Why have a gun?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

We have two guns in the house.  One pistol and one shotgun.  I used to travel to and from school with a pistol in my car...I had a 90 mile one way commute through the desert.  A breakdown on the side of the road presented a lot more problems than a person with ill intent.

Chances of us ever using the guns we have are almost nil.  It's not like we grab a weapon every time we hear a noise.

This is a topic that is always one extreme or the other, when for most responsible gun owners it's not that way.

As for the possibility of a domestic violence act....after 30 years, if one of us was going to shoot the other one it would have already happened.

If you don't like guns...don't have one.

(Bold mine)

That’s pretty much my position. Pro-gun people are always quick to point out when a citizen shoots a bad guy, while anti-gun people are just as ready to pounce on a story about an accidental shooting. Both sides, however, seem to miss the point that these are both extraordinarily rare events.

While the numbers vary by source (hardly surprising), the are about 400 million privately owned firearms in the US, leveraged against 40 000 gun deaths. This means that well over 99% of guns in private hands are never used to shoot anyone. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t help but come to the conclusion that the vast majority of gun owners don’t go round shooting people.

To be clear, I don’t like guns (which is the chief reason I don’t own any). But the only truly anti-gun position I hold is that there are people who are not responsible enough to own guns, and stronger measures could be taken to make sure that they don’t.

Boru