You misunderstood me. My point was that in that neighborhood, there was no such thing as a "backstop" for a bullet. The houses are small and close together and are built with very thin walls. (Very moderate climate.)
There's no way someone shooting at an assailant can know where his or her bullet will end up, no matter how much thinking he or she does. (And let's face it, even trained people don't do a lot of thinking in a crisis.)
But my point is that the majority of Americans no longer live in rural areas, nor do we hunt for food. The use of firearms in crowded cities and suburbs may have all sorts of unintended consequences.
Even the police make mistakes when using guns in an emergency (and they have far more training than any private citizen). I think it's reasonable to assume private citizens will make errors as well.
This figure also needs to be correlated with the rapid increase of incarceration rates in most states. Gun ownership may have nothing to do with the decrease in crime.
Well apparently I am too old to remember how to multiquote. Tried numerous times to answer you, Nova, but gave up, totally frustrated, and yet I wanted to respond to what you said.
First of all, anyone shooting at an assailant better have a darn good idea of where that bullet is going to go or otherwise they have no business shooting!
Let me ask you something. You said in your former neighborhood, the houses were too close together, the walls too thin to warrant using a firearm for protection, right?
Now I'm going to tell you why you're wrong. First of all, you do know that sky marshalls carry a firearm on planes right, and they may have to be required to use them, right? Airplanes are close quarters, lots of people on board to protect. There's a bullet designed for such a situation., and it's what sky marshalls use. It's called a hollow point. On impact, it expands, and is designed in such a way that it typically does not exit.
Now back to home protection where houses are close, a person can use a firearm with hollow points or a person may be more comfortable in using a shotgun. Shotguns have limited range of up to 50 yards, and honestly that's pushing it. Shot is not going to travel through an exterior wall to the outside, and then into the exterior wall and through the interior wall on the home next door because what shot is are small pellets. They hit anything, and that's pretty much going to stop their forward travel.
I don't live in a rural area, and neither did the majority of hunters I've known over the years, but they all, except one, ate what they shot so people do still hunt for food. The one who didn't knew people who were happy to take what he shot. Hunting is expensive, and there's more to it than just putting something on the table, but that's still a part of it. It's a survival tool and a skill.
Unintended consequences? You are just guessing here, and don't really know. If that was indeed a problem with people with CWP, we would have already heard about it because MSM would be all over it, and LE would be ranting and raving about it. It's fear mongering by people with active imaginations run wild.
As for LE or military for that matter, the truth is some will always be better shooters than others. Same goes with the private sector.
The people who don't care where their bullets go are the same people who either have or likely would commit crimes. They don't give a rat's patooty about a CWP or any laws, and gun control of any sort is not going to take their firearms away.
The possibility for errors exist in anything, and that goes back to MSM. If it was a problem, we'd hear about it, no make that, they'd harp on it incessantly.
As for incarceration being the reason why crime is down, I'm not buying it. We have a revolving door system on crime, and the criminals are back on the streets in no time.
