By your very own logic basically no that owns a gun commits a crime with them. Fewer than 500,000 reported gun related crimes against over 100 million gun owners in the us. For a .05% gun offense rate by gun owners, and that percentage gets smaller when you consider how many of those are repeat offenders and people illegally owning a fire arm.
Seems like the math is saying its not guns, but maybe something else these criminal offenders have in common that +99.95% don't share with them...
Me: Pretty much no one need guns in rich countries
You: Go to Alaska! They need guns!
Me: Yeah, they might need them, they're covered by the "pretty much no one" in my first message
You: Rambling about gun crime stats like it proves something about people needing guns
I could have the same argument with someone saying they need a pickup truck or a 5000 sq ft house in the city. There's a very big difference between wanting and needing and pretty much no one in rich countries need guns today.
I never brought up crime because that's irrelevant to what I said and you doing it just proves how irrational you've become when it comes to this subject. You're so used to just typing a bunch of stuff on your keyboard whenever someone says they don't like guns that now that you see someone mentioning that it's not a need (never mentioning my personal stance on the subject) you're unable to make the difference, to you it's just an anti gun message because anything that doesn't go "yay guns!" is anti guns in your mind and you just can't help it, you try and pull the discussion in the direction you know and talk about crime and homicide rates.
Again, it's a discussion about needs and it wasn't started by me, I just added that it doesn't just apply to boomers.
How do you define "need" in this context? I've "needed" a gun before, when a dude pulled a knife on me in a walmart parking lot I moved my shirt and grabbed the grip, didn't even draw it, and with that action he decided to turn and calmly walk away instead of stab me and my then-gf. Had I not had it he could have taken my shit, sliced my belly open (which if you've never seen that, gruesome, happened to a bartender I dished for one night when he tried to break up a bar fight), or forced my girlfriend at the time into his car for god knows what, instead, he decided "maybe the next one," and I have a hard time believing that had nothing to do with me grabbing the grip. Did I "need" it because he was clearly threatening our lives? Did I not because I wasn't stabbed yet? How do you define "need?"
Oh and just to be clear in case you (like me) neglect to read usernames sometimes: I am a different person.
You're making assumptions about what would have happened after you had emptied your wallet/your girlfriend's purse so let's ignore that.
The same kind of crimes happen in countries where guns aren't prevalent and, if anything, in lower proportions with less victims of physical violence and that person might as well just have jumped on you to not give you the time to pull out your gun vs ran away with your money as soon as you gave it to them. At close range they had the advantage with their knife.
The need here isn't guns but social programs to help the people who might resort to those means to live.
You're making asumptions about why he was threatening our lives. He didn't say give me your wallet, he could've wanted to kidnap and brutally rape then murder my ex. Fact of the matter is we have no way of knowing. It was a white dude in a trump shirt, does that change your mind? In any case, I suppose we're ignoring all the assumptions and going with just the facts, yes? So in that case all we know is that he threatened our lives with a deadly weapon, what we don't know is "why." Turns out, when people threaten you with a deadly weapon, having one of your own greatly increases the liklihood of putting up a meaningful resistance regardless of the level of attempted victimization.
See, here you're saying that other countries are less violent. That's great, and it may be true, BUT, and here's the kicker: I don't live there, I live here. Here, where the rates of violence are higher, that is supposed to make me willing to be victimized at the hands of those without morals? Actually quite the opposite, I have morals, I can trust me. Know what I can't trust? Other people or my government to keep me safe. Not only do criminals typically choose a time when the police aren't visible to attack you, thus making them effective more as insurance agents who come after the problem, even if they are there they have no responsibility to defend you (Warren V DC, Castle Rock V Gonzales). So it is left upon me to either A) Change the entire country singlehandedly or B) Protect my own goddamn ass. Guess which one is remotely possible.
At close range they have the advantage with the knife IF* I don't move. The Tueller principle (what you didn't know you just quoted,) states that an attacker armed with a knife can get you within 21tf before you draw if you stand still. The drill is taught to teach you to move laterally as you draw, not to say guns are useless lmao. Fun fact you can shoot a guy who is within contact distance too.
The need is both. When those social programs work we won't even need gun control, if they don't, I need the guns to protect me against those it didn't work on.
The discussion has never been about what you need to do, the discussion has been about if guns are a necessity, the answer is no and you keep proving that it's mental healthcare that is a necessity. If you only want a gun so you can protect yourself then it's not a necessity, not having to protect yourself is the necessity.
Except that the only thing that kept me from getting a possible fatal wound was the presence of a firearm OR his will. Neither of us know how that would've played out, but I know what I'd bet on and it is me defending my goddamn self like I did. You can make assumptions as well as I can, but neither of us know. The discussion on guns being a necessity? The answer is yes. Now we're at an impass. Protecting yourself is a necessity depending on locale and also "not being a victim."
We need to solve those by fixing the actual poblems not just "guns gone problems still there everything's fine ignore the crime."
"Pretty much" in THIS country mass shootings only account for .001% of gun deaths. Mostly suicide. You have been misled. Furthermore we have 40,000 more devensive firearms uses than gun deaths, and 88,000 more than our rate of intentional homicides. 100k DGU, 60k total gun deaths, 12k only intentional homicide. And that is the low estimate of DGU by Harvard which had an agenda and it was to "disprove the good guy with a gun myth." Yet, "unfortunately," all it proved is that while Kleck and Lott accounted for defensive display, Harvard only included verifiable incidents based off police reports, and STILL "good guys with guns" defend themselves more than people even kill themselves with guns or commit crimes with them respectively.
You can look up that harvard study for yourself but you won't anyway so I won't bother linking.
You're wrong my dude. Guns aren't necessary where you are, sure, but other places are different. Not every human has an identical experience on this earth as you. You are priveleged, and you sit in your ivory tower judging those less fortunate than you. I hope one day you can learn this.
How are guns protecting people exactly? Shouldn't the USA be exemplary instead of the worst rich country if guns were preventing anything? 🤔 Have you thought that maybe the issue also comes from people who think like you and the more firearms are accessible, the easier it is to kill someone in a moment that would just pass without any homicide happening if people didn't have access to firearms?
Well, 100,000 defensive gun uses is more than 12,000 intentional homicides by 88,000, that's how. That's 88,000 times someone DID NOT become a victim of violence because THEY had a gun of their own, and that is the low estimate.
Guns aren't necessary where you are, sure, but other places are different. Not every human has an identical experience on this earth as you. You are priveleged, and you sit in your ivory tower judging those less fortunate than you. I hope one day you can learn this.
Again, no, you didn't prove that guns are a necessity.
Eating is a necessity, clothings are a necessity, people in your own country don't have a gun and make it through life and die of natural causes, that's all the proof you need to know that no, guns aren't a necessity, they're a desire that you and others have.
To make it so you don't desire them what is needed is a solution to the social issues that make you want a gun.
Another proof that guns aren't necessary for that is that there's already more guns in the USA than people and it didn't stop that person from trying to attack you even though odds were that you would be carrying. Increasing the number of people who own or carry a gun won't improve things, there's already more than in any other rich country and the issue is still worse.
We're not even talking about the statistical improbability of the situation you're basing your opinion on, if you go by that logic you should be arguing in favor of getting rid of all guns because of the odds that you'll get murdered with one and you should never take a car ever again because of the odds that you'll get into an accident and you shouldn't have a kid because of the odds that your girlfriend will die in labor or your kid will die at a young age (especially in your country in both cases) and the list goes on and on...
Is a fire extinguisher a necessity when there is no fire? Is a hammer a necessity when you have no nails? No, but you can't conjure one out of your asshole when you do need one. You have to be prepared and have the tool for the job before you need it or you're shit out of luck. It's kinda like that.
Plenty of people who have food also die, does that mean food isn't a necessity? You don't need food currently if you aren't currently hungry, does that make it not a necessity?
If it isn't needed for defense then a ban also isn't needed, because crime is what you "defense" from, so if there is no crime why ban them? Let the IDPA continue.
odds were that you would be carrying.
Actually, though rates of gun ownership are growing (fastest growing new groups are black women, women [all], and gays), still only less than 50% actually owns all those guns, and less than 25% carry them. Odds are that I wouldn't have one even in America, but he bet wrong. Don't get me wrong, that 50% owns more guns and ammo then your country's entire military, but that is still only 50% of people and not quite even that, it's more like 48%. Turns out though, yeah, criminals aren't too happy about having one pointed at 'em, and I know you support the violent criminals bent on victimizing people they perceive as weaker, but I'm on the other side.
because of the odds that you'll get murdered with one
See, that's the thing, this isn't true. Our defensive gun use per year is comservatively estimated by Harvard (in an anti gun hit piece against the "myth" of the "good guy with a gun") at 100,000 per year. Well, our rate of intentional firearm homicide is only 12,000 a year. I believe you'll find that 100,000> 12,000 by 88,000.
never take a car ever again because of the odds that you'll get into an accident
Been in 4, used to drive pizza. Airbags, seatbelts. Manual safeties, trigger safties, grip safties, not pointing the gun at things that aren't targets, not putting your finger on the trigger until you're ready to fire. Safties all around.
You're so hell bent on defending your right to have a gun that you forget the definition of words. Again, if they were necessary then you wouldn't have people around you that didn't own them because all of them would be dead, that's what needing something implies. Stop eating food for a couple of months and you'll understand the difference between desires and needs.
Just because the ownership rate is going up doesn't mean people need one, it could simply mean people are scared and the population is divided so they try to find a way to reassure themselves, just like you're doing, but the need is to solve the underlying issue.
Like someone who's depressed, they can start taking anti depressants and live like that for the rest of their life, but what they actually need is help to solve the underlying issue, if that doesn't happen all that leads to is more and more people on anti depressants.
It had been going down from '93-2016 and gun sales were rising. Remind me, did anything else happen in this country in and since 2016? Anything that maybe could have contributed to violence like political or economic issues? There are more than one variable at play in real life situations, not everything can be boiled down to "gun," it's the same thinking as the racists who try to boil down everything to "black," it's just narrow minded and refusing to look at the bigger picture, like the actual causes of violence in the case of guns, or overpolicing of black neighborhoods because of racist police.
Lmao people do die, every single day, because they were the victim of a violent crime and lacked the appropriate defensive tools. That fits your definition of "need" which hinges solely on survival. By that logic, literally all anyone ever needs is food, water, and shelter, even when said shelter is actively on fire from the food you cooked, then they don't need a fire extinguisher, because it isn't potable, edible, nor good building material. You're being obtuse and you know it lol.
Now now, don't go bringing math like "banning ARs would be ineffective because all rifles only account for 500/60,000 gun deaths/yr for a rate of 0.2% of our gun deaths" or "Harvard, in an attempt to debunk Kleck and Lott's estimates at defensive gun use /yr and 'disprove the good guy with a gun theory,' have put forth 'a more realistic estimate of 100,000 dgu/yr,' which is still 40,000 more than our gun deaths/yr including suicide and 88,000 more than intentional firearm homicides/yr" into this.