# Why Should Guns Be Legal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 7, 2017, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154 "2017-10-07T00:21:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/181 "2017-10-10T00:11:46Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I don’t even have a real solid grasp on the national population; I certainly wouldn’t care to speculate on the frequency of events in it! > > But here, I’ll say this: if the average person is experiencing (on average) at least one of these events a year, that pretty damned often; if it’s at least one event per five years that’s still pretty bad, and if it’s at least one event per ten years (per person, on average) that still enough to raise eyebrows. > > (I’m currently up to zero events in forty years, personally. So even with statistics being lobbed at me the threat doesn’t really hit home at an emotional level.) Earlier you didn’t seem to have much hesitation speculating on the frequency of events. You said this: > [@begbert2](#): > > … But I’m not forgetting that home invasions are still quite infrequent. They are MUCH less frequent than the people selling the rambo home protector image are trying to convince you they are. And they’re less frequent than the use of those “defensive” guns against family members including their owner. … Since you “don’t even have a real solid grasp on the national population” would it be safe to assume that your claims of “quite infrequent” “MUCH less frequent” and “less frequent” are just the result of wild guesses? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/182 "2017-10-10T00:13:15Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I don’t even have a real solid grasp on the national population; I certainly wouldn’t care to speculate on the frequency of events in it! > > But here, I’ll say this: if the average person is experiencing (on average) at least one of these events a year, that pretty damned often; if it’s at least one event per five years that’s still pretty bad, and if it’s at least one event per ten years (per person, on average) that still enough to raise eyebrows. > > (I’m currently up to zero events in forty years, personally. So even with statistics being lobbed at me the threat doesn’t really hit home at an emotional level.) Ok. I have no intention of playing gotcha so I’ll kick out some of the things I can remember off the top of my head. All figures are approximate so I don’t have to keep typing “approximately”. [There are about 120M households](https://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-households-in-the-us/)in the US, depending on the year. [There are about 3.5M home burglaries per year.](https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf) If it were truly random, then that’s about 2.9% of households robbed each year. Not quite 1 in 10. Of the 3.5M home burglarlies, a little north of 25% of the time someone is home, or about 1M events each year. Of those 1M events, about 25% of the time someone becomes a victim of violent crime. So that represents a bit north of 250K people each year victims of violent crime when present during a home burglary. Obviously this probably varies by location. I’ve had my house robbed. I didn’t like it. You asked earlier about people defending themselves while home with a firearm and not killing the person: > [@begbert2](#): > > Correct. I would be interested in credible statistics that indicated that homeowners warded off a home invader with their weapon without killing them. These numbers would be compared with non-gun-owning homes that also managed to fend off home invaders nonfatally, which I’m sure happens. I don’t have the comparison factors handy, [but there is this from the CDC, among others](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9591354): > [@](#): > > Abstract > To estimate the frequency of firearm retrieval because of a known or presumed intruder, the authors analyzed data from a 1994 national random digit dialing telephone survey (n = 5,238 interviews). Three mutually exclusive definitions of firearm retrieval were constructed: (1) retrieved a firearm because there might be an intruder, (2) retrieved a firearm and saw an intruder, and (3) retrieved a firearm, saw an intruder, and believed the intruder was frightened away by the gun. Of 1,678 (34%) households with firearms, 105 (6%) retrieved a firearm in the previous 12 months because of an intruder. National projections based on these self-reports reveal an estimated 1,896,842 (95% CI [confidence interval] = 1,480,647-2,313,035) incidents in which a firearm was retrieved, but no intruder was seen; 503,481 (95% CI = 305,093-701,870) incidents occurred in which an intruder was seen, and **497,646 (95% CI = 266,060-729,231) incidents occurred in which the intruder was seen and reportedly scared away by the firearm.** Estimates of the protective use of firearms are sensitive to the definitions used. Researchers should carefully consider both how these events are defined and the study methods used. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/183 "2017-10-10T00:31:13Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > \ > > So they’re not defensive weapons. This is objective fact. > > \ No, that’s a self serving opinion. You would do well to learn the difference between the two. In any event, you’re carrying as if your opinions are the real world. They’re not. They’re just opinions. The real world is millions of firearms, perhaps hundreds of millions, already exist in American society. You can regale us ad inifinitum about woulda coulda shoulda. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/184 "2017-10-10T01:08:27Z")
Let me summarize my position. 1. Guns are just tools and necessary ones for a large number of law abiding Americans. If you tried to confiscate all of them, it would cause an explosion in disease and damage caused by wildlife and possibly a new Civil War. You may not be into hunting (I am not either) but a lot of people are. Texas alone is overrun by feral pigs and 70 percent of them have to be killed every year just to keep pace so that they don’t destroy the entire ecosystem. 2. Guns are some of the most durable objects ever invented. You can’t just let them fade out either. They work just as well at a 100 years old as they do brand new and they generally don’t wear out unless they are abused. How are you going to get those back? Your grandfather’s deer rifle will work just great on people as well. 3. The 2nd Amendment - You can read it however you want but the Supreme Court has already ruled on it. The ruling favors individual gun rights and that is all that matters. 4. You can’t stop really smart lone wolf killers. They will find a way but you can focus on the much greater number of day-to-day killings that represent the vast majority of gun deaths in the U.S. Again, I am completely in favor of reducing the number of accidental gun deaths but I don’t think any policy should be driven because of spree killers. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/185 "2017-10-10T03:44:59Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > It was a data point intending to illustrate the fact that it’s certainly possible to kill a significant number of people with relatively underpowered handguns and limited-capacity magazines. In that case, my apologies for the snark (I’m trying to keep it in check, honest), but it’s so obvious that I thought there had to be another point. > [@Magiver](#): > > Fewer people would do what exactly? Commit mass murder? That only works if the only way to kill a person is with a gun. False Equivalence rides again. But no, I meant fewer people would have high capacity clips if they were banned and they had to modify them, instead of just plunking down cash for them ready-made. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/186 "2017-10-10T12:48:38Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > …guns don’t protect you from attacks by other weapons. Is this a faith statement, or is it subject to falsification? That is, what kind of evidence do you have that guns can’t be used to protect you from attacks with knives, clubs, or other weapons? > [@](#): > > Also, do you understand the principle that “correlation != causation”? > > I asked for actual stats matching up gun-ownership with suicide rates for a _reason_. Same question, more or less - can you prove that owning a gun causes suicide? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/187 "2017-10-10T15:47:03Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Our rights are inalienable, and they come from God, or if you prefer, Nature. Then they cannot be taken away, you don’t need to worry about them. Some words on a parchment are nothing compared to the protection of god. He will smite any who try to take your guns. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I agree with the general principle here. But the problem seems to be that the debate is being driven by the extremes. We have a crowd on one side arguing that guns have no positive utility and a crowd on the other side arguing that guns have no negative utility. Which makes if difficult to compare the two. Yes, I see that, as someone in the middle. I was actually thinking that the complete ban side was much smaller than it was, but now I am seeing that it comes out of the woodwork after a few rounds of 2A’s insisting that there is nothing that can possibly be done. Those for unfettered access to guns will ignore anyone in the middle looking for compromise, laughing at our ineffective efforts to reduce untimely deaths dealt by having such easy access to guns. At some point, those of us in the middle pack it in out of frustration, then they do get to deal with the people who _do_ want to take all their guns. Then they point to those people as evidence that anyone who looks to reduce the gun violence just wants to ban guns. > [@Ruken](#): > > Giving into this sort of irrationality gives us features like TSA security theater and parents getting arrested for letting their kids play at the park unattended. It should be similarly discouraged and mocked. Otherwise I don’t care much about this topic, as I don’t own firearms and don’t find them terribly interesting. I can see discouraging some reactions, like shutting down a perfect sniper vantage point during events, but I would not mock people for being concerned about being the next victim of a mass shooting. If someone says that they are not going tot go to a concert or a game, because they are concerned about their safety, would you actually mock them for that? > [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](#): > > Apologies Dr Deth, I read your comments incorrectly as being those of a gun control advocate. Please attribute my previous reply towards those persons and not you… Once again, a pro-gun advocate shows that just because someone is pro-gun, does not mean that they are good at identifying targets. If this was a shooting situation, you would be apologizing to his corpse. > [@XT](#): > > Why include suicides if you aren’t trying to cherry pick the data to show what you want to see? Just curious what your rationale is here. Are you claiming that without guns those deaths wouldn’t have happened? :dubious: If not, then you acknowledge that a percentage of them would have happened anyway, so it’s going to skew the results right there. If so then, well, that’s more than a bit disingenuous, don’t you think? You probably cannot use all suicides, just the difference between households with guns, and those without. That would be the number prevented. Given that most forms of suicide are less than 10% effective, and guns are 90%+, say we use a figure of 75% reduction in suicide by gun. As for those asking if that would mean that we would have a lower suicide rate than other industrialized nations, sure, why not? We claim to be the greatest nation ever. We have the best economy, we have affluent wealth, an american citizen has everything going for them, so why should we not have a much lower rate of suicide? This is a little personal here, but during the 2008 recession and slow recovery, I had some depression issues. I never saw anyone about it, but I was having serious difficulty getting out of bed to go rejected for another job interview that, even if I got it, wouldn’t stop, but only slow my financial hemorrhaging. I had some dark thought from time to time, and some levels of suicidal ideation. In the end, every morning, I decided that it was easier to just get up and go, and even if I failed to get the job, that would still be less humiliating than a failed suicide attempt. If I had a gun next to my bed, I don’t know what I would have done, but I am glad that I never needed to find out. Convenience and reliability make suicide a much more palatable idea. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/188 "2017-10-10T15:50:12Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Once again, a pro-gun advocate shows that just because someone is pro-gun, does not mean that they are good at identifying targets. > > If this was a shooting situation, you would be apologizing to his corpse. Is this supposed to be a serious point? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/189 "2017-10-10T17:04:39Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Is this a faith statement, or is it subject to falsification? That is, what kind of evidence do you have that guns can’t be used to protect you from attacks with knives, clubs, or other weapons? Sigh. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we’re doing little more than disagreeing over the definition of “defensive weapon”. I don’t consider blowing your oppenent’s head off to be a defensive action. Even if you do it while defending something. That’s not defense. That is what’s called “an attack”. Most guns have only one use - attacking. (Some can be turned horizontally and used as iron bars to block melee attacks, but that’s not really their standard usage.) I recognize that there are people who consider blowing the hell out of anything that bothers them to be a defensive maneuver. I disagree with their use of the language and consider it disingenuous. Guns can be used while defending things, but they’re not “defensive weapons”, by my perception of the poorly-defined term. If they were, they’d still be defensive weapons when in the hand of the dude breaking in. > [@Shodan](#): > > Same question, more or less - can you prove that owning a gun causes suicide? I would be quite surprised if the ownership of a gun is ever the _sole_ cause of suicide (perhaps guilt at owning a deadly weapon?), but the stats are extremely clear that the remarkable effectiveness of guns as suicide tools increases the incidence of suicides. Particularly if we only count successful suicides, which seems reasonable considering the fact that a large percentage of people who fail at killing themselves don’t try again. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/190 "2017-10-10T17:13:30Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Sigh. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we’re doing little more than disagreeing over the definition of “defensive weapon”. > > I don’t consider blowing your oppenent’s head off to be a defensive action. Even if you do it while defending something. That’s not defense. That is what’s called “an attack”. No. That is what’s called “self defense”. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/191 "2017-10-10T17:41:25Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > No. That is what’s called “self defense”. Technically no, because I never said you were being attacked at the time; I just said you were “defending something”. To get all semantic and all. But I’m really running out of fucks to give about this semantic dispute. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/192 "2017-10-10T17:41:45Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I’m not interested in cases - I’m dead certain that you could find cases where a man without a gun overpowered a man with a gun, which by the ‘cases’ style of argumentation would be rock-solid proof that having a gun makes you more likely to be overpowered and that owning a gun is equivalent to handing your family over to terrorists. > > You want to interest me? Show me stats. Specifically, the stats on who is more likely to be killed by a gun? Home invaders, or residents? Yes, we will be including suicide here. Additionally we should compare gun-owning houses to the ‘control group’ - people who don’t have them. What are the home invasion rates, the murder rates, and the suicide rates there? And do home invasions tend to be deadlier when the homeowner owns a gun or not? > > The goal here would be to avoid arguments that could similarly be used to indicate that blowing the entire house up every time a door or window is opened is a good home defense tactic. Suicides don’t count. If guns are a causal factor in suicides, our suicide rates would be through the goddam roof but our suicide rate is pretty average for OECD nations. So there is no real obvious link between guns in our society and the suicide rate. A few decades ago the CDC funded a study that showed an association between the presence of a gun in the house and the murder of someone residing in the house. That same study showed that renting your home, being single or being a frequent drug user were even MORE associated with being murdered. The CDC only highlighted the association between guns in then house and the likelihood of being murdered and congress reacted by pulling funding from them and telling them to never advocate for gun control again. Is it possible that people who are likely to be murdered are more likely to go out and get a gun. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/193 "2017-10-10T17:50:30Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Suicides don’t count. > > If guns are a causal factor in suicides, our suicide rates would be through the goddam roof but our suicide rate is pretty average for OECD nations. So there is no real obvious link between guns in our society and the suicide rate. Of course suicides count. (I can make autonomous declarations as well as the next person!) You don’t want to be comparing against other OECD nations. You want to be comparing against non-gun-owning houses in the _same_ OECD nation (and rough time period). > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > A few decades ago the CDC funded a study that showed an association between the presence of a gun in the house and the murder of someone residing in the house. That same study showed that renting your home, being single or being a frequent drug user were even MORE associated with being murdered. The CDC only highlighted the association between guns in then house and the likelihood of being murdered and congress reacted by pulling funding from them and telling them to never advocate for gun control again. So what you’re saying is, there’s an association between the presence of a gun in the house and the murder of someone residing in the house. Color me surprised. And also there’s an association with being a frequent drug user and getting murdered. Color me _real_ surprised. And also there’s an association with being single and a renter and getting murdered. Well, uh, shit. Any home owners wanna go on a date? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Is it possible that people who are likely to be murdered are more likely to go out and get a gun. Of course it’s possible. Is it possible that this isn’t really making that big of an impact on the big picture? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/194 "2017-10-10T17:56:20Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I, and the data, do in fact claim that a significant number of suicides would no have been carried out at all if the ready and easy method for killing themselves wasn’t available. This is accepted fact regarding suicides - even tiny increases in difficulty and inconvenience reduce suicides by a LOT. Do ready and easy methods include tall buildings , hanging by a rope, jumping in front of a train, etc? Or just guns? > [@](#): > > And, as you’ll note, I explicitly said we should compare with the suicides in non-gun-owning houses as well, to preemptively answer and destroy the argument you just attempted. Is there any chance that someone in the household buys a gun for the purpose of committing suicide? > [@](#): > > If the presence of guns honestly didn’t increase suicide rates, then that would be worth knowing, because then we wouldn’t reference suicides while deciding whether or not guns make a house safer. > > But they DO increase the rates of suicides, and do in fact make the house less safe. All things accounted for. The presence of a gun probably does increase the rate of suicide at least a bit. It almost has to but our suicide rate is pretty average for an OECD nation. With all our guns, why aren’t we leading the pack? > **[List of countries by suicide rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate)** > > The following are lists of countries by estimated suicide rates as published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other sources.\[note 1\] > In many countries, suicide rates are underreported due to social stigma, cultural or legal concerns. Thus, these figures cannot be used to compare real suicide rates, which are unknown in most countries. > As of 2016, there was an estimated global suicide rate of 10.5 per 100,000 population down from 11.6 in 2008. In high-income modernized countries mal... Korea is 24.1 Poland is 18.5 Russia is 17.9 Japan is 15.4 Finland is 14.2 Sweden is 12.7 Our suicide rate is 12.6/100,000 France is 12.3 New Zealand is 12.3 Europe generally is 11.9 Guns account for about half or all successful suicides. Where do you think suicides would be if we didn’t have the same access to guns? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/195 "2017-10-10T17:56:25Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Is this supposed to be a serious point? Yes. If a person, in the comfort of their own home, with no confusion or time constraints to contend with, cannot tell ally from foe, then how am I expected to believe that he would under stressful situation like those that he claims to carry a gun to defend us from? ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/196 "2017-10-10T17:58:58Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Sigh. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we’re doing little more than disagreeing over the definition of “defensive weapon”. > > I don’t consider blowing your oppenent’s head off to be a defensive action. Even if you do it while defending something. That’s not defense. That is what’s called “an attack”. > > Most guns have only one use - attacking. (Some can be turned horizontally and used as iron bars to block melee attacks, but that’s not really their standard usage.) > > I recognize that there are people who consider blowing the hell out of anything that bothers them to be a defensive maneuver. I disagree with their use of the language and consider it disingenuous. Guns can be used while defending things, but they’re not “defensive weapons”, by my perception of the poorly-defined term. If they were, they’d still be defensive weapons when in the hand of the dude breaking in. The rest of the English speaking world defines these things differently. The Person who instigates a threat against another person is the attacker. What the other person does to thwart that attack, including inflicting bodily harm (counter attacking,) or death on the attacker is “defense.” When I am sleeping peacefully in my home, and a swarm of Ninjas tries to asassinate me, and I impale them one at a time with my toothbrush or strangle them to death with my underwear, I am engaging in defense. Not everybody is as lethal with Underoos, or an Oralb as me. Hence, home defense with a gun. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/197 "2017-10-10T18:02:10Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Guns account for about half or all successful suicides. Where do you think suicides would be if we didn’t have the same access to guns? Most of them would still be alive. If we claim that this is a great country, and we claim that it is better than all the european countries, then shouldn’t we have a lower suicide rate, not a higher one? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/198 "2017-10-10T18:02:30Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I would be quite surprised if the ownership of a gun is ever the _sole_ cause of suicide (perhaps guilt at owning a deadly weapon?), but the stats are extremely clear that the remarkable effectiveness of guns as suicide tools increases the incidence of suicides. Particularly if we only count successful suicides, which seems reasonable considering the fact that a large percentage of people who fail at killing themselves don’t try again. No one is talking about a sole cause. It was shown to you that gun ownership went up as suicide went down, and you objected that correlation wasn’t necessarily causality. OK, fair enough - correlation isn’t causality with suicide stats. Unless and until you can show causality. You are trying to push correlation as causality when it suits you, and waving your hands when it doesn’t. > [@](#): > > Sigh. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we’re doing little more than disagreeing over the definition of “defensive weapon”. > > I don’t consider blowing your oppenent’s head off to be a defensive action. Even if you do it while defending something. That’s not defense. That is what’s called “an attack”. > > Most guns have only one use - attacking. This is incorrect, since most DGU do not involve shooting anyone - the threat is enough to deter the attack, without any shots fired. But leave aside this rather bizarre notion that defending yourself is attacking - so what? Using an attacking weapon in self-defense is not wrong, and it is something that ought, if possible, to be preserved. If someone breaks into my home and threatens me, and I shoot him and you want to call that an “attack” or using an “attacking weapon” - how does that affect the morality at all? And why should it matter to its legality? Referring to self-defense as an attack is the part that is disingenuous. Let’s not confuse the issue. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/199 "2017-10-10T18:08:25Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > No. That is what’s called “self defense”. > [@Scylla](#): > > The rest of the English speaking world defines these things differently. The Person who instigates a threat against another person is the attacker. What the other person does to thwart that attack, including inflicting bodily harm (counter attacking,) or death on the attacker is “defense.” > > When I am sleeping peacefully in my home, and a swarm of Ninjas tries to asassinate me, and I impale them one at a time with my toothbrush or strangle them to death with my underwear, I am engaging in defense. Not everybody is as lethal with Underoos, or an Oralb as me. Hence, home defense with a gun. Protecting yourself is one thing. Many feel that that right extends to their property. Some even feel it extends to their neighbor’s property. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/200 "2017-10-10T18:09:48Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No one is talking about a sole cause. It was shown to you that gun ownership went up as suicide went down, and you objected that correlation wasn’t necessarily causality. OK, fair enough - correlation isn’t causality with suicide stats. Unless and until you can show causality. You are trying to push correlation as causality when it suits you, and waving your hands when it doesn’t. Do you dispute that guns are an effective suicide tool? What would it take to “show” that placing a gun to your head and pulling the trigger is correlated with a successful suicide? > [@Shodan](#): > > This is incorrect, since most DGU do not involve shooting anyone - the threat is enough to deter the attack, without any shots fired. But leave aside this rather bizarre notion that defending yourself is attacking - so what? Using an attacking weapon in self-defense is not wrong, and it is something that ought, if possible, to be preserved. > > If someone breaks into my home and threatens me, and I shoot him and you want to call that an “attack” or using an “attacking weapon” - how does that affect the morality at all? And why should it matter to its legality? > > Referring to self-defense as an attack is the part that is disingenuous. Let’s not confuse the issue. > > Regards, > Shodan It’s disingenuous. To call pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger. An attack. Damn, man. I want to just drop this tedious semantic argument. Would you stop making me sound like the sensible one here? It makes me feel like there’s something salvageable here, when there really isn’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154.md?page=11)