Xan Krieger said:
There's been this discussion in the Religion and Politics section of the forum and it concerns this. Can you use a gun to defend yourself? At least one person claimed it's a myth and that it never happens.
My take on it? Yeah you can, to take it a bit further you can also defend your home with one. The person I argued with said it never ever happens, he also said that if someone breaks into your home that you can't shoot them. Where I live if someone breaks into your house that is your castle and they just breached the walls so you can defend your property.
Using a gun to protect yourself means using said gun after you were attacked first. If you were attacked with a gun, you will probably have a severe case of "the deadsies", which means you cant really fight back anyway. If you use said gun without getting attacked first, you were the one initiating it and thus, you didnt really "defend" yourself.
Fact is that the US have the most guns per capita and the most gun related deaths per capita. Denmark who has strict gun control, has a number of gun related deaths of 1.45/100,000capita/year. Compared to that, the US has a number of gun related fatalities of 10.3/100,000capita/year. In other words; gun restriction lowers gun fatalities. Even if we rule out all the suicides (many of which would have been prevented because it takes a lot longer time time to kill yourself with pills for instance than with a gun - giving you opportunity to regret your decision), it is still a death count of 6.2/100,000/year - which is more than 4 times the number of deaths in countries with gun control.
The number of crimes involving guns is extremely low because they are so hard to get a hold of and when guns are involved in crimes, the police sets them as a very high priority which makes it much easier and faster to solve said crimes.
One of the main arguments against gun control is that "if you were burglarized in the middle of the night, would you not want a gun to defend yourself?" to which I can only answer that less than 1% of all burglaries end up in fights because thieves will almost always try and escape if discovered rather than fight. And even if they did stay and fight, gun control would prevent most of that 1% of even having a gun, making it much less likely that it will ever come to that.
Gun laws are the product of a time when invading bandits were a real danger and when politics meant "who has the superior firepower" rather than actual negotiation. It was in a time just after a civil war when invasion was a very real possibility and when they could not know if England would suddenly go to shore and attack. That is why it was considered a right to bear arms because it was a right to defend your country or your self against marauding bandits. Invasion from England now a days seems a tad far off and marauding bandits are, as far as I know, not a concern either apart from the occational gang which the police hopefully takes care of. So what is left besides complaining about "my rights"? It doesnt seem to be an issue when it comes to full body cavity searches in airplanes so why is it a problem here?
Edit: I guess I will be demanded to provide sources so here you go:
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/denmark