District of Columbia

[jonno99]

29. I think it is important to understand the language of "feeling".

Yes the person who "feels" safe simply because they have a gun are fooling themselves - there are no guarantees.

Of course this is no different than the person who "eats right and exercises" or the person who scrupulously makes sure their car is tuned and has good tires. There is no guarantee that one of these will escape heart attack or calamity - and they would be foolish to assume otherwise.

And of course having a gun in your home makes you more likely to be a victim of gun crime - just like driving a car makes you more likely to die in an car accident.

When you consider 30,000 gun deaths a year, you should keep in mind that ~20,000 of those are due to suicide. And while this is a sad figure, one cannot simply conclude that guns are the reason. Japan has extremely strict gun control laws - and yet has a higher rate of suicide than does the US. I won't even get into US firearm deaths attributed to drug-war turf battles.

You consider guns to be an illusion of security? Perhaps, but don't tell that to the LEO, and don't tell that to the rape victims and the home invasion victims. They have no illusions - they understand the cold hard reality of helplessness.