Someone might say: “Guns are so dangerous that they’ll kill you if you pick them up. You don’t even need to keep your finger on or near the trigger to be in danger of the gun hurting or killing you.”
8,583 people have been murdered by guns of various types in America in 2011. That’s a mighty big number, isn’t it? I guess what makes it seem like a big number is the fact that it’s big compared to the number of people we associate with on a regular basis. If the amount of murders where guns are used is any indication of guns being dangerous, then from this perspective, guns are definitely dangerous.
What if you compared the 8,583 gun murders in 2011 to the population of the country (nearly 324 MILLION) instead of your relatively small social circle? What if you compared the amount of gun related murders to the opposite of gun related murders, which is vastly larger in comparison? That completely changes things. The number 8,583 doesn’t seem so huge after that change in perspective. If the amount of murders where guns are used is any indication of guns being dangerous, then from this perspective, guns are not dangerous because they are used on a small fraction of the people in America. Go ahead. Do the math. The number is VERY small.
Ok, so the number of people in America wasn’t 324 million back in 2011. So what? Maybe it was a few million less. Does that change the fact that there were over 300 million people in America in 2011? Not by a long shot.
But you say “What about the cities where guns kill lots of people daily?” Chicago would be one example. To that I say “Bad guys will always be able to get guns through either legal means or, if guns are ever permanently banned across the entire USA (not just the cities), they will get them from the black market. It’s at this point that only they and the police will have guns. And this leaves minority families living in the cities with a severe disadvantage: What if their homes are broken into? The police are minutes away and often that’s all a murderer needs to kill one or more members of a family. It’s during those minutes that a good guy using a gun can stop a bad guy from hurting or killing the good guy and his or her family. And whether or not it’s rare that guns are used in self defense, the fact is that there are a lot of break ins that are dangerous for the victims.
But you say “My home has never been broken into before and likely won’t in the future, so your argument doesn’t hold water.” To that I say “We don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know who will be next. You seem to be saying that you know it won’t be you and as a result, you won’t take the precautions to keep your household safe.
But you say “I don’t want to kill someone, even in self defense!” Either way you look at it, when someone comes at you with a gun, someone is getting hurt or killed. The innocent victim (you) should be the one to remains unhurt, not the attacker. Look, we’re talking about you defending yourself. How is that a bad thing? The last I checked, it’s not against the law to defend yourself.
But you say “if we can stop just one gun related murder, then it will be worth it to have gun control.” Black markets which go around gun control laws aside, to your statement I say “One way to stop a gun related murder is for people like you (who care a lot about others) to have guns for the defense of human life. You might say “But if guns are involved, a human will get hurt or die!” That’s right. Better the aggressor than you, wouldn’t you say? If not, I wonder if you really care about yourself and others. Or perhaps you just haven’t thought things through yet.
But you say “what about suicides?” A suicide is similar to a murder because each involves the death of someone. So let’s equate them as the same for the sake of the argument. Does that change anything else I’m saying here? No? Then why do you use it as an argument for gun control?
You also say “but even one gun related murder is a tragedy. Guns must be highly regulated or banned outright.” My response is “Not being able to use a gun for self defense is also a tragedy. You having no gun in a situation in which you are the intended victim means you have less of a chance of surviving because it won’t be there to help defend your life.”
You say “but guns are hardly ever used for self defense.” Fact: There are murders in this world. Fact: We don’t know who will be next. Since we don’t know who will be next, it could be us or people around us. Don’t you want a super effective way of stopping an attacker from potentially seriously harming or killing you or your loved ones or anyone for that matter?
You say “But you can reason with someone before you kill them in self defense so hopefully they don’t murder you”. You could and there is a time/place for that. Yet if they’re in the middle of pulling out their gun to kill you OR if they already have it aimed at you, they are past the point at which they can be reasoned with. At that point, shooting them is your best bet at you (the innocent person in all this) staying safe.
You say “You don’t need more than ten rounds” I say “What if the bad guy has more rounds than you? Sure, it only takes one shot to kill and stop them, but what if it takes more than that (it’s not always the first shot that kills, after all) and you suddenly run out while they have more rounds and wham, you get murdered because of a lack of rounds? What if it’s a firefight where you need more than ten rounds?
If guns were so dangerous, then I’d be killed by them even by just picking them up in my hands.
Sources:
For gun deaths in 2011, I got the info here: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8
For the population number, I got the info here: http://www.census.gov
