Thanks, that’s helpful.

Question from someone outside the US who’s genuinely curious about why law-abiding citizens feel the need to carry guns to begin with:

If you’re aware of this, how often are you carrying a gun in the first place? When/Why?

Following what you say, there’s obviously the scenario where you have to defend your life (not your property).

On the other hand, as I see it, the victim in the article would not have benefited from a gun in the car and the odds of a shell-shocked BF turning the whole thing into an actual shootout would’ve been >0.

I’m not trying to argue crime statistics or morals here, I’m genuinely interested in a gun owner’s perspective.

A subjective perspective from outside the US:

If I follow your argument that illegal firearms are the problem, I still believe that the amount of illegal firearms in circulation is a direct function of the legal arms market’s size.

And as long as the threshold for acquiring a firearm is low, so is the threshold for injuring someone with one.

This goes for a criminal using an illegal one in a robbery, a frustrated teenager emptying their uncle’s poorly secured gun locker for a school schooting or even for suicides: An abundance of guns makes these things easier, so they happen more often.

Mandating stricter controls, safety training or weapon-lockup procedures can alleviate this some, but any process that relies on a lot of not strictly organized individuals to be applied will be fallible and permeable by nature.

Selling more weapons to private citizens will always lead to more gun-related deaths and injuries.

The only way to reliably reduce the amount of weapons in circulation is to sell less of them (and keep removing illegal ones).

Naturally, this is unpopular with an industry that relies on selling as many as possible.

(I’m also aware that something like this would have to be a very slow process. Even if the pool of legal weapons were drained overnight, all those illegal guns would still be around.)

Found the morality relativist.

Except at that point the Mafia are somehow supposedly the good guys?

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/happiness-spigot

Best summary to this topic I’ve ever seen.

People with legitimate service dogs usually have vests on them, not just to make it clear to business owners, but because they usually don’t want people petting and distracting the service dogs when they’re on duty.

One of the best sets of “work clothing” I’ve ever seen on a dog was on a large, leashed greymuzzle sleeping peacefully next to their owner in a very busy subway car.

Wore a harness with a text along the lines of “I’m a police dog and tired after a long day. Please do me a solid and don’t disturb me. Thanks.”

What about blind people with service dogs?

Isn’t banning them akin to banning wheelchairs?

I believe there is a certificate for professional trained service dogs like that. (If there isn’t, there should.)

A conversation along the lines of “Ma’am, we don’t allow dogs in here unless they’re a certified service dog.” “No problem, here’s my permit for Chester.” should be no problem.

And if Ma’am can’t get Chester to behave, she’ll be treated like any other unruly guest and invited to take her business (and her dog) elsewhere.