4 ms·

I grew up somewhere where many law abiding citizens carry pistols in public. What is your opinion on arming oneself for defense?

EGreg 8y ago
My opinion is that it’s good in sparsely populated areas and becomes progressively worse as density increases due to the probability of random altercations getting out of hand.
Diederich 8y ago
I consider myself politically and culturally progressive, tempered with a wide but reasonable streak of pragmatic. So enough code phrases: I usually vote Democratic, even though I'm a strong believer in broad rights to bear arms. (I wasn't going to make this a political response, but it's sneaking in, so here goes.) To directly answer your question: I generally support the right of most citizens to carry properly registered weapons if they so choose. At the same time, I've read (can't cite them right now) studies that show carrying a weapon greatly increases the chance that a given criminal conflict will escalate to bloodshed. If I recall correctly, it even makes the bearer statistically more likely to be seriously hurt. If accurate, this invalidates the whole reasoning behind "arming oneself for defense". My personal experiences and observations mirror this finding: statistically speaking, it is almost always safer to not carry than it is to carry. More to the point: I would personally rather be seriously injured in a criminal conflict than remain uninjured if that required me to kill someone. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a fragile snowflake, quite the opposite.) Of course I'll state the obvious: in both of the incidents I reported above, things would very likely have been worse if any of the people on the receiving end of violence had been armed. So...why do I support the right to bear arms? It's not really about the 2nd amendment for me. I just tend to default to freedom unless there's a very compelling reason not to. Guns are here in the United States, and no matter what, they aren't leaving. The only way for gun regulation to have a material impact on gun violence is to somehow get rid of most of them, which isn't going to happen. There have been and are now many countries with many guns that don't have anything like the levels of violence that we experience in the US. Guns aren't the fundamental problem. In my opinion, the most fundamental problem we have as a society is that we're extremely afraid. Inappropriately afraid. This problem isn't only in US, but it seems to be especially concentrated here. There's a million nuances that I must gloss over in order to complete this reply in a reasonable amount of time. I'm very much not emotionally tied to my thoughts on this issue, as so many people are, and I'm quite open having my opinions modified with strong evidence based arguments.

EGreg 8y ago

My opinion is that it’s good in sparsely populated areas and becomes progressively worse as density increases due to the probability of random altercations getting out of hand.

Diederich 8y ago

I consider myself politically and culturally progressive, tempered with a wide but reasonable streak of pragmatic. So enough code phrases: I usually vote Democratic, even though I'm a strong believer in broad rights to bear arms. (I wasn't going to make this a political response, but it's sneaking in, so here goes.) To directly answer your question: I generally support the right of most citizens to carry properly registered weapons if they so choose. At the same time, I've read (can't cite them right now) studies that show carrying a weapon greatly increases the chance that a given criminal conflict will escalate to bloodshed. If I recall correctly, it even makes the bearer statistically more likely to be seriously hurt. If accurate, this invalidates the whole reasoning behind "arming oneself for defense". My personal experiences and observations mirror this finding: statistically speaking, it is almost always safer to not carry than it is to carry. More to the point: I would personally rather be seriously injured in a criminal conflict than remain uninjured if that required me to kill someone. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a fragile snowflake, quite the opposite.) Of course I'll state the obvious: in both of the incidents I reported above, things would very likely have been worse if any of the people on the receiving end of violence had been armed. So...why do I support the right to bear arms? It's not really about the 2nd amendment for me. I just tend to default to freedom unless there's a very compelling reason not to. Guns are here in the United States, and no matter what, they aren't leaving. The only way for gun regulation to have a material impact on gun violence is to somehow get rid of most of them, which isn't going to happen. There have been and are now many countries with many guns that don't have anything like the levels of violence that we experience in the US. Guns aren't the fundamental problem. In my opinion, the most fundamental problem we have as a society is that we're extremely afraid. Inappropriately afraid. This problem isn't only in US, but it seems to be especially concentrated here. There's a million nuances that I must gloss over in order to complete this reply in a reasonable amount of time. I'm very much not emotionally tied to my thoughts on this issue, as so many people are, and I'm quite open having my opinions modified with strong evidence based arguments.