My dad was ex-army, retired PD (detective, undercover) and a heavy 2A advocate. I grew up with guns around so it wasn't some weird, scary thing to see. I have many friends who also are heavy 2A who also grew up with guns in the home. It's first a matter of familiarity and second a matter of civil defense. I'm not a fan of "must flea" laws, and not a fan of restricting gun rights at all.
And yeah, if you can afford a tank and the ammo for it, as far as I'm concerned, you should be able to own and operate it. I would draw the line at nuclear weapons and materials.
I won't try to make as strong a claim as the person you are responding to, but unfortunately, the politicized nature of the topic makes research on gun violence, especially as it relates to gun laws in the US, extremely fraught. The vast majority of research articles are plagued with issues. One should not just blanket trust the research (in either direction, and there are definitely peer reviewed journal articles pointing in different directions).
The claim you responded to was too strong, but for similar reasons, yours is also far far too confident.
I'm arguing that your statement, citation supported or otherwise, was stronger than I believe is warranted. You (correctly) criticized the original comment for making a stronger claim than they were able to support. You then technically did a better job in supporting your own claim (in the sense that you made any attempt to support it at all), but, in my opinion, you still made the same mistake of making a claim that was much stronger than warranted.
So I already know they are fudging the numbers, presumably because my state usually votes democrat and they want us to look good.
Hell its got Vermont as #17, but it has some of the highest gun ownership rates and most permissive gun laws in the nation.
But I doubt most people count suicide as “violent crime”.
You ever wonder _why_ they state the problem in such an abstract way?
It's because that statistic is an abstract itself. It combines, in my view inappropriately, suicide, murders, and accidental injuries.
There are 2x as many suicides every year over murders.
Anyone bandying about the "gun deaths" statistic has either been misled or is attempting to mislead others.
Yet another lie by ommision. Violent deaths by guns have no relation to strength of gun laws. What your link measures is the number of accidental deaths by guns. If gun owners want to kill themselves it's not my job to keep them safe.
Not so fun fact, the person most likely to be killed by a gun in your home is you.
Some places deal with that reality head on, and it has an outcome that a lot of people are okay with.
No shit: people commit suicide (which your "statistic" you lifted from Everytown, Giffords, or VPC - anti-gun lobbies includes.)
Suicidal people aren't a valid reason for my rights to be restricted, sorry.
You also have a right to travel around the country, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to drink and drive. There are plenty of valid, constitutional reasons for firearm ownership to be restricted to qualified individuals. When these restrictions are in place, many fewer people die. It is what it is.
Also, what a shitty analogy: suicide is by definition a self-harmful act, DUI is almost always a socially-harmful act on its own.
(And in many states, you can DUI on private property, by the way.)
"59% of people who died in crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers in 2022 were the alcohol-impaired drivers themselves"[1]
Also, people who commit suicide with their firearms typically have families who suffer.