So let me make sure I have this right. A gun to my face even if I have a legal gun somewhere beyond my reach is the equivalent of some form of Government tyranny when they say, "Hey, more folks are killed by their own guns than any perpetrator has used in violent crimes. These folks know where your guns are stashed and enjoy killing you w/your own weapon."
Was that verbal hash intended to be intelligible and have a point? If one wakes up to or comes around a corner to, literally, a gun in one's face, of course having one's own gun out of reach isn't helpful. Duh! And any gun owner with one half of a functioning brain cell understand that running for one's gun when face to face with a criminal's gun will swiftly prove fatal. Duh! But many times gun owners are aware of the criminal's presence in time to get their gun and use it. And many gun owners who initially had to refrain from getting their gun were able to do so later, when the criminal got over-confident and/or distracted.
Don't focus too narrowly on a hypothetical situation crafted to be "unanswerable". Such scenarios are typically unrealistic and/or much more narrow than the breadth of reality and/or assume the set-up doesn't change (e.g. the criminal doesn't get distracted).
For the most part no one can express in quantifiable terms how many deaths have been avoided or lives saved by gun owners. Not one instance has been recorded in quite a long time. What we do know is that many accidental deaths have occurred due to folks not securing their weapons against the natural curiosity of children.
Circular reasoning. Of course lives saved cannot be quantified with certainty! Because those lives were saved! But lives saved can be estimated rather simply. When a gun owner incapacitates or kills a criminal, how many innocents, the gun owner included, were present in the home or business? Their lives were saved. From there, it's a matter of documenting such incidents. If the data is incomplete, so what! The more such data, the more lives saved!
If gun owners are careless (relative rarities, given the % of such accidents compared to the total number of legally owned guns!), the solution is greater care, not taking away all guns from all legal owners, the careful ones included. Realizing that government will never be able to mandate & enforce a utopian world would help, but that seems a pretty advanced concept for modern Libs & Progs.
Another factor that stands out, that gun enthusiasts avoid, is that the Sandy Hook killings, were due to flagrant violations by folks that were permitted access and licensing for such weapons. These folks weren't criminals! But their asshole son got access to them and not only killed 26 innocent victims, but killed his own mother, the owner of said weapons. So, twenty eight victims are dead, including the person who started the slaughter of innocents who eventually took his own life.
The answer to the impotence of some of the most stringent gun laws in the US is even more stringent gun laws? That's like doubling down on a race horse that is already dead. Criminals will always be able to get guns:
* Disarming law-abiding citizens increases the victim pool and decreases danger for criminals
* Government-mandated and businesses' voluntary "gun-free zones" are recognized and used by criminals as kill zones;
* Post- Sandy Hook, businesses that voluntarily enforce "gun-free zones" should be sued into bankruptcy by victims' families, for wrongful death due to those businesses having made their premises a kill zone; in cases like Sandy Hook, the school districts and state governments should be sued by victims' families, on the same basis.
Nine folks in a church in Charleston, SC were having a bible study when a person walked in and sat w/them and discussed the lesson. Then he fired off a weapon that resulted in the death of nine people and the lowering of the Confederate flag from the capitol building.
An instance where existing gun laws should have been sufficient, but some official screwed up; more stringent laws would have been rendered just as impotent by the same screw-up. This "argument" amounts to nothing but an emotive exploitation of a tragedy.
Can I ask you, what government agency ever under any administration to date has advocated such policies to cause you to think that the Second Amendment gives you the right to kill me outright and w/no remorse or consequences? Using the same rights that should afford me Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Are you gun advocates insane???
"Gun advocates" advocate self-defense of people and property, not random, capricious, killing. So this is a ludicrous straw man argument. Unless due to misunderstanding, straw man arguments are inherently dishonest and signify that the person making it knows they cannot make their point honestly. The latter is true when ad hominem attacks, such as "gun nuts", are used.
Your "friend" can't bring themselves to acknowledge that the gun-free utopia of their imagination is impossible, and government attempt to mandate it will
only increase murders and crime generally.
Is it time for you to recognize that your friend is a "true believer", i.e. not persuadable by reason or facts?
