[shahoo]

Is this a serious question? If someone has a gun pointed at me all they have to do is pull the trigger and I'm likely dead. If someone is going to kill me with a hammer, steel bar, knife or broken bottle, they have to overpower me and then repeatedly use them on me to have the same effect. From the perspective of someone who killed animals for food, it is SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult both physically and emotionally to kill something with a knife than it is with a gun.

[gaius]

Not quite true. You can - and people actually are - be shot multiple times and survive, yet one blow from a hammer can cave your skull in.

Remember that you are dealing more likely than not with a psychopath; it's as psychologically easy for them to knife you as to shoot you. The issue is that a gun is technically harder to use than a knife. Even at 10 feet, trained marksmen regularly miss moving targets.

[asksol]

I'd be suprised if most muggers were psychopaths. I'd guess they're more likely someone strung out looking for a fix, and that they really don't want an outcome where they end up killing someone. They just want you to fall for the threat. In that case I'd think guns would be way more unsafe than other weapons.

[shahoo]

Obviously there's an exception to every rule, but I'm pretty sure statistics is heavily skewed to the likelihood of surviving an altercation involving a hammer over a gun. Just saying. It's pretty easy to sidestep a hammer.