Reply #17: I don't really trust statistics. They are too easily

[rrneck]

manipulated while they always carry the facade of accuracy. They can be helpful, but every time someone quotes some stats I find myself thinking about all the stuff that can't be measured statistically.

People are not entirely rational critters. Some of the irrational stuff they do can be magical. As for the other stuff, well, you know. A remote threat can be dealt with using large scale policy initiatives and measured statistically. Personal threats can be measured statistically, but they must be dealt with personally. And personal threats are what concern people most. Hence the enthusiasm for small arms.

I don't go at the problem in terms of my personal safety. I own guns, but for the last several years the only time I have touched them is to move them out of the way to reach something in the closet. I am lucky enough to live near (I can't afford to live in it) a very low crime community and I don't have to think about self defense too much. But I don't think I could look somebody in the eye and tell them that the politicians I vote for or the services funded by my tax dollars will not be there to help them when they really need it, and that they also cannot have the right to assume the responsibility for their own self defense. I just can't impose that sort of statistical crap shoot on them. Judging by the way things are going in this country, most people seem to agree.

Guns are damn dangerous, and their use frequently ends in tragedy. But I don't know of a better way to regulate firearms in this country, and I haven't heard one from anybody else either. It seems to me we need to work on the people side of the equation. If we could make better people, guns would be less of an issue. But only less, they will always be a problem.