Sorry to burst the cowboy bubble, but there's actual data on this, and it doesn't agree with this particular NRA mantra.
"Burst the cowboy bubble"? I think he tried to insult me.
Well, you are so very wrong on this, and you are misleading people by repeating statistics created by the anti self defense lobby. By the way, the NRA (National Rifle Association, for those who don't know) is not seen by most people as the epithet that the liberal media thinks it is. It is the boogeyman most often used, but that's not really very effective...
...because every time there is a mass-shooting, people join the NRA and other self-defense organizations, and they join in droves. Every time there is a new terrorist attack in the US, France, Germany, the UK, or other places, people buy firearms for self protection. Well, maybe not in the UK;
you can't even use a steak knife to protect yourself or your pregnant wife or girlfriend. In fact,
you can't use anything at all to defend yourself in the UK.
Not being allowed to defend yourself or your loved ones should disgust everybody. But that's how it is in some countries. It began with getting civilians to self-disarm. Willingly. Now they go to jail if they try to defend self, family, or property. That's evil. How can that not be evil? If only the UK had an organization such as the NRA...
Here's an article about
how gun sales rise after major terrorist attacks or mass-shootings. Why would this happen? Is it because with each new attack, more people realize that even if it was fully competent, the government could only do so much to protect us? I think so. I think people are starting to realize that the responsibility for our safety lies with us and not with a faceless bureaucracy.
Speaking of the faceless bureaucracy, people downright don't trust it. Here's an article from The New York Times about how
President Obama is helping to increase gun sales. Interesting tidbit:
"The increase is mostly due to higher sales of handguns, which are typically bought for self-defense. Two of the fastest-growing segments of the market are women and gun owners with concealed carry permits."
Here's another article from
Market Watch about how people in the US arm up whenever there's talk of lawmakers trying to restrict our 2nd Amendment rights.
"The debate about gun control has produced no concrete action. But it has shaken up gun supporters, who have rushed out to buy more weapons and sent(sic) more money to the NRA."
The take-home here is that people disagree with the talking points of liberals, media, (including the liberal media), and politicians who want to get you to give up your right to self-defense. People want the chance to defend themselves and their families, and all the faux statistics in the world won't change their minds.
- A good guy with a gun is statistically more likely to either shoot another good guy or be shot by another good guy than he is to actually shoot a bad guy.
This is so false, I think I should call "BS".
But even if it were true, don't you think you should have the RIGHT to try to defend yourself? I do. If you are an American citizen, you actually DO have that right.
Nobody can take it away from you (they will try) and although you can choose not to exercise it and you can choose to let your government prevent you from exercising it, you actually
cannot give it up even if you wanted to. That's what "unalienable right" means, and if you really are pro 2A, you would know and understand this.
- A bad guy with gun scenario ends 2-3% of the time by a good guy with a gun, and 52% of the time of the bad guy's own accord.
If your 2-3% were true, I'D STILL TAKE THOSE ODDS! I would rather have a 2% chance to live than no chance at all, especially if attacked by a bigger, stronger, faster person. Or multiple persons. Or armed persons. Or a bear. Or dangerous animal. I would take that 2% and I cannot fathom why anybody would give that up. Willingly, even!
But in reality, your 2% assertion is patently false. You've taken the bait here and become a "true-believer" in the anti's talking points. The bad guy often stops his attack when the 2nd gun arrives on the scene, whether that 2nd gun is being held by military, law enforcement, a security guard, or a plain everyday citizen.
The bad guy(s) sometimes even shoot themselves when they are confronted by armed resistance. Attack stopped. Works for me. "Of their own accord," indeed. They stopped because they knew it was over, not because they just decided "of their own accord." If they stopped because armed resistance was brought to bear, then you can't count this as "just stopped," and your twist of words is misleading and disingenuous.
Sometimes an attack is stopped by the 1st gun to arrive on the scene, such as this case of
an elderly lady coming home from the grocery store. To say she doesn't have the right to protect herself is nothing but unmitigated cruelty. Why would anybody deny a woman the right to defend herself? Even if it's "only 2-3%",
she still has the right to try.
Here are 5 easy examples of good guys stopping attacks.
Here are some more examples from The Blaze.
If The Blaze is too conservative for you,
here's a list by the Washington Post.
- A 1% increase in gun ownership results in a 0.9% increase in gun deaths (and no, it's not the bad guys doing the dying).
Also false! I have no idea where you come up with these numbers. I smell a template. Or Kool-Aid.
http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/cnsnewscom-staff/more-guns-less-gun-violence-between-1993-and-2013
Gun homicides decline with increased gun ownership.
Here's
an older article on The Daily Caller.
There's also an article on Forbe's, but I simply refuse to shut off my ad-blocker. I'll let you Google it.
And yes, I'm for the 2nd Amendment. The entire second amendment, including the often conveniently omitted bit about a well regulated militia.
Oh please. You're no more for the 2A than all the others who quote fake stats, or who use creative language to twist their meaning, such as you did with your attempt at "of the bad guy's own accord" above. You don't know the meaning of "well regulated militia" either, so the
entire amendment just hasn't sunk in.
Hint: It doesn't mean "government people only". Learn about your rights before you go laying down with your belly up for all the people who want to disarm you. Why would they try to make it so that you can't defend yourself? Why would acquiesce to that? Willingly, even?
Oh no, this is not a digression; not at all. I welcome this conversation because it is very very important, and it goes to the root of the problem, even with Apple's encryption. If you and I give up our right of self-defense to the almighty government, then what will companies like Apple infer from that? I'll tell you this: They'll infer that it's not an important issue to us, we don't care, and/or that it's not that big of a deal anyway, just let me go back to my iOS game of the day.
If we don't care, then what incentive does Apple have to protect our privacy? No, this issue with Apple is HUGE, and I and many others will be watching it very closely. Just how far is the US Federal government prepared to go to break our privacy? Just how strong or weak will Apple stand? If they fold, then there's really very little reason for a lot of us to stay.
We have a lot of complaints about Siri going Full Idiot, iTunes functionality being dumbed down every year, Macs and MacBook Pros coming in under expectations with every new refresh, OSX still having some missing or broken pieces, even after many years, and now TV shows being made to portray Apple executives' past violence to women in a good light. I'm not that easygoing; "he apologized" just doesn't cut it with me.
The only thing keeping some of us in the Apple camp IS the security. Disabling the "failures-before-wipe" feature is indeed a "back door" (or at least a side-window), and we shouldn't let anybody try to tell us otherwise. Without security, why should I spend $600+ on an iPhone or $2500 on a Mac and untold amounts more for accessories? I can easily go elsewhere to not get the same security anyway; but at least I could do it cheaper and avoid Siri's never-ending and perpetually hamhanded "fails". If Apple folds on this with the feds, it will be very foretelling and it will eliminate the one last thing that keeps me solidly on the iPhone.
I'll close with this: If only people could have fought back in Paris. What a sad, sad, heartbreaking way to die. Oh, God I wish they could have fought back for themselves.
One person who was there and saw the killings firsthand thinks they should have been able to. If only some of the 1000 women attacked at New Year's in Cologne could have fought back.
Well, now they're buying guns. At least they still can in Germany.
And in Finland, too.
Oh sure, fighting back is no guarantee that you'll survive an attack. Your 2% is complete BS, but it doesn't really matter because I'd rather take my chances no matter how small the odds. Cowering in a closet, under a desk, hiding under a dead body...these "solutions" are handed out by governments around the world, but they're just not working for people. Watching your loved ones die in front of you? Is that really for you?
I think many are starting to see the light, and all the nay-saying fake stats quoting is just falling on deaf ears. People want to defend themselves because they know it's not working when the populace is disarmed, whether voluntarily or not.
Be strong, and stand up for your rights.
