I think you missed my point, Oblivion. I don't depend on anyone else for my own safety. I consider myself armed, with my brain, my alertness, my knowledge, and my body, just not with a gun. I've also got darn good handspeed, so I figure I have at least an even chance against a knife, especially if I can take somebody by surprise. In any case, it's better to circumvent dangerous situations before it gets to the "defend your life" stage. It can be as simple as spotting a mugger or having good "street posture".
My point is that I'm certainly not faster than a bullet, and I'm happier knowing that there are fewer handguns around here than in the States. It reduces the chances of me getting hurt due to accidents or idiots who can't hold their temper. It makes ME feel safer walking around.
On a different point, I don't quite see how carrying a gun makes anybody safer from muggers. If a mugger is threatening you with a gun, he obviously already has it out and available, and won't be inclined to let you finish pulling yours. In that situation, it's more likely that you will get shot, instead of just losing some money. The only way packing a gun makes it safer is if the mugger knows beforehand that you have a gun and passes you by. I'd be interested to see some crimes statistics from a large city where a fair number of the citizens carry guns - say someplace in Texas? Just let me say that I'm somewhat doubtful of the deterrent effect.
I remove my objections to carrying guns (or more accurately, I say that stronger reasons tip the balance in favour of it) if it is a case of defending one's life against equal or greater force; in the case of women facing rape situations, it goes double. I just don't want to get shot by some drunk guy in the bar that doesn't like my attitude, or by some motorist that thinks I cut him off.
And I will challenge your statistical analysis. You compare shooting deaths to stabbing deaths - the comparative lethality is not the issue here; the issue is numbers of shooting deaths in the USA (on a per capita basis) compared to other places that have more gun restrictions. I've also seen some statistics about the murder rate in the States compared to Canada, and I recall it was a fair bit higher. Arguably that is partially attributable to easier access to weapons. At the very least, it's harder for wacko office workers to go off the deep end and murder their colleagues. Although we've had a few of those here, too. There's plenty of hunting weapons around, just not much in the way of handguns.
Anyway, sorry Larry, for derailing the intended purpose of the thread yet again. Part of the problem is that none of us saw the debate and we only have one (biased) source about what happened, so we fall back on the general issue of gun control so we have something to argue about. [img]smile.gif[/img]
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Where there is a great deal of free speech, there is always a certain amount of foolish speech. - Winston S. Churchill
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