for a start, we have a Constitution that, until amended otherwise, allows citizens to own them.
well, it wouldn't be the first amendment, would it? the Constitution has been amended many times, and i can't think of a better amendment now than to outlaw guns. read that fact sheet i posted.
I did not purchase a handgun until I was twice victimized in my home and learned there is no such thing as a "safe" neighborhood
on the personal level, i have no rebuttal to your story. obviously you have the right to protect yourself as the law allows and you have done that. if the only people in this country who owned guns were responsible individuals like you with presumably no crime records who had been victimized in their homes twice, guns would probably not be much of a problem. unfortunately, if guns are legal, we can't just have them for a few people; they have to be available to EVERYBODY (regardless of whether they are "responsible").
thus while it may make sense for you, in your own personal life and your own judgment, to own a gun for self-protection, it does not make sense for the country as a whole. note those stats on guns in the home:
For every time a gun is used in a home in a legally-justifiable shooting [note that every self-defense is legally justifiable] there are 22 criminal, unintentional, and suicide-related shootings.xv
The presence of a gun in the home triples the risk of homicide in the home.xvi
The presence of a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide fivefold.xvii
thus there is an enormous expansion of risks across society due to the legality of guns. while the gun kept in the closet of a given individual may pose no societal risks, 192 MILLION guns spread out across the entire country pose enormous risks, and the entire country pays the price.
let me just say i am friends with a lot of gun owners (how could i not be living in Texas?), who seem to me to be "responsible" ownwers. but i draw a distinction between the moral validity a given individual may demonstrate or feel, and the macro effects of our disastrous gun policy.
i have little doubt that if we were to outlaw guns (and i don't mean a few security checks--i mean amending the constitution so that nobody besides cops and the armed forces can own guns), i have little doubt that we would save many tens of thousands of lives in the years to come.
with the consequences of guns now costing our economy $100BILLION a year, ridding our society of guns would increase the GDP alone by 1%. not to mention the millions of person-years lost to firearms prematurely.
so i would simply say to you, i am not saying your particular justification is morally wrong or anything like that, but you might just consider that guns as a whole are a true evil in our country, and we would be better without them.
of course, i say all this as my true opinion, though i think it is extremely unlikely that such beneficial changes will ever be enacted in this country. hopefully my pessimism is misplaced. |
