it's interesting that you criticize owning guns for self-defense, but claim it as a (partial) reason for owning your own guns. perhaps you mean self-defense against wildlife rather than people, since you use pepper/bear spray to avoid chancing murder?
but yes, there's is roughly a 0% chance that using a gun defensively in a hostile situation will result in successful self-defense, where only the perpetrator is incapacitated and not the defender or bystanders, primarily because of a complete lack of (extreme duress) experience and (usually) genuine lethal intent. and the mere act of brandishing a weapon in such circumstances tends to escalate them uncontrollably, and to the defender's disadvantage.
we can discourage gun ownership for self-defense and still support them for their (symbolic) value against governmental tyranny, as well their general usefulness in hunting and rural life. regardless, we should work on reducing gun death and injury: over 100K/yr are injured/killed by guns in the US.
maybe i'm sleep deprived today, but i'm missing where i claimed owning guns for self-defense? i own for hunting, so i can hunt wildlife. not for self-defense, but for food.
> but yes, there's is roughly a 0% chance that using a gun defensively in a hostile situation will result in successful self-defense
I'm pretty anti-gun as they come, but this seems like a pretty absurd assertion. I would certainly expect a non-trivial amount of self-defense situations involving firearms would result in disaster, but I would not expect that to be even close to "nearly all of them".
but yes, there's is roughly a 0% chance that using a gun defensively in a hostile situation will result in successful self-defense, where only the perpetrator is incapacitated and not the defender or bystanders, primarily because of a complete lack of (extreme duress) experience and (usually) genuine lethal intent. and the mere act of brandishing a weapon in such circumstances tends to escalate them uncontrollably, and to the defender's disadvantage.
we can discourage gun ownership for self-defense and still support them for their (symbolic) value against governmental tyranny, as well their general usefulness in hunting and rural life. regardless, we should work on reducing gun death and injury: over 100K/yr are injured/killed by guns in the US.