My brother has a handgun because he lives in inner-city Toledo. He's tired of having his house broken into and he's tired of getting mugged. Last year some jerk who pretended to beat up a girl to get him to come over and say something tricked him into a fight. There were other accomplices who came and outnumbered my poor brother pretty badly. He ended up in the hospital with a broken jaw. He couldn't eat solids for a weeks.
After that crap, he decided to get a handgun. Quite frankly, I find it hard to blame him. Holding gun scares me. It doesn't scare him. I think he ought to be allowed to own a gun to protect himself, not so much in the event of some crazy anti-government revolution, but so that he can better defend himself against whoever he meets on the streets.
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Even under my wildest of gun control fantasies, I'd never want to restrict gun ownership to the level that a normal guy could keep one for his safety in a situation like that. The problem with this conversation is the silly extremes that so many people take on it, and honestly, most of the people holding an extreme position are not on my side of the aisle, so to speak.
