As a gun owner and someone who has had many conversations about guns, this really isn’t a perspective I had considered before. I think you are 100% right though, in that if you are *really* committed to defending your family, you defend them in the million small ways that come up every single day.
What I would add, however, is another view on why people — not just men — think guns are important. I will take your stats for granted; although it’s worth considering in 2018 there were around 2.3 million home burglaries in America, meaning your 12% of 7% would still lead to 19,000 armed home burglaries *that we know of*.
The aim of having a gun is not to support the family in the many ways you mentioned, yet those are very important too. The aim is to protect your family from one of the *absolutely worst things that could happen*: it is there to prevent catastrophe. Does it stroke the ego of the person carrying the fire arm? Certainly. But it also serves a very practical purpose as, if it came to it, it would give your family a fighting chance.
Gun owners carry guns in the same way car owners wear seatbelts. Is your seatbelt used — in the sense that the lock is activated — every single day? No. Are there countless other things you can and should be doing while driving to ensure the safety of your passengers? Absolutely. So why are seatbelts there? Because, in the disaster situation that a crash occurs, they can give you a fighting chance of not being harmed. The same principle applies for guns. You don’t need to use either a seatbelt or a gun every day to justify their presence: or ever for that matter. They only need to be there in case that one catastrophic situation occurs where they’re needed. But by the time that situation is happening, it’s too late to decide you want one. You cannot decide mid car crash that you wish you were wearing a seatbelt — you cannot decide mid home invasion you wish you had a weapon. However, if the decision is made not to have one, the consequences can be fatal.
You could absolutely then argue that guns cause more harm than they resolve, or that they aren’t practical tools for self defence: but then we are having a different conversation. In this context — talking about the idea that guns stroke the ego of the holder more than they defend their family — I think more can be said about why people want to own guns than just masculine fantasies and machismo.
You don’t have to agree with this of course! But just as you gave me a new perspective, hopefully, I can return in kind.
