Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh, if you had a 30% chance of encountering an armed individual as a cop, you'd damn well assume they were armed every time. That's one in three traffic stops, and you probably do a lot more than three as a cop. Keep in mind that number will be a lot higher depending on your locality. If I'm ever elected God Emperor of the United States I'm going to make beating XCOM 2 a high school graduation requirement just to imp…
> Uh, if you had a 30% chance of encountering an armed individual as a cop, you'd damn well assume they were armed every time. I understand that thinking (see also 'would you play Russian roulette with those odds?'), but the "(>)1:1" comments hides the underlying distribution, which I think colours how people think about the (alleged) pervasiveness of firearms in the US. As another example of perception versus realit…
Yes, merely owning a gun does make you statistically more likely to die of a gun shot, but only in the same sense that owning alcohol mean you're more likely to drive drunk, owning a car means you're more likely to die in a car crash, and having a house wired for electricity means you're more likely to die of electrocution.
For instance, that article says that the risk of suicide is 5x higher with a gun in the house. Well my risk of suicide is presently zero, and 5 x 0 = 0.
There's a great deal of individual control over the risk when it comes to personal ownership. Compare that to a cop who is professionally obligated to pull over a large sample of people they don't get to select, and this sample is disproportionately violent or otherwise untrustworthy.