I am a 6'2" 270 pound weightlifter who used to work as a bouncer in a bar. If violently confronted by another man, I stand a reasonable chance of defending myself and my family. If I am facing more than one attacker, my chances fall dramatically. If facing a gang of attackers, they will do whatever they want to me and my family.
Gun-ban advocates seem to have one of two fantasies about the scenarios I've outlined above. In the first fantasy, they believe that such situations are exceedingly rare or never really happen in real life. This, of course, is demonstrably false. The second fantasy is a little more difficult to debunk. When home alone at night, 5'2" 135 pound women and overweight dads with desk jobs secretly think that they would be able to fend off such attacks. The fantasies range from "getting a baseball bat" to "becoming a mama bear protecting her cubs." These are dangerous fantasies that will get you killed in real life. Anyone who has any real experience with being attacked will tell you, your baseball bat probably will not save you from a single drugged up attacker, much less a gang of them. The "mama bear" fantasy is just plain childish. There is no way, and I mean no way, that a 5'2" woman, who is not an expert fighter, will defeat multiple male attackers my size. No way. You will be a victim, absolutely, every time.
Firearms are the great equalizer. Statistics are all over the place on defensive gun use (from 100,000 per year to over 4.7 million). The most comprehensive studies however have concluded that firearms are deployed somewhere between 1.7 and 2.5 million times per year in self defense. I'm not going to argue statistics, do your own research. But one statistic that is consistent across almost all serious studies is that of those defensive deployments, 30% of those guns are deployed by women. Now, whether you believe defensive gun use is lower or higher, let me ask you this: which woman should have been raped and/or killed by her attacker last year because YOU took away her ability to adequately defend herself? Which single mom sitting at home during a home invasion should have surrendered her family to her attackers? Name her. Let's ask her what she thinks.
The Constitution was not founded on government rights, or civil rights, or social rights. The founding principles of our nation are that we are all endowed by our "Creator" with certain inalienable rights. In other words, our rights are God given, natural and cannot be stripped from us. Among those rights is the right to reasonably defend yourself. "Reasonably" is a term that cuts both ways. No, you do not have the right to defend yourself with rocket launchers. On the other hand, however, you need to be able to utilize weapons that are at least equal in power to those weapons being brought to bear against you. A baseball bat or even a sword is probably inadequate to stop multiple attackers during a home invasion. You need a reliable modern firearm with a large capacity magazine to do that. Five shots from your grandfather's .38 caliber revolver will not be enough to stop three or four determined men.
There are certainly measures we need to take to prevent mass casualty attacks. There are laws that can be and should be passed. There are no circumstances under which a radical Islamic terrorist on a government watch list should be allowed to purchase a gun. This is obviously another example of the government failing to protect the citizenry, but the FBI needs to be empowered to make more subjective determinations about individuals who are prone to making violent or radical statements. Those measures do not, however, include gun bans. Gun bans don't work. They've never worked, and it will take both sides to reach a reasonable compromise. For men and women who think like me, compromise is poisoned by ill informed people who know nothing about guns or self defense or fighting, who want to ban guns they've never fired. If you don't know the difference between automatic and semi-automatic, or if you think that the AR-15 is the same weapon used by our military, you need to educate yourself. Then we can have a discussion about gun control and probably reach a compromise that would protect both gun rights and limit mass casualty attacks.
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