4 ms·

Even beyond that, I find the arguments of gun control advocates to be lacking. "We need to take away guns because a very small percentage of people are violent

Even beyond that, I find the arguments of gun control advocates to be lacking. "We need to take away guns because a very small percentage of people are violent with them." "Well, what do we do when we need help from someone who has ignored the gun laws?" "Well, you call people with guns, of course!" "But, they're minutes away? How is that going to help me now?" Advocates for gun control seem to forget that guns are the single greatest equalizer for self-defense this world has ever seen. Being attacked by someone larger than you? A gun is going to help. Someone attacking you already has a gun? You are giving yourself a far better chance of survival by being armed than just sitting there like a deer staring at car headlights waiting to be run over. Physical strength and in certain cases even numerical advantages mean little in comparison to the sheer stopping power a firearm can wield, even before it is fired. There are not many people in this world who won't take a pause when a gun is pointed at them and many defensive gun uses in the US (of which the estimates range from 300,000 to upwards of 3,000,000) don't even require the firearm to be discharged. For all the gun homicides in the US, many more lives are saved simply by the presence of guns. Don't get me wrong, I get just as pissed off every time a gun is used in a manner like Buffalo, Uvalde, Florida, etc. but don't take away the tool whose presence has the greatest single effective in stopping someone in their tracks simply because of a few bad actors.

Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
"There are not many people in this world who won't take a pause when a gun is pointed at them and many defensive gun uses in the US (of which the estimates range from 300,000 to upwards of 3,000,000) don't even require the firearm to be discharged." The vast majority, otherwise we'd have some truly amazing gun injury and death statistics. From memory of some of the survey results, the first by a gun control group which figured 1 million uses but didn't check for more than one use a year, it was either around 85% or a bit over 90% where the gun being used in self-defense is not discharged, the credible threat is enough. Even more without anyone getting hit, or hit badly.
quantified 4y ago
If you support drug legalization for responsible users, we're on the same page.
- seanw444 4y ago
  That's what the libertarians have been about for forever. Democrats: hypocrites. Republicans: hypocrites. Libertarians: you can be a trans, pot-smoking, gun enthusiast. We don't care.
  - quantified 4y ago
    People who follow the label affinities are PITAs. I'm not a libertarian, too much belief in the need for people to recognize obligations as well as rights. All the approaches have some positions of merit and many of BS.

Throwawayaerlei 4y ago

"There are not many people in this world who won't take a pause when a gun is pointed at them and many defensive gun uses in the US (of which the estimates range from 300,000 to upwards of 3,000,000) don't even require the firearm to be discharged." The vast majority, otherwise we'd have some truly amazing gun injury and death statistics. From memory of some of the survey results, the first by a gun control group which figured 1 million uses but didn't check for more than one use a year, it was either around 85% or a bit over 90% where the gun being used in self-defense is not discharged, the credible threat is enough. Even more without anyone getting hit, or hit badly.

quantified 4y ago

If you support drug legalization for responsible users, we're on the same page.

seanw444 4y ago
That's what the libertarians have been about for forever. Democrats: hypocrites. Republicans: hypocrites. Libertarians: you can be a trans, pot-smoking, gun enthusiast. We don't care.
- quantified 4y ago
  People who follow the label affinities are PITAs. I'm not a libertarian, too much belief in the need for people to recognize obligations as well as rights. All the approaches have some positions of merit and many of BS.