Since you seem to have missed his point about being old and frail, let me explain: weapons, such as guns, level the playing field for old, frail, weak, small people, and women or men who are out numbered or outmatched. It allows everyone to have a better chance to defend themselves, including easy targets (no, not unpopular people; now you are being obtuse) No, I didn't miss the point. I rejected it because it's based on a fantasy. You're imagining a world where every old, frail person is the hero of their own action movie: instantly recognising danger, drawing flawlessly under pressure and neutralising the threat. Meanwhile, you've conveniently ignored the fact that the criminal gets a vote too. If we're talking about a heavily armed society, why are you assuming the attacker isn't armed? Why are you assuming the attacker doesn't shoot first? Why are you assuming the old, frail person isn't slower to react, slower to draw and slower to make decisions under stress? The entire argument rests on giving every advantage to the victim and every disadvantage to the aggressor. Reality doesn't work like that. The uncomfortable truth is that if you're genuinely old, frail and physically vulnerable, a gun does not magically transform you into John Wick. In many situations, it simply means there's now a second gun at the scene. And that's the part gun enthusiasts constantly gloss over. They obsess over the handful of successful defensive-use stories while ignoring the far larger societal reality: more guns also mean more suicides, more accidents, more domestic murders, more stolen firearms, more impulsive killings and more gun deaths. So no, the question isn't whether a gun can help a vulnerable person. Of course it can. The question is whether building an entire society around that hypothetical produces better outcomes overall. That's why the relevant comparison isn't a frail person versus an attacker. It's one society with widespread firearm ownership versus another without it. And on that measure, the US gun death statistics are absolutely brutal. There is simply no way to polish them.
