I am back, Supaduke! I had my evening RedBull and I am ready to talk s**t.
So, I agree with you, 110% that guns are things, like all other things - it's not worth it, not to me, not to you, not to 99% of people. Absolutely, but it's never about 'things'. It is always about your personal safety.
This is sort of the crux of the argument:
Supaduke wrote:Protecting life is a different matter so don't go down the home invaders comparison either.
Is it self-defence in general that we are talking about? I think so (it doesn't need to be home invasion). Should a person have a fundamental right to defend themselves with whatever means available and do so legally, I think so.
It's always about individual safety first.
In a robbery, a victim needs to have their personal safety compromised first, one needs to be terrorised and afraid, before they agree to hand over their property, in exchange for well being/surviving/health. So it's never about things, first. First, it's about personal safety or as you said "protecting life" and this is the underlying theme here, the right to self defence...
I would pick personal well being, in exchange for my things, but I would also pick defence option over being a victim. Would I, who knows? But I should certainly have it as an option. So with that in mind, are you saying that you should:
- Be a victim and rely on chance or on violent robbers being nice?; or
- Have an option to defend yourself?
We can talk about training, mindset, abilities, capabilities, accountability, consequences, but all of these are secondary to accepting, either victimhood; or right to self defence.