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Okay now we're getting somewhere. I agree entirely, public policy should not be based on 'vibes' or emotions of any sort, no matter whose vibes they are. In a 'Free Country', if you're going to set a policy or restrict someone's freedoms (especially Constitutionally-enumerated freedoms), you need a damn good reason and some proof that your policy will have the desired effect. My 'vibes' are insufficient and so are yours.
So I as I see it, the answer, from real numbers, is pretty simple.
Per FBI Uniform Crime Report, there are about 10k-12k homicides by firearm per year.
I'll take a moment to point out that rifles, which include the 'assault' rifles everyone wants to ban as well as other rifles, are used in about 200-350 homicides/year, which is less than half the 600-700 people who are punched and kicked to death. Not a huge threat there.
But back on subject. 10-12k firearm homicides per year.
In comparison, there are minimum of 55k defensive gun uses per year. A DGU is when a law-abiding person uses a legal firearm to stop or prevent a crime. The vast majority end with no shots fired- the criminal sees the gun and runs away.
The exact number of such incidents is much harder to nail down, because unlike homicides, they aren't centrally tracked. Many DGUs don't get reported- the criminal runs away quickly so there's not much to report; and there's no central reporting or tracking as there is with homicide. Thus DGUs must be tracked by various statistical survey methods, leading to the a wide disparity in numbers. Anti-gun researcher Hemenway puts it at 55k-80k/year, pro-gun researcher Lott puts it in the millions. I say it's probably somewhere in the hundreds of thousands.
So I look at these two pieces of data. 10-12k firearm homicide per year, a large % of which is done by prohibited persons and/or illegal guns (which are already illegal). On the other side, 55k+ DGUs, the vast majority of it done by legal persons and legal guns.
And I conclude if we enact anti-gun policy, it will affect the people who follow the law more than those who don't; namely; it will reduce DGUs at a greater rate than firearm homicide. And that is not a good trade in my book.
Curious to hear your thoughts?
My thoughts are that you are literally pulling a conclusion that the numbers don't support out of your ass because you 'feel' the numbers are probably higher. The entire premise is flawed from the beginning anyway, because any situation where a person pulls a gun on a person without a gun is not a defensive use of a gun, and certainly doesn't make anyone involved safer. Any interaction between two gun wielding individuals is similarly not a case of a good guy preventing violence. If neither had guns, neither would get shot. It is literally that simple.
I said that given two biased partisan researchers who produce a high and a low number, I feel the reality is probably somewhere between them. That seems pretty logical to me. If you disagree, can you explain what you think the correct number of DGUs is and how you come to that conclusion?
This is easily disproven. Here's one obvious scenario.
Single mid-20s attractive female is legally armed with carry permit. She is walking home from work when she's confronted by a would-be rapist who blocks her way and insists he comes with her. She draws her weapon and orders him out of her way. He immediately surrenders and does the whole 'I'm sorry I didn't mean nothing you don't gotta overreact like that'. No shots are fired. She then leaves the area and continues home unharmed.
That woman is safer and unharmed and unraped BECAUSE she carried her gun.
"You must defend from your assailants with an attack of equal or lesser hit points or it doesn't count." Am I allowed to pepper spray someone punching me? Or do I need to know what they bench first? Where do knives rank on the chart? And how does this system scale with multiple assailants?
"You prevented nothing, sir"