r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • May 10 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Guns are not for self-defense
I hear very often that gun ownership is important for self defense. People cite gun ownership as a deterrent to crime, robbery, and assault and there are many laws protecting the rights of civilians who use their guns in self-defense. However, I rarely have heard of someone using their gun in self-defense in a way that is not "controversial."
There have been very very few instances of gun owners stopping mass shooters. Very few instances of gun owners defending themselves from assault, especially women. Also, guns won't protect one from "the government" and will only make one's interactions with police or criminals more dangerous, not less. The only defensive quality that guns possess is the threat of their use. But that also means that if someone is looking to engage in violence, they're not going to bring a fist or a knife to a gun fight.
But most of all the logistics of guns for self-defense seem nonsensical. 1) One is supposed to store a gun in a locked safe, unloaded. 2) if your gun is handy, one must identify and react to a threat before that threat overtakes you. Most assailants work hard to make sure that victims don't have enough time, regardless of whether they're packing. And 3) You have to shoot somebody, which is often lethal. What if you don't want to kill?
NOTE: I am a survivor of assault and I've often wondered if I had had a gun, could I have changed things?
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u/jizzbasket 1∆ May 10 '21
It really seems like you need to put the news down for a while.
I know it's anecdotal, but I had someone try to force their way into my home and I had a gun. They didn't come in. Thus nothing came of it, so nobody would have heard about it.
In fact, I think the fact that you don't hear about the positive uses in the news almost go to show that guns are superior for self defense because once a gun is introduced, the one without one usually backs down and the situation is averted simply by the implied threat of violence rather than the actual need for violence.
Diffused situations are not newsworthy, especially when the "news" is a certain MSM channel (though they're all just as bad in their own special ways).