So the million plus citizens of the US who use guns in 2.5 million legitimate self-defense incidents per year are "dim bulbs"?

While you're taking a utilitarian vs. moral approach to this, its reminiscent of this definition which continues the theme of my last reply:

"Gun Control: the theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound."

Or in mirror this variant I like on an old saying, "God created men and women, and Samuel Colt made them equal."

And it should go without saying that no friend of mine would call me a "dim bulb." Patronizing, I'd say, which continues the theme, per Wiktionary, the etymology is: "Old English patron (reborrowed from Latin patronus, derived from Latin pater (“father”)) +‎ -ize (“(verb ending)”)."

The Kleck number of 2.5m is based on a phone survey of 5000 Americans from 1992. In other words, it has no scientific value.

Haha, strangled with her own panty hose huh? Listen, I don't know what gun people get off to, but alley-way rape occurs about as frequently as mass shootings. Almost all sexual assaults are perpetrated by known acquaintances of the victim. Adding a gun to the mix is only going to make things worse.

And you are being a bit disingenuous. The overwhelming majority of gun owners are males. It is 100% an image thing, just like driving a big truck or getting a "badass" tattoo.

All I'm saying is, if you don't think corporations are above profiting hugely off of hysteria and fear, you've never watched the nightly news.

If phone surveys are "of no scientific value", you ought to tell the Department of Justice they're wasting taxpayer money: http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=245

According to Wikipedia according to the Department of Justice, 26% of rapes are by strangers, which doesn't fit my definition of the inverse of "almost all".

And while most guns may be technically owned by men, that hardly matters if they're available for the women in the household to use in self-defense.

And again with the profit; can you not understand that the vast majority of us just don't give a damn that the firearms industry makes a healthy profit? This is an argument that has weight with gun grabbers, not gun owners.

You still don't understand what I'm saying. You live in some fantasy world where girls get raped in alleyways and you're apparently the self-appointed gun-toting White Knight here to save her. This is the fantasy that you have bought into, and pay hundreds of dollars per year to gun corps to sustain. Anyway, convo done.

No, the legal consequences of a defense case are potentially so dire I'd walk right past the alley.

As ... Massad Ayoob, I think, put it, we're talking about the equivalent of visiting the hospital, noticing a complete stranger who needs a lot of money for treatment, and writing a check for $250,000 plus or minus and putting it in his pocket. I'm only willing to do it for "me and mine", i.e. my friends and blood relatives, especially since I don't have the sort of money that's required for a competent defense against a serious felony charge, no matter how bogus it might be.

And you might want to re-read the above, an ideal, if it comes to it, is "a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound" (better if the attacker is not killed), not a Good Samaritan explaining. We're all ultimately responsible for our own self-protection.