To begin with you're creating a premise that the only reason gun legality can be justified is self defense, particularly against other people.
I do not accept this premise. There are many other premises for gun legality.
That said, when I was very young my grandfather had to shoot a number of stray dogs out his car window while driving through a rough pasture because they'd killed a couple calves and were attacking his cows. Some tried to bite the vehicles tires after the first shots. Gun used was a Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle. I didn't witness, but saw pictures, possibly originally taken for insurance purposes.
He was not, under a very strict definition, defending himself. But it still seems very unproblematic to me.
In many ways being adult enough to vote is synonymous with being adult enough to own a gun safely: the ballot box is as capable as any gun of unleashing horrors on the world.
> you're creating a premise that the only reason gun legality can be justified is self defense
What other premise is there, when we're talking about a device that is designed to seriously injure and kill others? It's either a defensive weapon, or, worse, an offensive one.
I think hunting is a totally legitimate use for a gun. I think your grandfather's case is as well, though there certainly are other solutions to his problem, if more difficult and less efficient ones.
Sure, you might want a gun as a collector, or because you enjoy shooting one at a gun range. But I'm not convinced these "recreational" reasons are good justifications for allowing general ownership of a device designed for its lethality.
You hunt? Fine; get a license for that, and you can own guns made for hunting. You need to a weapon as a part of your job (like your grandfather, perhaps)? Fine; same deal: be licensed and restricted to types of guns appropriate for your job. A gun for fun? No, not fine (let the properly-licensed gun range own and store guns, and you can go and shoot them for fun). A gun for self-defense? I don't think it's clear that use outweighs the downsides of having a heavily-armed populace.
I think the thing that gets me the most is that you can walk into a gun store without having seen our touched a gun in your life, and walk out with a gun (modulo whatever waiting period your locality might require). No training needed, no license needed. Fork over some cash, and here's your deadly projectile weapon and as much ammunition as you want. That's irresponsible.
> " A gun for fun? No, not fine (let the properly-licensed gun range own and store guns, and you can go and shoot them for fun)."
Looking at some other comments, and it crossed my mind that this perspective is very urban-centric. If you live in the country, it's pretty safe and cheap to shoot some cans with a .22, but pretty expensive in time (and maybe money) to travel to a range. And it's that way in a way that makes socioeconomic class way more centric to shooting - more like a racket club.
At the same time, arguably concentrating all the shooters in one place might make things less safe: if you do something stupid on your own property with no-one around, there's nobody to get hurt. But if the person next to you at the range is a moron and does something idiotic like shoot at 90 degrees to the firing line trying to check if a round is chambered with their finger on the trigger, doing it at a range is way less safe than doing it in the middle of nowhere.
Now you might argue that people who've been trained won't do stupid things like that, but despite drivers being licensed I still see a lot of stupid on the road and don't really believe that it'd be any different with guns.
I mean "the thing that gets you the most" is pretty much true for literally almost anything. You can go to a store and pick up an TIG welder or a chainsaw, or all kinds of other things no problem, no question, that arguably require much more in the way of practice and training than a firearm.
That said, I don't really get what you think licenses and such accomplish. A gun is 19th century tech that you make in a garage. Anybody who really wants one can make one, all the registration and licensing is mostly a burden on people who are mostly harmless. And it's very post-facto/pre-cog-ish.
I think you're paraphrasing wrong. Preventing the additional loss of thousands of dollars of that year's income and livelihood (on top of the calves that were lost) with a gun is more accurate. And additional loss would have been impactful.
Like another commenter said, this usecase would be covered under a hunting/farming license in most countries. It is absolutely not necessary to have an indiscriminate personal right to carry in cities.
Even in a city I don't really think someone would sit and wait for animal control while a pack of strays attack a pet or try to break into a chicken coop (or something else similar) rather than try to save their animal(s) somehow.
(Though in a city I imagine that means things like throwing rocks or using a shovel.)
In most US counties animal control responds late or not at all. Obviously you can't seriously expect farmers to just wait around while feral dogs kill their livestock.
The cost of gun education in public education would be pretty higher than simply increasing funding to animal control in order to improve response times.
Farms are large and spread out. It could take animal control 15 minutes just to drive from one end of your farm to where you are, let alone from wherever their office is.
The rural US is very spread out and large, and often slow to travel over washed out dirt roads or worse. If you wanted 5 or 10 minute response time across the continental US you'd have to hire and equip 3 or 4 people per every 5 or 10 miles across the whole US, people who'd 95%+ of their time doing nothing.
I can't see how there's any way gun education in public high schools or similar wouldn't be drastically cheaper. Not that I think they're options that should be viewed as policy substitutes or alternatives.
You have the same problem with fire fighters. If you want a quick response time you need to have trained people that can be deployed quickly in the case of a fire.
The solution is neither to have full time employed 3-4 people every 5 miles, nor to accept multiple hours of response time for someone to drive all the way from the nearest station. Some might think air travel solves it but even that would generally too slow when minutes can be the difference between a managed fire and an out of control fire. Instead what we have is people who get paid to be stand-by and are positioned close enough that if they get a call they will deploy and be at the area within reasonable time, but who otherwise have an regular job like being a farmer. It not optimal but it is distinctly faster compared to the alternative.
This is actually the model used for animal control in rural areas. The person being hired is generally a local hunter (ie, many who are farmers themselves) who gotten some training and hopefully get some compensation when there is call. If a car hits an animal and you need someone to track the wounded animal down, it would most likely be a local hunter.
I am honestly a bit surprised by the attitude in this thread and how this model is not more well known.
I do not accept this premise. There are many other premises for gun legality.
That said, when I was very young my grandfather had to shoot a number of stray dogs out his car window while driving through a rough pasture because they'd killed a couple calves and were attacking his cows. Some tried to bite the vehicles tires after the first shots. Gun used was a Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle. I didn't witness, but saw pictures, possibly originally taken for insurance purposes.
He was not, under a very strict definition, defending himself. But it still seems very unproblematic to me.
In many ways being adult enough to vote is synonymous with being adult enough to own a gun safely: the ballot box is as capable as any gun of unleashing horrors on the world.