For decades I have lived deep in the heart of some of the densest cities in the country (SF and NYC). These are places with serious and obvious crime problems that I have seen up close and personal, day in and day out. Yet to me, despite these experiences, the entire concept of "personal security needs" involving firearms is absolutely absurd. It sounds like a Monty Python sketch. Silly to the point of absurdity.
But, I don't deny that tens of millions of Americans do genuinely think that owning a firearm is a legitimate security precaution. Even though they mostly live in vastly, vastly safer zip codes.
Using city life as baseline to measure personal safety needs ignores the fact that living in a city safely usually is a matter of luck & avoiding places like the tenderloin in SF, the west & south sides in Chicago, etc. There’s also cops that are minutes away, and worst case violent people typically want your valuables more than your life.
I grew up in Chicago, but I also spent my summers living on my grandparents’ farm in a deep rural area. It’s just a different experience out there when you’re alone in the middle of nowhere surrounded by occasionally hostile wildlife and occasionally some pretty weird people. There’s much less room for avoidance or flight from danger, which makes guns feel useful to carry. I still feel naked hiking unarmed in California.
Causation - no, correlation - very likely. Policies and politicians that cause strict gun laws also cause higher crime, and conversely, politicians, when faced with higher crime, would reflectively reach for the only leverage they have - stricter laws. Which would usually be futile (at least without many other measures, which aren't used that frequently). Thus, in practice, strict gun laws and crime - at least in the US - often go together. There are exceptions of course - very safe places could introduce strict gun laws out of virtue signaling, moral panic or other considerations. But the common case is as per above.
I always enjoy watching Americans accuse other Americans of living in places "with strict gun laws", as if nearly all of the US isn't a moderate drive away from a place with lax gun laws.
It's also fairly absurd to refer to places with few gun laws as "much safer". The only way of making that trick work is to compare big cities in areas with stronger gun control with rural areas and small towns elsewhere. The worst US cities for murder rates show no real pattern of being in anti-gun jurisdictions (or the opposite).
St Louis has the highest homicide rate in the US. You figure Missouri is anti-gun? New Orleans, Kansas City, Memphis and Las Vegas also make the top by murder rates.
I should note, in the interest of fairness, that about half of the top 10 cities in the USA by homicide rate are in states that could be described as "gun control states". Thus "no pattern". Although, I will reiterate the idea that any city in the continental USA is really not that long a drive away from a state with lax gun laws.
Not sure how anyone can respond to your assertion that it's silly and absurd. I'm fine with you feeling that way as long as you don't try to restrict my right to own them.
I guess one thing I can say is that security needs indeed are met by firearms, including yours to the degree that the police or private security protect you. So, it shouldn't be too foreign of a concept to anyone. Some of us choose to extend that protection to our homes and person, and take responsibility over it to varying degrees.
You are not thinking realistically about their security concerns. Being alone in the middle of nowhere late at night in the dark -- that doesn't happen in a condominium in the middle of Manhattan.
> Even though they mostly live in vastly, vastly safer zip codes.
Do they though? Not sure where you got this information from. And are we talking legal gun ownership or guns in general? Because even in the "hood" and the "projects" it's quite common for people to be "strapped". Those guns may often not be legal, but they are also still carrying them for self-defense in most cases. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if these communities had a much higher percentage of weapons. I am sure you'd feel a lot safer walking at night in a low income neighbourhood if you had that kind of protection and I could definitely understand why someone would want to walk around armed.
Not the parent poster, but I would not feel safer in a bad neighborhood armed. If someone is going to draw on me, I doubt I'd have the time to out-draw them. And if they aren't, then I just don't need the gun at all.
Unless you're suggesting that walking around obviously armed acts as a deterrence, but I'm not sure I buy that either. I think it's equally possible that could draw more attention to you.
(I do agree, though, that the parent seems to have some weird ideas as to what is and isn't safe, and what guns may or may not protect someone from.)
But, I don't deny that tens of millions of Americans do genuinely think that owning a firearm is a legitimate security precaution. Even though they mostly live in vastly, vastly safer zip codes.