(May 8, 2023 at 3:44 pm)Irreligious Atheist Wrote:(May 8, 2023 at 3:21 pm)FlatAssembler Wrote: The point is that outright gun prohibition will, if the Gary Kleck's 1995 study is anywhere close to right (and I see no reason to think it's wrong by an order of magnitude), massively increase the risk of gun deaths, rather than decrease it. Gun prohibition which is supposed to make us safer would make us far less safe.
Personally, I support looser gun regulation in the US and anywhere else, whether it makes the country "safer" or not. Rights and freedoms come at a price and I can accept the current price.
As far as the anti-gunners, I concede to the argument that one is more likely to be shot or have a family member shot by having a gun in the home. Though much of that does come down to people being responsible with their guns or irresponsible with their guns. I've never personally owned a gun, but I wouldn't consider it irresponsible to bring a gun into the home. Keep them being manufactured and handed out like candy, as our dear friend Brian at the forums would say. The more guns, the merrier.
And what do you think about the Gary Kleck's study that tried to estimate the number of people saved by guns each year? To me, it seems like a brilliant idea. The usual argument for gun prohibition is something along the lines of "Guns kill 40k people each year in the US, and they should therefore be banned.". A natural response to that is "But how many lives are saved by guns each year in the US?". It is undeniable that guns at least sometimes save lives. And Gary Kleck has done a good job proving they save more lives (probably around 300k per year in the US) than they take.
