I would never get into a relationship with someone who had a gun or guns and would never have one in my home under any circumstance. Period and emphatically.

I lived in the US for 50 years. Much of my adult life I lived alone. I NEVER had a gun or any other kind of weapon, never wanted one and never felt the need for one. I think a lot of safety is where you live and how you live. The vast majority of people in the US who feel they need to have a gun don't actually need it at all. This would be an absolute deal breaker for me: I would never get into a relationship with someone who had a gun or guns and would never have one in my home under any circumstance. Period and emphatically

Fear them? I don't fear them, I hate them. How limited is someone's understanding to assume that if someone doesn't like guns it's because they fear them? I hate violence and guns and the whole attitude regarding the right to have them. From what I can see it is all those Americans who keep insisting they need them for self protection who are afraid, afraid of their own shadows. I lived in America alone, for many years and was not fearful. And yes I have shot a gun. I have been around them as a child and young adult through family. You have made a huge assumption based on absolutely nothing. I have been threatened by someone with a gun, to the point I was given unasked for police protection for a week. That incident, which happened in my late forties, did not form my opinion about guns and did not change it, it had no effect on it. I have more knowledge of and experience of the issue of gun possession and use by both joe public and the police, having a half brother who was in the police force, than most people. Again, you make huge assumptions.

guns in the home. the result of america watching way to many westerns in the 50s.

...and somehow you think guns cause violence

Okay, this I find totally laughable.

What is not understood by so many Americans is that there is a mindset, a limited, provincial, uneducated mindset about guns. The rest of the modern Western world does not share your perspective, and they are all laughing at you.

i hope and pray that you never run into a situation where you regret your stance

I know plenty of people who live right who could have/have used a weapon to defend themselves.

I live alone.

The thought of that is so scarry to me I keep a firearm in my home. The Ammo was locked away till I heard about a home invasion in my area where by a man and his pregnate girlfriend were beatin before they were left alone by the invaders. I loaded my SKS and it sits in the closet. I live alone.

thank god because if you had a roommate somebody bet tell him to KNOCK LOUD.

Self-defense
Dr. Roth argues that "Self-defense is commonly cited as a reason to own a gun. This is the explanation given by 20 percent of all gun owners and 40 percent of all handgun owners contacted for a household survey conducted in 1979. (Decision-Making Information, Inc., Attitudes of the American Electorate Toward Gun Control, Santa Ana, California: Decision-Making Information, Inc., 1979).
But research has shown that a gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a member of the household, or friend, than an intruder.(Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home." The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60.) The use of a firearm to resist a violent assault actually increases the victim's risk of injury and death(FE Zimring, Firearms, violence, and public policy, Scientific American, vol. 265, 1991, p. 48).
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ZJ5J-GTTL/guns.htm

What is not understood by so many Americans is that there is a mindset, a limited, provincial, uneducated mindset about guns. The rest of the modern Western world does not share your perspective, and they are all laughing at you.

I guess you will either adopt the "better I am raped and beaten (or whatever ) than a human die" attitude and hope for the best...

My take on it is that people that are vehemently opposed to firearms are that way for the very same reason. Because they are paranoid, a bit nutty, and trying to do all they can to put safety padding on every sharp corner of the world so they won't get hurt by anything. It's a manifestation of the fear of not being able to take care of themselves. Which, ironically, is what guns are for.

I think people who are so afraid of life they have to go around with a firearm to protect themselves are paranoid, a bit nuts, and definitely scardy cats. I have been the 'victim' of an attempted rape. I have had someone nearly shoot me. Yep, there is crime in the US. In one of the situations, the attempted rape, when I was 19, I blame myself for putting myself in a vulnerable situation. He had a knife, not a gun. Had I had a gun, like the study says, I would have been more likely to be hurt than to save myself. Instead I used common sense. The other was a work place issue and not something I contributed to, but a man with a gun collection who talked about violence who was not removed until he actually brought a gun on the premises with a plan to kill someone, me, in fact. He was disarmed by security people before anything happened, when they discovered he had a gun in his possession. My point is that I have faced violence and still am not scared of my own shadow. I am a sensible grownup, not a nutter who thinks that a rapist or murderer is lurking behind every tree.

This is completely illogical. You are projecting what you feel onto others.

^^^I put myself in a vulnerable situation when I was 19 years old, that was 40 years ago. I have more sense now. And obviously you don't understand logic. Your side is not backed up by logic at all. All of your examples, such as insurance and fire extinguishers, are false analogies. Not good logic at all but fallacious reasoning.