General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm from the UK where debates about guns don't exist. [View all]HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)I don't doubt that there are many reasons for carrying a gun and that the reasons in rural areas may overlap but also be different than the reasons in an urban or suburban area.
America is a big place and people do live in places where there are animals that could be dangerous to people, livestock and/or pets. The most common (in distribution and in numbers) dangerous animal in the US is the coyote (only polar bears and rattlesnakes are considered more dangerous, bobcats and alligators come in 4th and 5th).
My understanding how dangerous coyotes are can partly be gained by realizing that about 220K sheep are killed every year by coyotes, while in 30 years there were 160 attacks (a fraction more than 5 attacks per year, fatal attacks occur less than once per year) by coyotes on people. Most of the attacks on people were in the greater Los Angeles area By contrast about 29K people are killed every year in the US by people with guns, and something around 700 people are killed in homicides each year by guns in Los Angeles county.
Simply put, in the US, and Los Angeles county, a person is much more likely to be killed by a person with a gun than by a coyote (our most widespread dangerous animal). The implication is obviously that people with guns are somewhat more dangerous to other US citizens than are coyotes (which doesn't mean coyotes aren't potentially dangerous or that every person with a gun is particularly dangerous).
Each person assesses their own risk. In the US, the resolution of that risk could be to legally own and carry a gun.
I've lived in rural areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota most of my adult life and I've done that without keeping a firearm for self-defense.
I could be bad at assessing my risk, but I'm comfortable with it.