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You're not wrong and I mainly don't disagree with you.

But look at it from another perspective.

Those millions of guns in households are largely in the hands of conservatives since gun ownership skews heavily towards white people, males, and those living in rural areas which we already know also skews conservative, within which is a subset that fantasize about having a reason to murder their neighbors over dumb shit like colorful flags or opinions.

Liberals are much more diverse of a population than conservatives which means that when it comes to liberals, women or poc the odds of them having a fighting chance are not great in a life or death situation they didnt create, vs who is most likely to be the aggressors, conservative white men.

My take on it is that the cat is already out of the bag. In a perfect world I would prefer not having easy to operate life-ending tools spread freely throughout the country, but that's not the reality we live in. The best shot we have is to even the playing field so to speak even with the downsides it presents. The current status quo is letting terrorists gun us down with impunity and that doesn't sit well with me.

It's a balance between individual rights and societal safety. You have a right to defend yourself from threats to your life and safety by using deadly force. To say otherwise removes the ability for a good chunk of the population to adequately defend themselves. I'm related to plenty of people who cannot defend their life against the average male aggressor without a gun, and you are too. At a certain point size and strength are insurmountable.

But yes, encouraging people to responsibility engage with firearms for self defense use means that there will be more guns floating around, which means more accidents, suicides, and murders. Just as with any other choice for the rules of society, it's a trade-off. How much do we value keeping the right to adequate self-defense as a universal right? How much do we value preventing accidental injury and death?

The classic comparison is cars, simply because the annual death numbers are similar, and pretty much no other reason. But even so, we can draw parallels. Cars have mandatory features that reduce the likelihood of injury without impacting the usefulness or general experience of using a car. So too do guns, with nearly all guns having to meet industry requirements for safety, like being able to handle an overpressure event, and being drop-safe.

Cars have a licensing procedure (though it's essentially a joke here in the US) and a licensing procedure would be fine for guns, so long as it can't be used to restrict access (racist approvals and denials would become a problem in a hurry). My ideal licensing program would be a free handling skills course where failure would require some sort gross negligence, and even then you'd still get racist denials.

And really, this is the fundamental problem with guns: I (and many others) view them as a necessary tool to accessing a highly valuable right. The chances you'll need a gun are very low, but the cost of not having it can be very high. You don't have full control over whether someone else will attempt to take your life, and I don't want to say to a large chunk of the population "we're going to take away your ability to defend yourself in order to save other people who would still have that option either way."

And I want to be clear, I completely agree with the other person. If you're going to bring guns into your life, you had better learn medical skills, social skills, and you had better train with your firearm in somewhat realistic conditions. You should carry pepper spray, you should practice learning how to actually effectively calm people down, you need to learn how to safely store your guns and ammo, etc. Etc.

I get the desire ban guns in order to save lives, but you'd also be endangering others. Compare that with the car analogy, and banning cars would have a similar trade-off. Some people would live thanks to not getting in a car accident, others would die thanks to not having the same level of mobility (which has about a billion knock-on effects for quality of life).

It's not about self defense in this case, I think. It's about sending a message that they/we/the lefties ain't gonna take it laying down. If you truly want to see the right shit themselves, start arming lefties.

In the situation you outline, yeah you'd have no real chance at protecting yourself. And those situations do happen in cases like the Las Vegas hotel shooting or any of the various school shootings we're seeing all over these days.

In many other cases even the most craven assholes need to work themselves up to shoot another human being.

That means arguments, harassment and threats.

These are helpful advance warning signs that tell you that you're entering dangerous waters and de-escalation tactics take priority. Many of our lady friends can already tell from a mile away if someone is dangerous even before they start flapping their mouthholes as a matter of everyday survival.

If all of that fails and I hope to god that it doesn't, that's when having a concealed weapon gives you a fighting chance at defending your right to live. Especially for women, guns are the great equalizer.

More guns just leads to more crazy assholes with guns

You're right, this is true.

Unfortunately the cost of encountering a rather persistent strapped terrorist is extremely high even if the chance of it happening to you is low.

There's more than you realize.

You likely don't hear much about it because liberal gun owners don't fetishize guns or base their personality around them like the chuds on the other side of the fence do. Guns are tools, not an identity.