There's a debate about whether Zimmerman should have been carrying

[MrScorpio]

55. This what I want to know...

Do you think that our society will be safer they more law abiding people carry guns? I wonder.

That whole more guns, more safety argument. The same argument that some places, like that podunk berg in Texas, that passed a law that said that every citizen who wasn't legally prohibited from carrying, had to carry. Does it work?

Are we all safer, the more folks are legally allowed to pack? And sure, I always hear that argument, "Better me than the criminals", but again most people are only at risk of being killed by a stranger in only one of five times… Your friends, relatives, neighbors, associates and co-workers make up the other four.

Who you are, where you live, what politics have and how poor you are have the greatest relationship to the possibility of you getting shot. Someone like you; educated, liberal and law abiding is much less likely of being gunned down than any one of our winger brethren.

I'm thinking that your own personal experience is not indicative of situations where irresponsible gun ownership is involved in causing death by firearms.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354/

If you live around Republicans, live in the Deep South, or are working class, you're practically walking around with a target on your back.

And of course, when it comes to the possibility of getting shot, location again is everything. It stands as a fact that my chances of getting shot would increase dramatically were I to move back to Texas or to California:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state

You say that, "A firearm should never be produced in a confrontation unless you intend to use it." Which is my point exactly, why people like Zimmerman, an idiot who's scared of his own shadow and is armed, is more of a threat to society than the possibility of criminal behavior. People like that feel that they're ENTITLED to bring a gun to a Skittles and Arizona Ice Tea fight. They've got the Second Amendment that says they can.

He had no good reason to carry that day.

Don't make the mistake that I'm arguing against guns… Not at all, I'm arguing against idiotic cowards with guns. People like that ATTRACT gun violence. The more people who are like that out there makes it more likely for someone to get shot when there was no need to be.

And I'm saying that I want to stay as far away from people like that and possible, and I have to fear from them than I do about being the victim of crime by a stranger with a gun.

People who are stupid enough to think they can solve their problems with guns in any occasion frankly scare me.

One last thing, I really don't think that the vast majority of people who illegally carry firearms do so because they're out to prey on the law abiding. The best reason why I think that criminals carry guns is so that they are able to defend themselves from OTHER criminals. That's always been my best observation. Law abiding folks who are not involved in situations where they would come across some crook who's out to do them harm to them harm makes it very unlikely that confrontations would occur.