Funny... I've been face to face with guns numerous times in my life. Gangs have been around for years. Longer than video games.
And, every time I've had a gun in my face, I've been unarmed. And I always walked away uninjured and never given in to whatever they wanted. Guns don't kill people. It is the people who kill people. And people who want to kill people will use anything they can to accomplish their task. If guns aren't available, they'll use something else.
Being calm, and smart about it, and gaining control of the situation is really your best defense against those who might threaten you with a gun or any other weapon. Simply put, they aren't that smart... And if you are calm it's really just a matter of using your intelligence against them.
And in reality, one could actually make a strong connection between the poorly educated and violent actions. So we could just as easily point the blame at our educational system, or the snobs who greedily refuse to use their wealth to benefit our poorer citizens and youth. Imagine if everyone worked on helping everyone instead of focussing on how wealthy and extravagant they could make their own lives.
Street thugs are actually among the easiest to confuse and manipulate their mind. It's basic psychology. And it's more powerful than guns.
Some of those who were the most feared gang leaders in the area at the time are now among people I count as friends many years after our original altercation.
Their guns didn't kill me. They would have had to pull the trigger. The gun couldn't act on it's own. And, you have to always remember that you are dealing with a person, not what they are holding. You face the person, you handle the person. The gun is an object, just like knives, sticks, rocks, steel bars, etc. are objects that could be used to injure or kill you.
Everything in the world has the capability of being used in some fashion that could be used to injure or kill you. Everything can be a weapon. That's a basic in self defense, evaluating your surroundings and turning anything you have at your disposal into a weapon if needed.
Always remember that there is a person holding the object. The object is actually harmless in itself without action from the person holding the object.
And, for the record, I don't like guns. I don't own one. But I also don't fear them or consider guns to be the problem. It takes a person to make a gun dangerous. That person who would try to kill you would still find a way to try and kill you even if there were no guns.
And video games don't turn people into murderers. People who desire to kill people already have that in them. And, for the record, while I havd been exposed to numerous games in every genre, I don't like video games either. So, no bias there either.
If you really want to know what the most dangerous weapon in the world is, it's hands. Hands are involved in, and used in some way to commit the vast majority of violent crimes. Maybe we should outlaw those...
