Now that I live in a rural area I can be self sufficient for a few weeks, I’m armed, and my local neighborhood watches out for each other.
I feel completely safe where I’m at and I couldn’t imagine going back to dense/city life.
I just went through a cancer blood test panel, which somewhat decreases my chances of dying, but I never thought of buying a gun.
Same in the US. But if you _are_ in a bad neighborhood, it's probably safer to be in Kabul.
Heck we even had art stealers removing a several tons statue that was literally in front of that police station in the middle of the night, this town bank ATMs where blasted so many times that the banks just stopped replacing them.
It's been decades that everyone has stopped thinking that the governement cares or would send help if anything happened.
But despite the local context being worse than in the US for much longer, still there is no neighbourhood watch and the only people who have guns are hunters and the idea of needing guns to defend ourselves is quite uncommon.
If a second virus wave hits and basic supplies are unavailable people may resort to crime. Weapons are intended to be a deterrent. I sincerely never want to use one.
Context: I lived in Germany for somewhere around a year and a half, and have lived in Japan for the better part of a decade.
Gun ownership is effectively banned in Japan, and the Japanese have an amazingly competent, well-trained, and effective police force. Seriously -- they do policing right in so many ways. Germany, too.
I share this so you really understand where I am coming from when I say that I think every citizen that so desires should be armed. Moreover, I find the attitude of "nobody needs a gun" to be hopelessly privileged and naïve.
To give you some sense of why:
(II)
A friend of mine had an issue with an ex-boyfriend, here in Japan. He kept banging on her front door in the middle of the night, threatening her, the whole bit. He was an amateur athlete, and although I can handle myself in a fight, he would probably beat me into a pulp. She wouldn't stand a chance.
The cops put out a restraining order, and kept bringing him into the police station every time he violated it, but legally, they could do nothing until he actually hurt her. Moreover, he was Japanese, and she was not, which meant that the police were... less incentivized to help her.
This kind of thing happens everywhere. That's life as a minority for you.
She had no other option than to flee the country. No joke.
(III)
One day, I woke up to a massive banging sound. It was a bad neighborhood, and it sounded like people trying to kick their way through the outer mesh security door. My apartment was on the ground floor, in the back of my building
I called the police, but nobody would be able to show up for about half an hour. That's reality in a lot of the US. So I grabbed my Remington, walked to the door, and chambered a round -- the sound of a pump-action is very distinctive.
All of the sudden, the kicking stopped, and I saw through the side window what looked like about five people sprinting away from my porch. I was pretty shaken, honestly, and the cops never showed up.
The apartment owner had to replace the security mesh. Maybe another five minutes and they would have gotten through.
Don't know what they wanted, but I do know that they'd get whatever it was, because no way I could take on three people, let alone five.
I upgraded to a semi-auto after that.
(IV)
A gun is like a fire extinguisher. You don't buy one hoping you have to use it.
But if you need it, you need it, and nothing else will do.
USA is a very different game and that is my point.
See someone else's comment above about privilege and naïveté.
That's about the level of risk and investment we are talking about here.
[1] https://www.statista.com/topics/1750/violent-crime-in-the-us...
You might want to listen the "science vs" episode dedicated to guns for some actual science behind it and the role of guns in violent crime: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/z3hlvr
There is a gross difference between a dominance contest and predatorial violence, and until you have experienced the latter, you really have yet to sample the full emotional gamut of human fear.
As an aside: I tend to avoid the word "criminal" in cases like this -- it's a loaded word with a lot of connotations -- and stick with "people that have never experienced predatory violence" or "people that have never encountered a predator".
Additionally, this statement does not depict what many (most?) people would consider an effective or competent police force: "she was not [Japanese], which meant that the police were... less incentivized to help her".
I am currently a foreigner living in a Scandinavian country, and I simply cannot imagine facing the same kind of discrimination from the police force (nor from other authorities) here. I think many (most?) people would agree that an effective/competent police force is not one which ends up driving foreigners out of the country by virtue of being unwilling to afford foreigners equality before the law.
In (III) it seems that you really got lucky. Had those people been armed you'd probably be dead or severely injured, as you pointed out you stand no chance against 5 people firing at you. If you spooked them that's because they had no intent to harm you and you probably could have spooked them without the sound of a gun. BTW the gun was only a musical instrument and you could have played a recording of pumping a gun to the same result.
(IV) Really a bad analogy here. Using a fire extinguisher the way it is intended can only help prevent a situation becoming catastrophic, using a weapon for what is has been designed and the way it is intended can only end in an aggravated situation. Then the justifying something using a tautology is simply failing to justify it. What I gather from this is that you have a firm belief in guns and that there is no alternative, akin to religious belief.
I tend to keep a motorcycle nearby for cutting through traffic if everything is jammed up after some unfortunate event. When you're making a decent software engineering salary it makes sense to begin being prepared for bad things IMHO. I don't go full prepper weirdo just a touch.