I’m sorry if this is a bit too far afield, but I must share a story.
The County Sheriff was asleep one night. A drunk guy tried to get into his house, thinking it was his or his friends. (lot’s of air BnB BS up here)
The Sheriff told him he was wrong. Not your house.
The guy later, tried to climb the backyard fence to get into the Sheriffs house.
The Sheriff called 911, and I’m sure got quick response from HIS deputies. I don’t have that option.
To me they have important and very different meanings. Obviously your mileage varies.
@DrDeth indeed the biggest contributor to gun associated deaths in children are homicides in Black teens. Yes I consider teen agers to still be children. And there is no question that gang violence using knives and chains would have fewer deaths.
In younger children after infancy unintentional death is the leading cause and guns play a major. Most often the guns that cause the death were not locked up and were loaded. Nightstands, closets, accessible for that feared home invasion. We’ve had a death in our practice just last year of a brother showing the gun to his little brother when it went off and killed the little brother. It has not happened often but little that kills kids does. I’ve never had a child in my practice killed by a home invader. One parent who murdered their child.
Suicide rates in children are increasing faster than homicide rates and gun availability increases risk of suicide completion substantially.
I don’t particularly care if you consider it number one or not, if you want instead to consider these as separate causes, unintentional death (accidents); homicide, and suicide, the fact is that all are dramatically amplified by the ready accessibility to guns, by both legal and illegal means, and in the legal category primarily driven by those who do not take the responsibility of ownership seriously enough.
I have little interest in getting into a gun control debate. Wasted enough time there in the last. But I think most of us can agree that promoting safe storage and treating guns as a serious object to be used against a fellow human only when absolutely required. Whatever we think about the political expediency of Harris’s statement.
What does saying you keep a gun at home for self-defense even mean if not that you intend to use it to shoot an intruder? What else are you gonna do? Throw it at them? Force them to listen to you recite Vogon poetry? Pull off some sort of Bugs Bunny-esque trick shot that ricochets off a frying pan and nips their suspenders so their pants fall down?
Having a gun that you don’t intend to use is an empty threat.
Honestly I’ve done my best to explain it. If I have been unsuccessful then there is no value in continuing to repeat myself.
Sure. But they are by no means the #1 cause.
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/152/3/e2023061296/193711/Trends-and-Disparities-in-Firearm-Deaths-Among?autologincheck=redirected
In 2021, among children who died by firearms, 84.8% were male, 49.9% were Black, 82.6% were aged 15 to 19 years, and 64.3% died by homicide.
If you scroll down to the table, you can see, it isnt until the 15-19 age (most studies include 19yo also) where the number of gun deaths takes off.
There were 4,156 deaths among children 1-4, 91 were by guns (all accidents from what i can see), 6,239 age 5-14, of which 367 were by gun. Now, sure, that 367 is 367 too many. But to just blithely say “the number one cause of child deaths is by gun!” is lying by statistics. It is not until 15-19 where the numbers jump way up, and we can blame guns or the “war Against drugs” or Racism or poverty- any of those can be blamed just as well as any other.
And on that we completely agree. If you have a gun in the house and you have kids, the gun must be securely locked up- I am talking a safe here, something solid.
Most of us hope to NOT shoot the intruder , and simple scare him off. So, we Intend to use the gun as a threat if possible, but yes, deadly force is the last resort.
Like I said
Separate out the causes of MVA associated deaths to alcohol related, not car per se, and so on if you want. Cut it how you like. For kids guns accessibility is a major contributing and preventable factor to deaths. First, fifth, don’t personally care.
We are in agreement, but somehow oddly, the same gangbangers with illegal 9mm handguns that do most of the youth killing do not seem to care about home gun safety.
But you still have the intent to shoot if necessary, as opposed to some sort of nebulous having it but not intending to use it. “Stop or I won’t shoot” isn’t much of a threat.
I think how you phrase it shows how you intend to use it. To me, the statement “I have a gun to shoot an intruder” sounds like an offensive statement. I infer that the homeowner would actively go looking for the intruder with the intent to shoot them. The statement “I have a gun to protect myself” sounds more defensive. I infer that the homeowner would shoot the intruder only if there was no other option. The homeowner in this case might try to get out of the house, hide, or something like that. They’d shoot the intruder if they or one of the other residents was in mortal danger from the intruder.
Look- the goal posts have moved again, now they are up in the stands! 
Eh? I think you and I are on the same side of this discussion.
“If you’re explaining, you’re losing”, the saying goes. If you say that if faced with a home invasion you will shoot the intruder, you’d expect most people will understand the “…if I just have to” part is implicit.
I don’t know, but Kamala may have grown up with firearms in the home for protection. Oakland was a nasty dangerous place with outright slums when Kamala was a child.
Oakland was also the home to the black panthers. Who took the 2nd amendment seriously, and of course Govenor Reagan lost his shit when black men with long guns showed up in the state capital in the late 1960’s.
And with less easy access to guns there would be fewer such deaths. I’m not sure how this helps your case, unless teenage deaths are somehow OK.
Run away (much smarter). Or they run away (probably because they weren’t looking to fight in the first place, gun or not). Or die when they shoot first.
The idea that there’s some epidemic of thugs breaking into people’s homes with the intent to attack them is a right wing fantasy, and one with heavy racist overtones. Most burglars will run as soon as they realize somebody’s there, gun or not.
Moderating:
Yet again, the discussion has devolved into a generic gun debate and that is not the purpose of this thread. The purpose of this thread is to discuss Kamala Harris’s specific comments about guns and their impact on the upcoming election.
@DrDeth, you are always, always in the middle of these hijacks and have been mod noted numerous times for doing this. I am issuing you a formal warning in the hope that you will understand that we are serious about you not turning every single gun discussion into a gun control debate.
I am also banning you from this thread.
To the rest of those quoted in this note, if you’re not discussing the issue as stated in the OP, then you have nothing to contribute to this particular thread. Keep this in mind as you make further posts in the thread. If you wish to carry on a gun control debate or a general discussion about guns, do it in one of the many other gun threads or start a new one.
At any rate, to sum up my position on the issue: Harris saying what she did about guns was politically a good move, and otherwise doesn’t really matter to anyone not directly associating with her since she’s both just one person and protected by the Secret Service to boot. She could have a whole armory or no gun at all, what matters politically is what she said; which is well in line with mainstream American opinion.
So to keep specific to the issues of the OP:
Me too. For all the reasons that were in the discussion that went astray.
“Should” I am not positive about but it can potentially be effective as part of an outreach to groups she may weak with. Key is the if she can say it believably.
Whether it is perceived as one or the other is, however, extremely relevant. And reality makes perception easier to achieve.
I live in the boonies in western Pennsylvania in Armstrong County. Somebody would be a fool to break into a house here.
Armstrong County ranks fourth in the nation in the percentage of homes that report gun ownership, according to a recent ranking from City-data.com. Nearly 58 percent of homes report gun ownership in the county, according to the ranking, which was compiled using federal census data.
Part of the issue I suppose is that, as seen in this very thread, there are those who will refuse to take her expression as a bona fide one and not something done purely for strategic campaign purposes, depending on where they are coming from.
IMO many of those reacting negatively will be the ones who never intended to vote for her anyway.