In unequal power situations, guns are mighty useful. A world where no one needs firearms is a nice ideal, but unfortunately we don't live in that world. The police cannot be trusted to show up anywhere in time to defend you, and in fact might shoot you instead of whoever is attacking you anyway.
Are many firearm proponents ideologically crazy and/or reckless? Unfortunately Yes. Does this have negative societal consequences? Yes. Should we work towards a world where no one feels the need to own a firearm for self defence? Absolutely.
But saying that firearms "are not the way to do anything" is just denying reality.
You need to have the big "I consider America the world" disclaimer at the top.
A world where a regular person in their everyday life do not need firearms exists all over the world. Are you the police? are you the military? and if so are you currently working? If not then you do not need a gun.
The police all over the world do show up when needed, and the don't shoot people unless it is a complete last resort. In the very rare case you are a person that is being attacked, they're even trained so well they don't shoot the person attacking you and can deal with it in better ways.
The only thing firearms help an average person do is compete in a shooting competition. Take a look at the rest of the developed world and realise that your thoughts on this only apply to one country.
Whenever I hear about how the rest of the world doesn't need guns I always think of the Mexican avacado farmers who used (highly illegal) guns to protect their farms from cartels because the government can't protect them.
Always funny when a European corrects an American that the rest of the world is not America, as it is obviously Paris.
Useless unless you also have the right to bear them into potential death traps like a theater.
Very needed when like in Bataclan the authorities take a secure the parameter and wait approach, like for Columbine and the Pulse a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida massacres. Or when the closest authorities cower in fear as in the Stoneman high school shooting (that was addressed by police units from further away).
> A world where a regular person in their everyday life do not need firearms exists all over the world. Are you the police? are you the military? and if so are you currently working? If not then you do not need a gun.
Someone upthread made a good point: a regular person in their everyday life does not need a fire extinguisher. Most people go their whole lives without ever using one.
Several months ago I listened to a story about Myanmar on (I think) NPR's The World. After the coup and after the military started shooting protesters, many urban pro-democracy activists sensibly realized that nonviolent action wasn't going to work, and headed out of the city to get trained by some ethic rebel groups in the countryside.
However, when they were done with their training they had to do back home unarmed. Myanmar has strict gun control, and the rebels didn't have any guns to spare.
So, in summary: you don't need a gun until you do.
I agree with the OP, but I am not in America. Sadly, my nation definitely wouldn’t be considered a developed country (we are in the 60s or 70s by GDP).
So maybe instead of the OPs thoughts only applying the one country, maybe your thoughts only apply to one continent: Europe?
Now with respect to the article, my sisters are very interested in gun ownership because in their own words “no one needs guns just to protect against robberies”. And I agree, for peace of mind when it comes to bodily safety it’s better to trust yourself instead of being forced to trust crime statistics and police response times.
To correct one fallacy, brandishing a gun is largely unnecessary. If you brandish, you might as well use. However, knowing that you are armed can give you the courage and confidence that puts off attackers. For the most part these guys are opportunistic, and only escalate when they are sure someone is defenseless.
I've seen enough videos of the unarmed British police getting their ass handed to them by crazy Somali's with nothign but a knife to realize that yes, the police need guns.
Funny because your link directly contradicts the version of events you put forward. Not only was he killed before the police arrived but the two attackers were shot by armed police very shortly after the regular police arrived and prevented any other mayhem. AND a whole bunch of unarmed regular people intervened as well.
> Not only was he killed before the police arrived
I don't know if that can be proven. He never had a medical assessment that established that at the time, and everyone involved would have had incentive to say he was already dead to avoid initiating a confrontation with the armed attackers.
Okay he was attacked and left for dead by the attackers (although the bystanders who helped said he was dead at that point after the fact) who didn't further attack him before the police arrived or after they arrived. It doesn't make your version any less completely counter-factual because no police were there when Lee was attacked and they did in fact later successfully intervene to stop them doing anything further.
Women have been fighting for representation in government, pay equality, education equality. None of those are helped by owning a gun. How many women have had their access to personal development opportunities restricted by their inability to apply deadly force? I'm guessing it's a trivially small number.
It makes it a lot more expensive, shall I say, for the opposing side to rid themselves of such turbulent agitators.
There's memorials to people who were killed during the Civil Rights era; there's not very many names on them, around 33 for the first I heard of, 41 for the SPLC's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Memorial and it includes a number that aren't relevant to my point. One reason for this is because a lot of them including Eleanor Roosevelt were armed.
Somehow I never read news about "rapist shot dead by attacked woman". Are you positive that buying more firearms will make it happen? Because it definitely doesn't look we're there yet.
"Police: Woman shoots, kills man peeping into her bedroom window"
Maybe she could have just called the police? Or take a picture of him and post on NextDoor, which is what happens in our neighborhood. Of course, it always turns out to be a misunderstanding; the Amazon delivery guy trying to figure out if someone's home so they can leave a package. But at least they are just publicly shamed on the web instead of dead from a gunshot wound.
The article is short on details but it's possible she did call the police. Other articles explored the possibility the woman knew the man, which would bolster a claim of self defense (a stalker, abusive ex-lover, etc)
It's also possible that she's tried that in the past, but given that the guy would be watching her as she does it, it may not be super practical to expect him to wait around for the police to arrive.
And I don't know how many times the police have to be called for this only to show up and find nothing before they stop promptly sending an officer for new reports.
It happens but even the six stores a month in American Rifleman aren't statistically significant, when compared to the number of "bad person kills less bad/good person" numbers or "accidental shooting death" numbers.
> in 2020, there have been unintentional shootings by over 220 children. This has resulted in 92 deaths and 135 injuries
> Kristen McMains, a 25-year-old lawyer in Louisville, Kentucky, first became suspicious that John Ganobcik was stalking her when she traversed the skywalk connecting her office building to the parking garage across the street. She felt her fears were confirmed when she boarded an elevator and the suspicious man followed -- but did not press a button. When the doors opened on the fourth level of the parking garage, she bolted for her car, and Ganobcik sprinted after her.
> Before McMains could get in her car, her attacker caught up, slammed her head, and jabbed at her with an eight-inch rusty serrated knife. He forced her into the passenger seat and said, “We’re going.” Fearing rape and murder, McMains fought viciously to escape, tearing off all 10 of her fingernails in the struggle, but she was unable to escape. Desperate, she told Ganobcik that she had just cashed a check and could offer him money. When she reached for her purse, instead of money, she pulled out the .32 Beretta Tomcat her father had bought for her.
> At first, it failed to fire, but McMains kept pulling the trigger and ultimately she shot Ganobcik in the neck and the buttocks. He fled, and a passerby called 911. Eventually, Ganobcik pled guilty to robbery and attempted kidnapping, receiving a 15-year prison sentence. McMains’ use of force was immediately recognized as justified.
In most incidents where people use firearms to protect themselves no shots are fired, just brandishing the weapon is enough. Those incidents don't make the news.
Buy if you're looking for an actual news story, here's one.
The comment is probably not meant this way, but brandishing has connotations of anger, excitement, or intimidation.
I would caution one not to do this as it may be illegal in your jurisdiction. Only draw a firearm with the intent to use it, not with the intent to intimidate. Certainly, the intent to use it may have a side effect of intimidating an aggressor — I don’t dispute that.
You don't pull a gun unless you intend to use it. The law recognizes this. If you pull the gun with justified intent, and you end up not having to use it, that's just a happy circumstance. This has happened to me.
They do exist, but Youtube's algo won't suggest them unless that is something you are already interested in. I find videos almost weekly of store owners and individuals defending themselves. The people that have training and experience with their tools are usually able to successfully fend off the attackers.
There dozens of defensive uses of firearms daily. Many don’t result in shooting and even when they do they rarely make local news and certainly not beyond. There are a few sources that are trying to catalog these events I’ll try to snag one when I’m not on mobile. I’ve had to use a firearm before and it was never reported because no one got shot.
There is a plethora of research and data attempting to estimate how many crimes are stopped/deterred beforehand merely by the presence of a firearm by the victim. None of these estimates are small.
Research questioning prisoners why they don't commit home invasions list the presence of firearms in the home as the number one reason. My state has very few home invasions and nearly all of them are drug/gang related.
If an attacker is stopped before it happens, we don't really know if it would have been a rape or a mugging or an assault.
Don't take my post as fact, please research this and come up with your own opinion. Let it simmer a bit in your mind. You can call me crazy later, just let it percolate for a little bit first!
Here are my thoughts (or hypotheses, if you will):
Guns are a very political topic. There are narratives in place on both sides of the aisle. Most news is reported in service to the narratives that outlet supports.
Do the news sources you consume ever tell you about about defensive gun usage? In any context? These stories aren't hard to find if you look for them.
Are many firearm proponents ideologically crazy and/or reckless? Unfortunately Yes. Does this have negative societal consequences? Yes. Should we work towards a world where no one feels the need to own a firearm for self defence? Absolutely.
But saying that firearms "are not the way to do anything" is just denying reality.