I thought this was interesting.

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/mass-shootings/

"Myth: Guns in civilian hands are not good for stopping mass public shooters

Fact: One study shows that armed citizens responding to rampage killers result in 1/8th the number of casualties than when police intervene. 9 In other words, waiting on the police results in eight times as many people deaths and injuries.

Fact: Some of the more well known instances of just people with concealed carry permits have prevented spree killings includes: 10

Chicago, July 7, 2014: Denzel A. Mickiel cornered by fellow party-goer.
Rockledge, Florida, November 24, 2017: Robert Bailey stopped by armed co-workers.
Antioch, Tennessee, September 24, 2017: Emanuel Kidega Samson stopped by church usher.
Arlington, Texas, May 3, 2017: James Jones shot by bar patron.
Lyman, South Carolina, June 30, 2016: Jody Ray Thompson stopped after shooting three victims.

In this ongoing collection of reports, there are over 31 instances in recent reporting."
It usually works, but like 10% of the time it just pisses them off even more... and then the person who was using it dies. And it can blow back in your face an potentially kill the user with... oh, what was it called, anaphylaptic shock?

Because, unlike a car, a gun's sole purpose to kill.

Do the Olympic Athletes who have competed and won medals for marksmanship with firearms know about this?

Um, no. Recreation, hunting, defense, obsessive collecting where the person doesn't even shoot the thing...

And yeah, it doesn't matter what the "sole" purpose is. What matters is how lethally it can be used. And a car, or gasoline used properly, or even a knife used properly are more efficient at killing. The gun is more efficient at defense and bringing control to an otherwise deadly situation.

hunting = killing

defense, when done with a gun = killing (or at least injuring)

I can't think of any recreational activity involving guns that doesn't involve using them as a weapon (even if against an inanimate object)

collecting can be done with pretty much anything; one can easily collect cars, for example (assuming space to store them)

I was taking killing to mean killing folks. But still, why focus on the gun if other things can be used to as good or greater effect? And why make it more onerous for people to carry guns to defend themselves with when so many other items can be used to as or more lethal effect?

That's the thing about a car or a knife or flame spreading contraption. Those cannot be used for defense so well. But they can be used to as or more lethal effect.

So... why worry about the gun at all?

Like I noted earlier, Idaho, perhaps the most gun free state in the continental US has one of the lowest murder rates in the US while Chicago, with perhaps the most stringent gun laws has the one of the highest murder rates in the US.

How exactly does making gun ownership more burdensome do anything but disarm victims?

In an older report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics suggests around 7 million violent crimes annually, both reported and unreported: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/vnrp0610pr.cfm.

That "Fact" suggests that there are 9.5 million violent crimes - both perpetrated (7.0 mil) and prevented by firearms (2.5 mil) - and that people defended themselves with firearms against roughly 25% of them?

I find that difficult to believe.

Population density and the huge difference in lifestyle play a big role here. Comparing all of Idaho (1.75 million people and 21 people per square mile) to Chicago (2.7 million people and 11,800 people per square mile) is about like comparing Mars to the bacteria population in my work boots.

Instead, compare Chicago to its closest large-population neighbor, Milwaukee. Milwaukee is in Wisconsin, a state that allows both open and concealed carry and socially quite similar. Population density is about half that of Chicago, but that's certainly closer than the Idaho comparison. They're about 90 miles apart, and Chicago has a notable influence on Milwaukee. From the FBI:

Chicago, 2.7 million people, 14,007 (reported) violent crimes in Jan-Jun 2017. One violent crime per 200 people
Milwaukee, 600,000 people, 4,539 (reported) violent crimes in Jan-Jun 2017. One violent crime per 132 people.

Just because we can, let's throw in another large metro area known for crime problems, but in a state with strict gun laws:

Oakland, CA, 425,000 people, 2,782 (reported) violent crimes in Jan-Jun 2017. One violent crime per 152 people.

Interestingly, Madison in Wisconsin, about 70 miles from Milwaukee and 110 or so from Chicago, has its own added gun restrictions, and they're sitting way low at 522 people per violent crime.

Using those numbers, one could argue looser gun laws equals more violent crime. There's a lot more to it than simply strict or loose gun laws, even when comparing similar circumstances. The numbers for the murder rates are a bit different but show a similar tale: loose gun laws don't necessarily correspond to lower murder rates, unless one cherry-picks data. Even Oakland has a lower rate than light-restriction Milwaukee. And West Palm Beach in Florida - a state with very loose laws - has a higher murder rate than Chicago. So yeah, trying to make that correlation doesn't really work in a direct 'A has led to B' manner.

I agree, though, with some of your basic points. There are other ways of doing harm. And also that restrictions now aren't going to do much to change things, but I feel that's because there are simply soooo many firearms here now, that a 100% halt sales today means we still have 300 million of them in the country, along with billions and billions of rounds of ammunition. The best we can hope for is that the people who do purchase and own them take seriously the life-or-death power that this device gives them, and treat firearms accordingly.

But I also agree with adaliabooks, who points out that there is a difference between using a firearm for mayhem and using a knife or other up-close weapon, both physical and psychological.

Anyway, gruesome topic, and it's not a great thing to distill it down to numbers.

A knife can be certainly used for defense, in the sense that you mention.

A car can be used to run away from an attacker. Isn't that a form of defense? (Even better, it 's a nonviolent form of defense, assuming no accident occurs.)

Putting flame between yourself and your attacker could also be a defensive strategy.

Ah well, you're right, in this case, the tragedy couldn't have had anything to do with guns. Must have been the games instead. Hah! Now the carrot complexioned commanding cardinal of cholesterol will finally put an end to those filthy things!

The problem here is proximity. Guns are illegal in Chicago, but they are readily available in Milwaukee and St Louis (Another very near neighbor) It is trivial for someone to travel to either and get a weapon. Once you have one, you become the king because no law abiding citizens will have one. So it's not just about the laws in a specific place, but rather their proximity to other places with lax laws. If you make stricter federal guidelines and laws to regulate, then the availability of such weapons decreases exponentially because you can't just wander 50 or 100 miles and get what you want.

I wasn't saying that loose gun laws necessarily lead to lower murder. I was saying that stricter gun laws don't do a thing to lower murder... or at least I think I was saying that.

What loose gun laws do is offer an opportunity to lower murder rates by making sure citizens can defend themselves.

And the attitude toward guns means something. I would think that people in Idaho are more likely to carry, than people in Wisconsin. They have to actually be carrying to have an effect.

There is more to the story than simply making it easier to carry. But, as has been proven over and over again in places like Russia (which the people do live as well as they do here in the US) Brazil, etc... gun laws don't lower gun crime. All they do is disarm the victim or intimidate the victim from being armed.

And I don't see why density increase the risk of murder. It would be easier to hide the corpse in rural areas for example.

Tell that to Russia and man Latin American countries. High gun crime, strict gun laws nation wide. Proximity isn't the issue. They can be gotten and made anywhere if people want to.

Why?

Tell that to most European countries. Low crime rates and strict gun laws. Also not run by criminal organizations.

And a gun would not work either, as your hands are both occupied by the handlebars.

That's also an issue with guns; what if you miss and the bullet happens to hit an innocent victim?

(That's unlikely to happen with a knife; with knives, you're more likely to hurt *yourself* than you are to hurt someone not involved.)