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Originally Posted by Willravel
I disagree. As demonstrated with my statistics, having a gun around makes one less safe than not having one around. Having a security door does not increase the rate of suicide by 5 times or increase the odds of killing a family member or friend. It is because of the collateral danger that guns do not belong on a list of defensive measures. Of the things I listed—security doors, locks, stronger windows, security systems, tasers, pepper spray, and mace—none of them pose any kind of serious threat the way a gun does.
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I'll address whether a gun makes a person specifically less safe later in this response, but for now, you cannot carry around a security door, locks, windows, or security system. This leaves your portable options at taser and pepper spray. I agree that both of those are viable self defense options, as a part of a self defense strategy that includes the option of lethal force if needed, for the exact reason you state...they don't pose any kind of serious threat the way a gun does, so if going up against an armed attacker, you're at a serious disadvantage. Most tasers can only be used against a single attacker, only disable for a few seconds, and have varied effectiveness based on target placement, drugs, and individual tolerance. Pepper sprays can blow back in your face (a problem bullets do not have) and also may not have the desired take-down results, due to either personal tolerance or drug-induced rages on the part of the attacker.
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It's that collateral danger that leads me to conclude that guns simply aren't worth the trouble. This was my main argument.
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And my main argument is that there are situations that only possession of a handgun will get you out of alive, like the experience of John Lee, above. Explain how him not having a handgun would have been a better option or had a better outcome. You have not convincingly shown that handguns are not worth the trouble.
Also, do you have any facts or statistics to back up this collateral damage claim? Collateral damage typically refers to "Unintended damage, injuries, or deaths caused by an action, especially unintended civilian casualties caused by a military operation."* The self defense application of this would be a citizen shooting (and presumably killing) an unintended and innocent bystander in his attempt to stop his attacker. I could not find any reported instances of someone killing a bystander while engaging an attacker in a self defense situation, and definitely couldn't find any statistics.
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So you're argument is that it's better to have lethal force and not need it than to need it and not have it? Respectfully, I think you may be overlooking a few things. First off, if we assume the criminal is a rational actor, we can suppose a few things:
1) If he or she is armed, he or she will not necessarily pose a fatal risk
2) If he or she is armed and you are not, they have less reason to open fire on you as they are in less danger, thus
3) If he or she is armed and you are, too, their level of risk has risen significantly and they have more reason to open fire on you.
While the argument for deterrence could theoretically be applied, there's also a significant risk of escalation. I don't know about you, but that's not something I see as a safe risk at all.
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1) If he has chosen to arm himself, it is not rational to bet your life they are not a fatal risk.
2) John Lee's story, already related, is one of many counterexamples to this. Due to absence of evidence otherwise, I would counter that they are less likely to open fire if you ARE visibly armed, as the ability to return fire and fight on equal ground is something a rational actor would avoid when other victims do not pose such a threat.
3) I don't follow your logic: Assuming criminals are rational actors, why would they be more likely to engage someone with whom they are equally armed? One-shot-kills are for movies and video games, there will always be the chance of successful return fire.
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Moreover, there are legitimate questions to be raised about killing someone for what could have been a minor offense. Hypothetically, if someone robs me at knifepoint on the street for the money and cards in my wallet, is that offense deserving of the death penalty? Certainly the knife represents a possible mortal risk, but if it's just there for incentive for me instead of with the intent to kill, I may not be in any danger at all. Don't forget: the vast majority of armed robberies in the United States involve no injuries or fatalities. The place where you see the most fatalities is in personal vendettas.
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If someone doesn't appear to have intent and ability to kill, you don't shoot them. If there's grey area, I'd suggest erring on the side of them getting hurt vs you getting hurt, and presenting a firearm with intent to end the encounter is as good a filter as any. I'll gladly hand over my wallet to an armed assailant who I believe is just looking for a money grab--nothing in there is worth escalating to lethal force if you don't believe the assailant presents a credible threat.
In 2005, 417,122 robbery offenses took place in the United States alone, and of them nearly 41% involved firearms. In that same year,
only 16,692 murders took place. Even if we were to assume a full quarter of murders in the United States were related to robbery (a rather outlandish assumption), that's still only a 1 in 100 chance. The truth is, the likelihood of fatality in a robbery is negligible.
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The first thing you learn in gun school is you don't pull your gun unless you intend to use it, and you shoot to kill. This would tell me drawing a weapon is not a deterrent and is an active response.
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Can you give me a citation to a gun school page that advocates either not drawing, or pulling your gun and shooting to kill? That advice is criminally negligent, and I highly doubt you will see it captured. It is also wrong for another reason, in that fatally wounding and stopping someones ability to be a threat are often unrelated, and you're only concerned with the latter.
An article by Massad Ayoob, one of the world's leading self defense experts, on ammunition choice states:
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When you get into it deep enough, you realize that the righteous combatant does not shoot to kill, he shoots to stop. A mortal wound is not enough. Many an American soldier who was mortally wounded went on to kill so many of the enemy before he ran out of blood and died that the majority of those on the sacred list who won the Congressional Medal of Honor won it posthumously. Every combat soldier who fought in heavy battle can tell you stories of enemy soldiers who, wounded unto death, still took one or more Americans with them. These men had been killed, but not stopped.
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The responsible thing to do is present your weapon on target and shoot to stop the threat. If the threat evaporates without firing a single shot, you have stopped the threat, and no longer have a legal right to shoot. If a non-fatal wound neutralizes the threat (for example, by shattering a pelvis), you do not continue to shoot to ensure a 'kill'--that would be murder.
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It doesn't have to be a causal link, the correlative link demonstrates a consistent link. As I said, a few nations following that trend can be dismissed as coincidence, but all 19 are too hard to ignore.
And those higher arming rates have done nothing to put a dent in the gun violence rates.
It's the only data available. Some data is better than colored data or no data. I stand by the results, though.
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I was pointing out that nothing about that correlation showed that increased gun ownership wasn't a reaction to increased gun violence.
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Suicidal individuals who have access to guns are at the greatest risk of impulsive, unpredictable suicide. All methods most certainly are not equal. Having a gun significantly increases the odds of suicide. 57% of all suicides are committed with a gun. Think about that. It's not pills or hanging or cutting, but a gun that accounts for a strong majority of suicides. Most suicides are impulsive, in fact 24% took less than 5 minutes between deciding to commit suicide and the actual attempt. 70% took less than 1 hour.* This means suicidal people need immediate access to a method guaranteed to get the job done. Pills and cutting are messy and, should the paramedics get there in time, could result in a failed attempts. Hanging is incredibly painful and violent. A gun presents a somewhat unique option, where all you need to do is press the gun against your head or mouth and pull a trigger. Remember when I said 57% of all suicides were committed with a gun? That's successful suicides. 90% of all attempts involve drugs or cutting. Think about that.
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Is an increased risk of suicide a reason to not keep necessary medication in the house? Or own rope? I would personally choose a plastic bag, a big rubber band, a hose and a helium tank if I ever decided to end my life...should those items be banned, avoided, or restricted? People need to evaluate their own state of mind, both for ownership and potential use of firearms. Also, statistics at your own cited websites state that the risk is decreased if guns are properly locked up, which any responsible owner (at risk of veering too close to a 'no true scottsman') should already be doing.
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It is because firearms come with serious and unnecessary risk not seen in other methods of defense. What's the worst thing that can happen when putting in thicker windows or a security system? What risk is there if you decide to avoid a bad part of town? Virtually nothing.
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What is the risk of leaving your concealed weapon concealed if you judge an encounter does not justify the use of lethal force? Virtually nothing.
What is the risk of not having lethal force available to you if you are in a situation that needs it? Very high.
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How likely are such situations? Now compare that to the likelihood of an accidental shootings, suicides, etc. That's my position.
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First, there are no accidental shootings. There are only negligent shootings. An accident implies that you were following all proper safety guidelines, and some factor beyond your control caused an accident. Modern guns do not go off unless you pull the trigger, and pulling the trigger with the gun pointed at something you do not wish to perforate is negligent, regardless of whether you think the gun is loaded or not. This is gun safety 101. In fact, even imagining a circumstance where a gun COULD go off without the trigger being pulled, it should always be pointed in a safe direction, so even THAT would be negligent.
Because of this, the statistical risk to a population of a negligent shooting is something that an individual's safe gun handling practices can eliminate, and therefore the fact that other gun owners may not follow safe handling procedures should only encourage responsible owners to do so, not discourage them from owning guns.
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You may need to explain to me how mace can't be used against multiple assailants.
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Well, to dispurse it wide enough to disable multiple attackers you run much higher chance of inadvertant exposure of yourself. Here is a video of police confront a suspect and pepper spraying him multiple times, starting at 1:07...I would deep link but that doesn't seem to work with an embed:
After being pepper sprayed directly in the face and eyes repeatedly, he continues to assume a defensive stance and remain a threat to the officers. This gentleman was fairly passive, but clearly still had his full facilities about him. I'd argue this as a counterexample to having pepper spray as your own line of defense, as if he had wished to harm the officers he certainly could have. If he had been an aggressive attacker, already engaged, I don't believe for a minute that the pepper spray would have stopped the attack.
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collateral damage - definition of collateral damage by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.