When the mobs came to a town next door last year, I knew the safety of my family hinged on which street they were going to choose to go down next, and my own ability to respond.
I watched them smash windows and set fires with zero police response. Any doubts I may have had about my gun collection went out the window that night.
The "guns as fire extinguisher" analogy is apt. It wasn't likely that a mob would threaten my neighborhood, just as it isn't likely any particular person's house will ever catch fire. But I will remain prepared.
The poster to whom I replied was citing averages, which are useless in the context of a large, diverse place like the US with a non-uniform distribution.
The average murder rate in the US is a distraction, except to point out (as I did) that obviously people aren't dropping like flies. If any significant fraction of those 300M guns were killing people, the average would be several orders of magnitude higher than it is.
Go ahead and exercise your personal rights to defend yourself and your family as you see fit based on your values and risk profile.
The averages neither support the idea that we should ban guns, nor that we should all get one. Because, again, averages are pretty useless -- but that's the context of the current thread of discussion, so I felt a need to respond.
I watched them smash windows and set fires with zero police response. Any doubts I may have had about my gun collection went out the window that night.
The "guns as fire extinguisher" analogy is apt. It wasn't likely that a mob would threaten my neighborhood, just as it isn't likely any particular person's house will ever catch fire. But I will remain prepared.