just say you're comfortable with the increased risks but you want the gun? — Hanover
Statistics without context do not "speak for themselves", nor are the words of someone who has (I assume) never had a run-in with violent criminals particularly valuable. — Tzeentch
I have, and there's not a doubt in my mind that a firearm would have made me safer. — Tzeentch
Oh please, save me the nonsense about how you've seen pain I can't understand. — Hanover
Of course if you'd have had a gun when you were accosted, the outcome would have been different. — Hanover
Why wouldn't I just go buy me an arsenal, get cool sights, laser beams, the whole works? — Hanover
The one liberal democracy that is under real threat from its own government is the US, and no amount of gun ownership is going to change that. — Wayfarer
Life is about reducing risks. — Hanover
Rather, the average person in a western country lives such a safe and sheltered life that they cannot even fathom the need to protect themselves, or understand what it is like to have one's life threatened, and what it does to a person. — Tzeentch
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