What question have you always wanted to ask but felt it was inappropriate?

Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Guns were originally made to kill. They are great at it. But you also have to look at the other side of the spectrum.

How many people have guns saved vs. the number of people killed by criminals with guns (not taking into account wars). I bet you the number would be either similar or tipped in favor of pro gun (read everything below since it all comes together in the end).

Most Police in the US carry guns. They've saved lots of people by using their firearm against a bad guy who would have killed many more people (let's not get into cop hate on this thread, ok).

People who Conceal Carry. If you look at the stats for 2011 for Texas of the number of crimes commited by a licensed individual, it is very close to zero (way less than 1%). This is talking about crime in general, not just gun related incidents. When your looking at gun related incidents, it's even less. Basically what I'm saying is that when you have 99.9% of individuals who are licensed to carry a firearm that are law-abiding individuals, then saying that guns are bad in this sense is kind of a moot point. Basically, these guns that people may carry on then are strictly for self defense. No law-abiding citizen wants to use it, but if they have to in order to save one or more people who aren't trying to kill them, they will.

Yeah they are used to kill a large amount of people (believe it or not, more mass shootings are done using pistols instead of rifles). If we take the guns away from this 99.9% of law abiding individuals, and just rely on the police, then the number of crimes that succeed would likely skyrocket. The police can not be everywhere at once by any means. In fact in many cities, they are spread so thin, that they are pretty strained to even cover what area they have. This basically means that the police are only good for reporting the incident after the fact, and we shouldn't rely on them to get there quickly enough to stop an incident in progress.

Not only that, but think about it. Many criminals get the guns they use from the "blackmarket". If it is a premeditated crime, most criminals aren't going to use a gun that is licensed under their name. Since that is the case, curving the amount of guns that law-abiding citizens can access would not keep the "bad guys" from getting guns, but it would keep the law-abiding citizens from defending themselves should the need arise.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent