A lot of folks forget that the US's advantages and opportunities derive directly from the fact that individual citizens have a far greater amount of freedom and

A lot of folks forget that the US's advantages and opportunities derive directly from the fact that individual citizens have a far greater amount of freedom and power versus the government here than people do anywhere else in the world. Freedom of speech, religion, gathering, and many other things. Those freedoms are defended by individual power. All power in the world derives from force. The benefit of private gun ownership is a much higher level of individual power and thus the ability to defend that freedom vs the continuous encroaches of government. Mass shootings are an unfortunate side effect, but one worth accepting. I'd rather have a few thousand gun related deaths a year than hundreds of thousands or millions die when a too powerful government takes power.