911 tells young mother, "do what you have to do to protect your baby"

[iverglas]

66. I thought it rather obvious

Agreed. So what?!!!!! In what way is the fact that no one can be certain relevant? In what way should the fact that we are not omniscient affect gun policy?

The fact that someone used a firearm for something -- be it to avoid apparently imminent personal injury, break a car window or hammer a bleeding nail -- is not some kind of eternal, conclusive proof that the firearm was NEEDED for the particular task at hand, i.e. that the ultimate outcome would have been different if the firearm had not been present.

It is entirely possible and in some cases very probable that a person who shot another person would have suffered no harm if they had not done so, that a person who shot out a car window would have used a tire iron to the same effect, or that the nail would have got hammered with a brick.

You're seeing the point, perhaps?

The loud bellowing about how no one must restrict anyone else's access to firearms lest that person some day be murdered by marauding housebreakers, or trapped in a sinking car, or unable to hammer the nail that would keep their house from falling down around their ears, is based on speculation.

These tales of innocent babes shooting very very bad guys dead can be countered with tales of very very bad guys shooting innocent babes dead.

In virtually all these cases:
- we know that the innocent babes killed by the bad guys would be alive but for the gun in their equation
- we do not know that the innocent babes who killed the bad guys would not be alive were it not for the gun in their equation

There are multiple differences between the two prototype situations, and between any one of them and any other, obviously. There are situations in which one can be really quite sure that the innocent would have been seriously harmed by the bad guy but for the gun, and situations in which one can be really quite sure that the bad guy would have seriously harmed the innocent even without a gun.

But - and even leaving aside the many, many instances of harms other than death that very certainly would not have occurred absent a gun - the gun is very arguably, I would even say quite obviously, far more often an essential part of the equation in the latter situation than in the former. Far more innocents lose their lives than save their lives by means of the firearm in their situations.

Yes, I know that the next step in this dance is to remind me how many thousands of people save their lives (or their wallets, or whatever) without firing a shot, merely by lifting their upper body garment to show a flash of steel, whatever. Sez those who say it, sez I.

And I will then point to the tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of people whose lives are made a misery in various ways by means of firearms without any shot ever being fired at them.

But to stick to the scenario at hand: speculation.