[simonh]

Because guaranteed right to gun ownership enables the unstable to cause that harm in the first place.

Gun owners and their families are so much more likely to be harmed by a gun they own than be protected by it that it’s apaling. How can you possibly justify promoting that, knowing the balance of risks you are advocating people expose themselves and their families to?

[ctdonath]

That claim is massively wrong.

See my above comment.

[simonh]

Ah, your comment that guns prevent more deaths than they cause. So you’re expecting us to believe that compared to 33,000 gun deaths, more deaths are prevented, therefore you’d have over 66,000 annual deaths by other weapons and this is only prevented by massive levels of gun ownership? As claims go, that really is extraordinary. It’s hard to envisage what a gun free society with those levels of lethal violence would look like.

Of course the flaw in your argument is that the only significant reason people need to have guns to protect themselves, is because other people have guns. Take away everyone’s guns, and the absurdity of your argument dissolves itself. And yes, it is possible to remove most weapons in criminal hands. Many countries successfully do this. The high levels of access to guns by criminals is only enabled by a pervasive gun culture.