My thesis is that these stories are gripping for people. They truly are, I saw people reposting the monterey park vigil on their social media around the country. This of course makes for good TV, and fills the room at the expense of covering other perhaps more directly relevant concerns that people should be up in arms about (such as corruption and abuse of office, climate change, and our inability to seriously address either due to how these things are connected). And of course when you have one side of the aisle wanting one thing and the other wanting the direct opposite, people will be emboldened to argue various ways in person and online about these issues, and perpetuate even more interest into looking at related media.
But I can't leave the other half of your point hanging either. The guy who stopped the monterey park shooter was unarmed. Honestly though, the whole 'good guy with a gun' narrative is rooted in fantasy. Over the past 20 years of mass shootings in this country, a good guy with a gun has stopped a bad guy with a gun 3% of times. It's also happened before where in the chaos and confusion, that good guy ends up shot by police.
But in either case, the odds of one of being a victim in a mass shooting with a shooter you don't personally know are so low. In terms of gun deaths, you are far more likely to die via suicide or from someone you intimately know (1). Of the deaths via murder, both in terms of mass shootings where 4 people are killed at once (making up 1% of gun deaths a year), and in general, a little over half of all homicides are from intimate partner violence (2,3). So if you think "well a good guy with a gun only stopped a bad guy with a gun so few times because not every good guy has a gun," think again and consider how many more deaths from both suicide or intimate partner violence there would be with more access to guns among the population, along with the police shooting the good guy. Even with the current amount of guns there are in circulation, its estimated that 380,000 are stolen a year (4), and with more ownership that number is sure to increase. That same source also suggests you are 3x more likely to have a gun stolen while carrying.
a lot of what you’re citing seems disingenuous at best. I wasn’t going to respond because the platoon downvoting discourages further discussion, but some brave souls upvoted so I feel encouraged. You also didn’t directly address my actual points, but what you came up with is rather ludicrous and I’ll just point out a few more obvious absurdities.
For example the "3x more likely to have a gun stolen while carrying” actually isn’t a result from the source, in fact the source clearly states "we know almost nothing about the actual event” with respect to the actual theft. Perhaps you’re trying to assert “must possess firearm for it to be stolen?"
How can you legitimately assert that “good guy with a gun” is a fantasy when your own numbers show it’s a reality? 3% is non-zero! Even the police occasionally use firearms to stop bad guys, yet I’m sure a majority of police never use their firearms in the line of duty.
Do you also discount lives saved? Can you even quantify them? None of your sources seem to give a damn about it! Just last year an ordinary guy out at the mall stopped a spree killer ambush in a crowded food court. Your analysis would conclude not allowing concealed carry because of the risk of suicide is greater than the risk of spree-killing per person-mall-visit (probably true) despite the fact they are not equivalent for comparison. Thusly spree-killers should be (absurdly) unimpeded, because they are uncommon. Similarly we shouldn’t bother wearing seatbelts, because it is mostly unnecessary...?
My opinion is your apparent gun control ideation is mostly founded in nutty false equivalencies and I consider these hazardous to public and personal safety as a basis for law.
But I can't leave the other half of your point hanging either. The guy who stopped the monterey park shooter was unarmed. Honestly though, the whole 'good guy with a gun' narrative is rooted in fantasy. Over the past 20 years of mass shootings in this country, a good guy with a gun has stopped a bad guy with a gun 3% of times. It's also happened before where in the chaos and confusion, that good guy ends up shot by police.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/22/us/shootings-...
But in either case, the odds of one of being a victim in a mass shooting with a shooter you don't personally know are so low. In terms of gun deaths, you are far more likely to die via suicide or from someone you intimately know (1). Of the deaths via murder, both in terms of mass shootings where 4 people are killed at once (making up 1% of gun deaths a year), and in general, a little over half of all homicides are from intimate partner violence (2,3). So if you think "well a good guy with a gun only stopped a bad guy with a gun so few times because not every good guy has a gun," think again and consider how many more deaths from both suicide or intimate partner violence there would be with more access to guns among the population, along with the police shooting the good guy. Even with the current amount of guns there are in circulation, its estimated that 380,000 are stolen a year (4), and with more ownership that number is sure to increase. That same source also suggests you are 3x more likely to have a gun stolen while carrying.
1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-da...
2. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6628a1.htm
3. https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40...
4. https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40...