> gun ownership involves the sacrifice of thousands of lives annually I would put it to you that human nature is such that if guns weren't available, people wo

> gun ownership involves the sacrifice of thousands of lives annually I would put it to you that human nature is such that if guns weren't available, people would turn to alternative weapons. Knives. Bats. Fists. The UK is seeing this progression happen now. But with a tool like a firearm, any 45 kilogram woman can defend herself against a stronger attacker. Or a 77 kg man against someone stronger than him, or perhaps a group of attackers. In the rural USA the attacker doesn't even have to be a person - it could be a brown bear (which are absolutely huge, BTW), a wild boar (increasingly common in the South), or a venomous reptile. Not having a firearm to defend yourself in those situations means you die alone in the wilderness. But the key thing to all those examples is that they are defensive uses of a firearm. You will seldom see examples of this in the news because it's not lurid enough. And that most of the time, the gun is never even fired - the credible threat is enough to stop the attack. I'm guessing that you are European, and as such have never seen a defensive use of a gun. You have only been exposed to negative views of them via the news services and Hollywood films. If you visit central Texas anytime, I'd be willing to take you to the range and give you an introduction to safe operation of a firearm and show you that gun owners are regular people too.