A gun owners level of risk is virtually always lowered by keeping their guns locked up. Self defense gun advocates are bad at risk assessment.
It would be great if someone in law enforcement would say these things…oh wait.
Yeah if you look at the data, gun owners are more likely to be involved in gun violence
This study puts it at 4.46x or 5.35x more likely depending on scenario.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/
This study of impact of a gun in the home puts you 1.41x more likely to be killed. (2.72x for women specifically)
This study which is a bit less controlled puts it at 2.7x
Hard to find information about the link between having a gun in the home and being more protected.
Edit: adding meta analysis of 16 studies which concludes a 2x(CI, 1.56 to 3.02) likelihood. The accessibility of firearms and risk for suicide and homicide victimization among household members: a systematic review and meta-analysis - PubMed
If someone breaks into our house today and threatens us, they will have four arms pointed at them immediately.
Our arms are ready to go.
I prefer to live in a community, where I don’t have to worry about someone breaking into my house while I am home. Actually when we are home they would not need to break in, as there is at least one door open.
But hey we all make choices.
Oh and why would someone be scared if you pointed both your arms at them? I mean are your arms that scary? (LOL).
Why do you live in such a shitty neighborhood?
How many fingers will you point, or just your arms?
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Would you say that those individuals who are worried about gun violence when they step out of their house are also bad at risk assessment?
Once you’re pointing your arms at them, which I assume means that your arms are in the air, will you be waving them like you just don’t care?
Is there any guarantee that any community is 100% safe from break ins, muggings, other attacks etc? I think thats the issue that makes this discussion perpetually impossible. You said you prefer to live in a community where you don’t have to worry about “X.” The only way thats possible is it X doesnt exist or if there is a very strong guarantee it wont happen. Unfortunately in a country with almost 4MM square miles there are bad areas where bad people will od bad things and people may be concerned.
Just like “Id prefer there be no gun violence” means that we would have to magically make guns disappear. Not going to happen and we need to stop having this discussion while leaving out the reality that X does exist and its near impossible to escape it now.
A dance off??
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I live in a relatively safe area. My town is in the teens with violent crime per 10k residents. However I’m surrounded by two of the worst towns with up to 112 per 10k. A few years back a family was burned alive (children tortured in front of their parents) and this happened less than a mile from my house. Couple months ago a woman was kidnapped at knife point with her two children. Also this year a teenage girl was kidnapped from her house.
I’m not using these as foolproof justifications for guns. But I do live in a generally safe neighborhood but am reminded every few months that horror is possible. Whether its probable or not is a different story. Which brings me back to my comment about a cheap insurance policy. The risk vs reward calculation is what differers for all of us.
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I will paraphrase my family member who carried a firearm for work and did things involving blackhawk helicopters
“Sprint a mile all out. Stop. Immediately draw a bead on your target and shoot. You will miss because that approximates the adrenaline running through your body in a life or death confrontation. There’s a reason we train and shoot as much as we do.”
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He can’t afford a nicer one, he spends all his money on guns. 
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Three points
The point is well-taken and supported. One of the reasons I think mandatory and regular training should be one of the requisites for owning a firearm. A few times a year we train with a family friend who is a marine.
Hopefully you live in a place where a home invasion is more likely than an unsecured gun be mistakenly used by a kid or stolen when you aren’t home.
The last breakins spree we had was about 10yrs ago, and those were empty homes. Most breakins are empty houses they don’t want to meet the home owner. But yeah, we had a murder from a shooting over Labor day, but it was in the state fair parking lot, Kids from Detroit, they never caught the shooter but expect it was a fight from earlier. Then we had the lady murdered in her house about 15 yrs? ago, but that was her husband in the end.
You can choose where you live. I choose a sleepy bedroom community, that has low crime and good schools. I don’t think I could live somewhere I didn’t feel safe, and felt the need to be armed in my own house. Despite the news there are lots of places in the US you can live like that. Is there a chance some random wacko comes in and cuts my head off sure is. But there is also a chance the next tornado takes me out, or a car accident or other random acts.
Guns will never disapear from this country, The 2nd ammendment is going away either.
An issue that is not talked about in America. Capitalism we allow business to advertise just about anything they want any way they want. And the gun manufacturers have done a very good job of figuring out their market and selling to them. We have had many folks on here proclaiming the number of guns they own (well out numbering the number of people in the house) and the gun manufacturers know they can easily sell those folks a few more guns. So they will. But and I don’t have the figures to prove this either way, but I bet there is a substantially larger of households in the US that don’t have a gun in them then those that do. But from the outside looking in you would not know that.
(now I will go google that random thought) Quick google only 1 in 3 american adults owns a gun. Cant find individual households yet, but 42% of people say they live in a house with guns, but clearly more than 1 person lives in a house so thats not the number of houses.
Not sure how correct this graphic is. From - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/despite-mass-shootings-number-of-households-owning-guns-is-on-the-decline/
