How do some liberals/Democrats protect themselves without a gun?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Because I don't live my life quaking in fear?

Also I don't have delusional fantasies about having an excuse to kill or injure someone.

I'm a gun owner, and even when I was shooting regularly, it would be a delusional fantasy to think that, loaded with adrenaline (and likely in the middle of the night) I could:

a) tell a would-be robber apart from a houseguest, visitor with a key, or even my drunk upstairs neighbor when I've forgotten to lock my door (which happened once and scared the hell out of me, but the effective and appropriate response would not have involved a gun).

b) correctly assess whether I've got a good line of fire or not, and

c) correctly operate my weapon, much less hit a putative armed and aggressive intruder.

(And that's assuming I had a weapon and ammunition where I (or anyone else) could easily access it, instead of locked, unloaded, in my gun safe.

The problem with 2nd amendment fanatics is that they think guns are magic talismans. Ironically, possibly because they play too many video games and watch too many action movies. But also because they've been fed a steady diet of UTTER BS from the NRA.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

AR-15's are not hunting rifles. They are military grade assault rifles used for war.

See, this is part of why I really want to see strict firearms licensing. Ammosexuals are a threat to themselves and their fellow citizens in no small part because they're ignorant about their objects of worship. The dreamer here linked the above picture to try and demonstrate that the two rifles are identical. (Although a fairer case probably could have been made by liking the tactical version of the Mini-14 rather than the fetishists dream that is included.) They're making the case by, accurately, pointing out that the two weapons use the same caliber of ammunition and can use high-capacity magazines.

Now, it is true that many people with no understanding of firearms confuse the terms 'assault rifle' (which the AR-15 is not) with 'assault weapon' (which the bottom rifle pictured absolutely is). But what both the creator of the image and our resident cultist are either willfully ignorant of or deliberately avoiding are the very real differences between the two weapons: stock, rails, grip, muzzle, barrel length, and trigger pull, among other things. Amazingly enough these make a difference on whether the weapon is better for, on the one hand, killing game animals (or vermin) out in the wilderness, or on the other, killing people in close quarters.

By making claims about caliber and magazine availability, the effect is to obscure the very real truth: one of the above weapons is designed to be better at killing people. I have never seen any persuasive reason why such weapons need to be made generally to the public (or law enforcement). 

Another point that gun nuts and NRA shills tend to neglect to mention: there is already a very effective set of regulations limiting (among other things) military firearms: Title II of the National Firearms Act. Fun fact: If you comply with Title II regulations (which are very thorough and a little expensive) you can legally own machine guns (if you can get them), along with a variety of light artillery and other weaponry. And yet, these weapons basically never get used in mass shootings (or used maliciously at all). It's almost as though the tighter regulations act to stop nearly all illegal use, without flat-out banning the devices in question!