You clearly don't feel completely safe because you are armed and need a neighborhood watch.

I interpret it as being armed and the neighborhood watch are reasons for GPs feeling of safety.

In the E.U. in any developed country if you are not in a bad neighbourhood, the chances of dying in homicide is so low, that people are considered crazy if they have a gun for ,,protecting themselves''.

I just went through a cancer blood test panel, which somewhat decreases my chances of dying, but I never thought of buying a gun.

The US isn't the EU. In rural US, police response times can be very long. Where I grew up, it would take police 30 minutes to respond to an emergency call. More rural areas can take longer. This combined with our distrust in federal government and individualistic society means many of us are willing and prepared to defend ourselves.

The US seems to fare better. In rural EU there is simply no police to answer an emergency outside office hours. Your call is routed to a station distant of over a hundred kilometers, if they sent you their response team not only would it arrive too late but then they'd have no one to send to local emergencies. You're told to take pictures and to report to the closest station during opening hours the next day.

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 you are not in a bad neighbourhood

Same in the US. But if you _are_ in a bad neighborhood, it's probably safer to be in Kabul.

That’s correct. I’m not worried about homicide as I am property crimes.

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.

I live in a rural area and I’m unarmed and have no neighborhood watch. I grew up in areas with high crime where kids would get shot for their Nikes. I have zero need/desire for a gun. I used to be very pro-gun but could never really articulate why except that’s how I grew up. My belief now is that people who buy guns really have a desire to use them. And guns aren’t used to save lives they are for taking a life.

As a European I find it crazy to even think about owing a gun to protect myself.

(I)

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.

What I meant to say is that in Europe most Asia etc you don't need a gun. Example II happens, shitty life. No reason to own a gun. Statistically for the society it's not relevant. Example III also doesn't usually happen in Europe too and the same concept above applies. In the rare cases you need to protect yourself it sucks but it's so infrequently that it doesn't matter.

USA is a very different game and that is my point.

Statistics are GREAT until you win the "I'm being fucking attacked" lottery.......

See someone else's comment above about privilege and naïveté.

With the same thinking you should walk with a head shield because I heard people getting comets on their heads. It's great until you are in the comet lottery.

You clearly haven't reviewed (or perhaps understood) the wide difference in the statistics involved with both.

If there was an 0.4% chance of me being killed by being hit in the head by a comet, and if wearing a bike helmet would give me a 75% chance of surviving, then yes, I would want the choice to walk around in my stupid bike helmet.

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...

It seems you forgot the point that the probability of comet falling is increased by people wearing bike helmet.

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

Guns are another way of racializing - if one takes the current definition of racism: Deciding what dies. Reading gun ownership as a relationship of power makes for more meaningful discussion.

I am not sure how you define "amazingly competent, well-trained, and effective", but in at least one respect the Japanese police is highly negligent: https://www.businessinsider.com/afp-getting-away-with-murder...

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.

What are you suggesting in (II) ? that if she had a gun the would have left her alone? sorry but this is not how harrassing works. That if she had shot him she would have fixed the issue ? sorry but she would be in a very different world of issue if she shot him. Really I fail to see how a gun would be a solution or even help in this situation.

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’m going to get downvoted for this, but I want you to know that at least one person here knows just as well as you do that you made up that shotgun-cocking story. Textbook gun nut wish-fulfillment fantasy

I think he is being truthful. He is not posting anonymously: his profile contains a link to a professional blog.

Indeed. My fantasies don't usually involve me being a curious mixture of absolutely terrified, sleep-deprived, and (in retrospect) woefully underprepared.

People who never had an encounter with a criminal have absolutely no idea how terrifying it is.

I would say that most people have had little or no experience with violence, outside of perhaps the occasional dominance contest (mostly the realm of males under the age of 30 or so).

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".

I had an encounter with a pair of New Orleans cops that was pretty terrifying.

The wonders of a homogenous society.

What about an emergency folding kayak?

With the right wetsuit and a moderate level of physical fitness you could swim the Hudson River.

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.