When guns are outlawed
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:07 pm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/bowman3.html
...To put the 262 million murders in more conceptual terms, consider that if one takes a random walk through the entire set of murdered men, women, and children, more than 9 out of 10 murders across all times and all nations, were perpetrated, not by civilian criminals, but by criminal thugs operating under the auspice or directive of government to murder its own people, generally those who oppose the government or who oppose the politically well-connected or who own what the government covets for itself. If deaths due to war – what many currently believe is the greatest threat to life and limb – are included in the set, then still over 4 out of 5 violent deaths (83%) are the result of murder by the host government with the remaining 17% comprised by 11% war casualties and 6% civilian murder. Yet, while totalitarianism, foreign invasion, and civilian crime – the primary historic threats to everyone's safety – all arise for a vast array of reasons, there is, fortunately, at least one thing that is proven to prevent or mitigate all of these to a very high degree: widespread gun ownership by the civilian population.
Therefore, if one cares about one's own personal safety or that for one's children, family, and neighbors, then there is no substitute for a well-armed society....