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Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv
I will respectfully decline to answer that question in all but the vaguest of terms.
I was able to convince a person attempting to commit a felony on me that it would be a bad idea. Without firing the weapon.
That essentially describes the circumstances both times.
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Yeesh. You said "I will refrain from calling your argument stupid; instead, I will call it what it is: Dangerously naive." How is my argument niave? I don't care to know the circumstances of your nonviolent gun battle.
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Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv
If I interpret the above correctly, if my life is only endangered once a year, my safety is irrelevant, compared to the risks encountered much more frequently by police.
Does that sum up your point?
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Your safety isn't the issue. Aparently, everyone getting a gun and defending their right to own a gun is. I don't particularly care if you have a gun or not, so long as you don't shoot at me, but if you're going to make the argument I'm going to argue back.
If you're life is in danger, do what you can with the means you have to get yourslef out of danger. Does that mean you have the right to have a gun? Pfft, who cares? Does that mean you need a gun? Not really.
I was in danger today. I got cut off on the highway by a guy who would have oblitterated my Audi had I not done some serious breaking. Would a gun have saved me? Probably not. A few years back, a guy tried to mug me. He pulled a knife and I simply handed him the cash from my wallet. Could I have shot him? I suppose, but all that would have proven is that $50 is worth a man's life. I could have beaten him toi a pulp, too, but I didn't. I can't think of any realistic situations off the top of my head that absolutely require a firearm.
Do you think that it's within the realm of reality that the situation you described earlier could have been defused without a gun?
To address the police vs. you thing:
A police officer is trained, given a gun, and told uphold the law.
You go out and buy a gun because you think you or your family is in danger from something or someone.
There is a noticable difference between these two situations, and I'm going to explain it.
There are dangerous people in our society. Sometimes these dangerous people break the law. In breaking the law, these people are now criminals. Police men and women are trained and given a legal right to persue, investigate, arrest, and process criminals. In their job, they encounter dangerous people SO often that it makes sense for them to need to defend themselves from criminals with a gun. They put themselves into danger in order to safeguard our society.
You are a citizen. You are not responsible for the well being of anyone but yourself. You are not a police man or woman. If you were to buy a gun and try to go out and stop criminals, you would be a vigilante. Let's face it, you're not Batman, and you would really piss off the police. You are not in dangerous situations every day. You COULD run into one of the dangerous members of society, but the odds of that are slim (like the slim odds of winning a lottery). "But Will, do you really want me to play the odds with my family's safety?!" You already are. Odds play a role in how you defend your family. You are not taking steps to defend yourself from a monkey attack, because it is not likely to happen. You don't take steps to protect your family from flesh eating bacteria because you're not likely to get it. You don't take steps to protect yourself from cell phone radiation because the information about how dangerous it is isn't proven. You don't buy a gun to defend your family or yourself from an attack that's not likely to happen.