Why so many guns?

First, full disclosure: I do not own any guns. I think it originated with my grandfather (my father’s father). He actively hated guns. For a long time I thought it was because he loved birds; all things living for that matter, but I found out that he had a brother who was killed as a young kid when a gun accidentally went off. As I was told, it was simply a tragic accident; he went to pick up a gun and it went off. My grandfather was the youngest in his family; from what I understand this happened when he was a child so it obviously colored his view of firearms from then on. In any case, my father grew up having nothing to do with guns, and I did too.

As an adult, I have developed my own reasons for not owning guns. I have no interest in killing animals (for food OR pleasure); I don’t even like setting traps for mice although I do it. I do eat meat, so I get the underlying hypocrisy; but I’ve learned to cope.

I don’t buy most of the arguments people use for owning guns. The ones I’ve heard include:

• I need a gun to protect myself and my family
• If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns
• Having a gun reduces crime (More guns, less crime)
• Guns don’t kill people, people kill people
• The government needs to be kept in check
• More laws won’t help; there are already laws on the books that aren’t being enforced
• It’s a Second Amendment right

It looks to me that when you examine each of these with the application of a little critical thinking, most of them simply don’t hold up. I think they all involve varying amounts of muddled thinking, misinformation from some source or another and an unhealthy dose of paranoia (directed toward society, the government, or both).

Let’s take a look at each of them, starting with “I need a gun to protect myself and my family.”

First and foremost, well over half of all gun deaths are self-inflicted. Suicide or accident, having a gun in the house makes it far more likely that you will kill yourself with a gun than not.

Another big slice of the gun-death pie comes from someone else in the house killing another family member. Again, accidentally or with deliberate intent, having a gun in the house makes it far more likely that you will die of a gunshot than not.

Those aside, what about the ability to protect myself or my family? If someone comes at me with a gun, at least I’ll be able to defend myself, or so the logic goes. Well and good, on the surface. Having a gun of your own sure sounds like it would make you better able to defend yourself against a bad guy with a gun. In “The Untouchables,” Sean Connery’s character says something like “If they have knives, you bring guns. If they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue.” This of course is in reference to Chicago police in what amounted to warfare with Chicago mobsters during Prohibition, but the sentiment is the same. Scrape away the bluster however, and reality is far from that clear. First, how likely is it that you would be able to get to your gun if someone breaks into your home to threaten you? Gun safety experts say that you should never have a loaded gun in the house. You should keep the gun in a locked cabinet (or preferably a safe), unloaded, with a trigger lock. Too many family members have been shot accidentally with their own guns. Kids get into things; that’s what they do. Parents’ job is to minimize the downside of this natural curiosity by limiting the amount of damage they can do to themselves or others. I believe that having a weapon where kids can get to it even qualifies for a charge of child endangerment. So let’s say that a good parent keeps his or her firearm in a locked cabinet. When you are threatened it’s unlikely that the thief/housebreaker will announce their presence in time for you to unlock the cabinet, get your gun, remove the trigger lock and load the weapon.

What about on the streets? Doesn’t carrying a weapon make you more safe?

Actually the opposite is true. In spite of the occasional anomaly in the news of robber who is shot by a gun-carrying citizen who happened to be in the vicinity, it’s far more likely that you will be shot with your own gun. First comes accidental discharge of your firearm. There’s a YouTube video of some idiot practicing his “quick draw” method who shoots himself in the thigh. He says “I’m not posting this to get sympathy or to be ridiculed…” so I guess he posted it thinking it would be a good object lesson for others. He talks about how, after the surprise of shooting himself wore off, his “training kicked in” and he dressed the wound himself before the paramedics got there. I would suggest he got that wrong; if he really was well-trained he would not have been practicing in such a way that he could shoot himself.

Next would be having your gun taken from you by the bad guy and used against you. Think about this for a minute. Police, firefighters, paramedics get extensive training on how to respond in extremely stressful situations. Soldiers train endlessly when they’re not in actual combat. Why is that? So that, when the situation demands it, they will not have to think; their “training kicks in” (unlike our example above), and they react rather than think. An entirely different mental process takes over. An untrained person has to overcome their fear and surprise, pull out their gun, make sure the safety is off, aim it, stop their hand from shaking, make sure no one else is in the line of fire, and pull the trigger. Chances are pretty good that their target is more familiar with a gun than they are. Since the bad guy planned this robbery (or whatever), it’s not a surprise to them, so they have likely thought through their responses and are more mentally prepared than a gun-toting, but surprised, bystander.

Research supports this position, by the way. While there are exceptions to the rule, there is a far greater chance that you will die of a gunshot if you own a gun than if you don’t.