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this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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having a gun in your home increases your chance of dying from guns. i cannot comprehend how people still think its a good idea to keep them.
“To defend against intruders!” they’ll enthusiastically exclaim, thinking it makes them some badass… except it significantly increases the likelihood you will, in your adrenaline-fueled and panicked response, accidentally shoot yourself or another family member (or beloved pet) while mistaking them for an intruder— not to mention all of the other statistically higher chances of half a dozen other gun-related tragedies happening simply because a gun is present in the home.
“But we keep it locked up!” These people will claim. Great, but that only lowers the danger somewhat; it doesn’t eliminate it. Kids are very clever. They can find keys. They have intimate knowledge of you and can guess combinations. They can get access to those locked-up guns if they’re determined, and kids are determined. And a locked-up gun isn’t much use when an intruder breaks into your home and you have mere seconds to fumble around in the dark with a key or combination amidst that adrenaline-fueled panic, half-awake, trying to unlock the lock-box and load the gun while trying not to accidentally shoot yourself or a loved one.
And no matter how much time you spend at the shooting range, shooting at a well-lit, stationary, paper target, that won’t prepare you for shooting at a moving, human target in the dark. When faced with the prospect of shooting a living person, many people will freeze, and in that moment, an intruder who may have had no intention of using their weapon may suddenly decide that they now have no choice and pull the trigger. And they very likely have more experience than you.
A knife or a baseball bat is far more effective in a close-quarters confrontation, not to mention far more survivable should the target be a mistaken one. You’re no badass. Just call 911 and try to keep your family out of danger. You don’t have the years of training that the professionals do. Don’t risk the lives of yourself and your family just because you fear losing control.
I don't generally disagree with your point, but I'm not sure why you're making it here.
Lets not pretend like this was anything but intentional use of a firearm by a family annihilator, and that the problem in this case is gendered violence, not gun safety.
They're just expanding on the comment they replied to.
And I just pointed out that their long spiel about gun safety is irrelevant because this wasn't a case that could have been prevented with gun safety. This man wanted to kill his family, and he did.
Pretty sure that he’d have had a lot of difficulty shooting them if there wasn’t a gun around.
Again, they were replying to someone else's comment about the safety of having a gun in the home. If they'd made a top-level comment saying this, maybe you'd have an argument, but currently all you're doing is trying to derail the the discussion with irrelevant details.
It's not like these were the first people to die of gun violence so who cares whether a tangential discussion applies in this specific instance?
If you can’t see the connection between the dangers of having a gun in the home and what happened here, it’s because you don’t want to.
If you can't see the connection between gendered violence and what happened here, it’s because you don’t want to.
(also gun safety, which I literally started my previous reply saying I agree with, had nothing to do with this case, you are just derailing the conversation from the real issue - an epidemic of deadly misogyny. It wasn't the gun being there that made him kill them)
Insinuating gender issues into this when there no evidence of that as a motivation (no suicide note, no knowledge of the motivations) is simply you projecting an agenda.
As a matter of gun safety, it’s obvious: the best way to keep a home safe from gun violence is to not have a gun in the home.
~~Oh no. ~~
~~The article is short. It names all the members of the family. Based on the names, there appear to be:~~
~~* One adult male~~
~~* One adult female~~
~~* Two teen females (yeah, I'm calling 12 a teen)~~
~~* One male child~~
~~There is no information in the article about which one of the above was the shooter, and all of them are old enough to be able to handle a firearm (although it's less likely that the male child, aged 9, would have been the shooter).~~
~~Your comments refer to "him" and "this man," so you must be referring to the adult male. Unless you have some information about this incident that is not stated in the article, you are assuming that you know who the shooter was, where there is no information to support that claim.~~
~~It seems that you want to believe that it must have been the man, because you believe that men are intrinsically violent. Is it more statistically likely, based on past history? Sure. But you cannot apply statistics that way to come to a correct conclusion about an individual incident.~~
If you bother to watch the video, it states several times that the father was the shooter. How else would he have shot everyone else than himself otherwise?
I’m operating based on the facts given, not some social agenda or implicit biases. Get your facts straight. 
I stand corrected.
And the professionals might also mistake you for the intruder. Or they might shoot you by accident or because you were "mentally ill", "uncooperative", or "black". Or they might shoot you for fun. So, you know, choose your risk carefully.
Statistically speaking, the odds of that are far far lower than what might happen when you have a gun in the home.  The cops are certainly more likely to mistake you for intruder if you’re holding a gun. 
Yes, choose your risk carefully. But don’t base it on bravado and fear. 
Well written. It's just cosplay.
Proclaiming that people who keep a weapon for self defense all think "it makes them some badass" is insulting language that will keep some people from being interested in what are some otherwise good points.
I'm a dude that agrees with the sentiment that a baseball bat coupled with bear spray is much better than a gun. The bear spray can be used at a distance of up to 50ft and while it will effectively immobilize someone, it won't do permanent harm if you mistakenly target someone you care about. Baseball bat or knife is definitely a good option, but I can understand a smaller person's concern that both have a need to be very close to a person to be effective and there's a fear of being disarmed. A gun may let them defend themselves from a distance, and any shot, even a bad one or in the air from a distance is a great warning and potential deterence.
An assailant with a weapon themselves may feel provoked to use it if you come after them with a knife or baseball bat too, so it's not unreasonable to opt for a gun in that circumstance too.
A gun itself does bring risk, and like I said I recommend bear spray as that stuff is way more effective than pepper spray, works at a distance and isn't going to kill anyone by mistake. I still however understand why somebody might have more peace of mind knowing they have a gun handy vs just a baseball bat or knife. They'll likely never need either or have an accident, but I won't discount they might feel more secure with a means to defend themselves from a distance.
Ammosexuals lack both
Methinks the “badass” doth protest too much
This is all very easy to say, but have you ever had to defend yourself against an adult who actually meant to harm you?
Yes I have, several times.
And, no, it’s not easy to say. This comes at the hand of decades of research and real-world observations by thousands of people and agencies and the data they’ve collected. What’s easy is to just think that having a gun will solve all of your problems and make you safe. What hard is to acknowledge the facts: it statistically will make your home far more dangerous.
If the true goal of organizations advocating against civilian gun ownership (and publishing statistics you cite) were to save lives then educators, in recognition of the fact that about half of households own at least one firearm, would actually ensure children could at least make a gun safe (properly unload) instead of the abstinence approach that is taught today in every school.
I have advised several people AGAINST buying firearms for self defense, Knowing they would not train adequately to become proficient. Guns are not a blanket solution, but a baseball bat or knife? By any unskilled user? Like two 200-300 pound dudes breaking down the door of a 100 pound person whose never received martial arts training would be better off with a bat? That is hilarious and absurd. With that being said it's a much lower bar to get proficient enough with a firearm that one can handle it safely and stand a good chance of defending themselves against even multiple attackers. As for the statistical dangers yes but two things: zero guns obviously means zero gun suicides, and if your objective is to produce quickly communicable punch lines, it's easy to manipulate statistics to suit your aims - virtually every number used by people who favor complete civilian disarmament is cherry picked once you dig down into to sources and see what is included and excluded from those figures.
It’s funny you mention suicides:
From Pew Research:
So who is it who’s “manipulating statistics” by acting like preventing/massively reducing the 54% of gun deaths (26k+ and trending upward) is not something we should be trying to accomplish?
One of the biggest studies to date tracked nearly 600,000 Californians and found that your odds of being killed by firearm are 8 in 100,000 and increase to 12 in 100,000 if you keep a gun in your house (source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/07/guns-handguns-safety-homicide-killing-study). That means that keeping a gun in your house increases your chances for dying to gunshot by 4 in 100,000 chances.
The average Californian dies from automobile accidents at a rate of 9.1 in 100,000. That's more than double the death rate that keeping a gun in your house contributes. (Source: https://www.eastonlawoffices.com/blog/odds-of-dying-in-a-car-crash-in-california/#:~:text=According%20to%20available%20data%20from,about%209.1%20per%20100%2C000%20people. )
So you can't understand why people still keep guns? It's because they don't perceive it as a significant threat. And statistically, it isn't. At least not as big a threat as many other common behaviors that are accepted as normal.
The takeaway is that if you are paranoid about dying from statistically small things, then ceasing doing a lot of other activities (like driving) is going to be statistically more impactful than not having a gun in your house.
You're saying there's a small danger to keeping a gun in your house, what's the benefit? Shouldn't we also look at how many people don't get murdered because they have a gun in their house?
It is the same benefit as carrying insurance (auto insurance, home insurance, medical insurance, etc). Most people pay into insurance and never use it, and you hope you never have to use it, so you might ask them why they need it and why they keep paying into it. The answer is that you have insurance because if you need it, and you don't have it, it's already too late to get it, and your life can be ruined.
There was enough info published in my original citation to derive that.
Owning a car increases your chance of dying in a car accident too. Owning a table saw increases your chance of losing a finger. Owning a boat increases your chance of drowning. Etc.
Do I think people should be walking around with military-grade weapons? No. Do I think people should be allowed a shotgun to hunt with or whatever? Sure. Do I think there should be background checks and all that to help make sure they're used in a responsible manner? Hell yes. Do I wish guns had never been invented? Yes.
But come on. This guy apparently went room to room in his house and systematically murdered everyone in it. It wasn't an accident, which is what generally drives the statistic you mentioned. Who knows what was going through his mind at the time. But I'm guessing that, while the gun probably made the act easier, the gun wasn't the enabler nor catalyst here. Given what happened, I'm guessing he would have found another tool to use if he had no gun on hand. I'm not going to be morbid and name all the things within reach at the average house you could use to murder a 9 year old, but it's a lot of things.
You’ve made a sound argument against owning cars and table saws and boats, not one in favor of owning guns or that they’re safe to have in the home, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence.
And what you think is irrelevant; the facts speak for themselves. All you’re saying is that you’re choosing to ignore the facts, ignore reality, because you think you somehow know better. And regardless of your attempts at rationalization, it doesn’t take much to figure out that, without a gun in the home, this person would have found it far more difficult to so quickly and instantly murder his whole family and then himself, and family members would have had a much higher chance of survival and/or escape.
Even faced with the prospect of the much more difficult task of killing his whole family by other means would have greatly reduced the likelihood of him following through with his plan at all. With a gun, it’s all so easy. Using some other means makes it more difficult a task and is enough to give a person pause— often just enough to change a mind, to create an opportunity to seek help, etc.
But you’re not even willing to consider any of that. Because of boats and cars and table saws…
BTW, getting a license to drive a car/boat is much more difficult in most states than getting a gun license. And I don’t know of any stories of families being mass-murdered or schools or nightclubs having everyone inside them being slaughtered by table saws.
Let's also not forget that cars and boats and table saws, while they can certainly be dangerous, have intended purposes which are not harmful, and are actually beneficial.
The only purpose for a firearm is to put a destructive and deadly hole in the thing you point it at. Hunting, sure, is beneficial to the hunter. Handguns are not used for hunting. Absent the odd "defending yourself from a bear or moose with a large caliber handgun," handguns are for killing people. Essentially all handgun usage is harmful by definition.
Agreed. Handguns are basically for killing people. I don't know why you brought them up though since we have no idea what kind of gun this guy used.
I can respect your angle here with the facts vs feelings take, but nobody lives their life like that. No one runs the numbers and considers the outliers or statistical averages as legitimate possibilities when they decide whether or not to buy a gun. It is always an emotional decision.
Imagine you got a wife and two young kids at home alone at night and you work second shift. You're not going to give your wife a gun and a chance at defending herself against someone cuz of some statistical average? Yeah ok.
Sigh. I'm anti-gun, if you couldn't tell from my post. But sure, put words in my mouth.
First of all, I already said I'm for more regulation on guns. Second of all, I'll basically invite further downvotes and say "good". That actually makes sense to me. I've long believed that people don't give driving the respect it deserves. You're literally driving a ton of metal and explosive liquid 70+ miles an hour in the dark with a lot of people around doing the same thing, houses scant yards away, all while you simultaneously talk to your friends, check your phone for messages, and adjust the radio. It's insane when you think about it. Realistically? I'd say the capacity for mass destruction is higher for driving than guns, but I'll accept the fact that's perhaps mostly due to the commonality of vehicles.
Chris watts (? Not 100% on the name) killed a pregnant adult and two children with his bare hands I believe. I do believe having a gun to hand makes killing quicker and easier than another weapon, but ultimately once someone snaps to this extent, there’s little that will stop them.
Cherry-picking single, isolated incident does not change mountains upon mountains and decades, upon decades of statistical data that proves you wrong. This one man may have been capable of killing a person with his bare hands, but that doesn’t change the fact that literally anyone is capable of killing another person (and themselves) instantly with a gun. 
I always find it, particularly strange when someone claims to know the mind of someone who has “snapped to this extent“both claiming to know what they think, while simultaneously, claiming that you can’t know what they might do. 
The fact is, you can’t claim to know what another person thinks. But the statistical data shows that when taking a gun out of the situation, it’s far far far less likely that the murderous act would be carried through simply because it’s no longer as easy. 
No, I agree. I’m British so pretty anti gun. I just thought the guy I was replying to had a point and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever heard a reasonable point defending guns. But you’re right, it was just one recent-ish example that sprung to mind. It doesn’t change the fact that millions of Americans would be safer if you adopted gun laws like the UK, Oz or other similar countries.
I will gladly acknowledge that there are outliers that don’t fit the pattern. That literally always happens with any form of data analysis. It does not, however, change the facts of the matter that having a gun in your home dramatically increases the likelihood that someone in the home will be injured by or killed by that gun. 
One common misunderstanding in the argument against guns in the home and other similar arguments as such is that the goal is to eliminate gun violence altogether. That’s not really possible in this context. The goal, of course, is to dramatically reduce the incidence of gun violence. Opponents to gun control like to treat the argument as though eliminating gun violence altogether is impossible, therefore, we shouldn’t even bother trying. Because of this false narrative, their arguments will always be empty. Not to mention that they always ignore the overwhelming evidence.