One thing they taught us at medical school was risk versus benefit. Yes it may be risky to cut open your chest, spread your ribs apart, stop your heart, and sew in a new aortic valve, sure, risky as hell...... However, the benefit is the prevention of death, which, in my book, is a rather unpleasant alternative. People point to all of the deaths by guns (although they forget that there is a PERSON behind every gun used wrongly), but they conveniently forget all of the lives saved and crimes stopped because of guns. Having a gun in my house is a risk. Risk that my kid or one of her friends finding it and misusing it, for example, is a real one. However, the benefit of having the weapon to use to protect that same kid is also a very real one. I minimize that risk by teaching that kid how to safely handle each and every one of my guns as well as securing my guns when they are not in the immediate control of a responsible person ( my daughter is one of those people by the way!).
The reason I own military style rifles: The day I asked my Mom why my great aunt had numbers tatooed on her right forearm and I got a truthfull answer, I became a firm believer in the 2nd. Zack