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I'm with you, Jess, I used to be in favor of melting down guns and making little metal toys out of them. Now I'm not so sure.
In this case, I have to ask myself--what would our friendly neigborhood psycho have done if he didn't own a gun? Would he have charged out with a knife? Thrown a rock? Called the police? What flavor would the overreaction have taken, if he hadn't had a gun at the ready?
For sure, you've got to think that whatever he did would have been less lethal. Assault with a knife can certainly still cause death, but it's not the same level of physical trauma as a shotgun blast. There's a much better change an ER doc could put the kid back together, or that the assault might result in minor or superficial wounds. Not so with a shotgun--a hit is a hit. You either miss the kid, or you seriously mess him up.
So, okay, this guy shoudn't have had a gun. But do you base policy on anecdotes like this? Hard to think so. I'd like to know how many people every year successfully defend themselves from violence using guns.
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