Two factors explain this discrepancy – one, misclassified shootings; and two, overlooked incidents. Regarding the former, the CPRC determined that the FBI reports had misclassified five shootings: In two incidents, the Bureau notes in its detailed write-up that citizens possessing valid firearms permits confronted the shooters and caused them to flee the scene. However, the FBI did not list these cases as being stopped by armed citizens because police later apprehended the attackers. In two other incidents, the FBI misidentified armed civilians as armed security personnel. Finally, the FBI failed to mention citizen engagement in one incident.
Never let your government disarm you. They dont have your interests at heart.
A disarmed society is not a free society, its completely reliant on the state for personal defence, when that responsibility should rest with the individual.
You are already reliant on the state for defense, whether you admit it or not. The very existence of states requires a functional monopoly on violence, and private gun ownership is just a fig leaf to obscure that fact. A fig leaf that leads to massive, unnecessary loss of life. If your definition of freedom is so limited that not owning a gun makes you automatically un-free, you do not actually believe in freedom, you believe in the right to violently interject yourself into the lives of others. That is pretty much the opposite of freedom.
I’m reliant on the state for defence on a larger scale, but in our personal lives, the state can do little to defend us from other individuals in a timely manner. That is why I believe everyone that is able to should be responsible for their own personal defence.
I’ve no desire to injerect in others lives, but I do have a desire to protect myself and my family where the state cannot or will not.
Okay, but following that logic, getting rid of all of the guns is still the best thing we could do, because it makes it much harder for people to quickly inflict a huge amount of harm. Ensuring that your local community is free of guns would do far more to protect you and your family than bringing a gun into your home, which you have already acknowledged is a highly dangerous thing to do. It’s like arguing that because your neighbor keeps a bear chained up in his yard, you ought to go out and get a bear, to protect yourself from his bear, when the clear answer is just to get the bears out of the neighborhood.
