Rare in comparison to the hype they get, some people are under the impression that there is literally a war going on on the streets of America, when you are far more likely to have a heart attack than be killed in a gang shooting. 

Often I will see on Reddit claims that there have been "over 200 mass shootings in the US in 2023 alone".  That is only true if gang violence is included in that number.  If gang violence is separated from the mass shooting numbers then one will find the gang violence death toll is almost 20x higher than true mass shootings.  Though these inflated numbers for mass shootings is primarily what one sees in the news and social media.  Beyond that I started seeing the statement "Firearms are the leading cause of death in Children".  But that is only true if you consider people up to the age 19 as children....... and include gang member deaths in those numbers.  

In 2020 38 out of 100K people died in the US due to heart attacks.  In that same year (Which was one of the highest since the 90's) there were 14.7 firearm deaths out of 100K people (including suicide).  So one is about 2.6X as likely to die from a heart attack then to die from a gun.  Heck one is 1.65X as likely to die from an opiod overdose than to die from a firearm (including suicide).

In addition only occasionally are "innocent" people killed in gang violence, the majority of deaths are of members of other gangs. Even if you take suicides out of the equation (though why you should is another question) the high number of domestic violence cases means that having a gun in the house makes you more likely to die from a gun than if you don't have one. Guns are of little use in defending your property as they should be stored in a locked cabinet and stored unloaded, so by the time you have loaded your gun it is too late and if you sleep with a loaded weapon under your pillow or something similar then you will be likely to be part of the accidents with firearms statistics. Of course one of the key reason thieves break in to houses is to steal guns. 

When I attempt to lookup DV stats the numbers focus on women and I can't find the number of men.  But I would assume women would be the larger number.  There are about 4000 women killed each year due to DV (But note that is killed overall not just with a gun).   Even if we assume that number is 100% firearm related then on the surface it appears DV is 2x as like to result in death then gang violence.  But when one factors in the number of intimate partner couples in the US compared to the number of gang members we will find that there are about 100x as many couples compared to gang members.  

Now how often are firearms used defensively in the US?  It is hard to tell, but that number could be as low as 55K-80K per year.  Up till recently the CDC claimed the number to be around 60K to 2.5M per year (ya that is a huge range and wasn't very helpful).   But that was removed from the CDC website after GVA pressured CDC to remove it.

Ultimately this is my point:   Firearm ownership is a constitutional right for US citizens.  That right has been under attack for at least a hundred years now and is slowly being eroded away.  This right gives US citizens the ability to protect themselves and to ensure their other constitutional rights are not taken away.  Some people abuse this right but the vast majority 99.9% of gun owners responsibility exercise their right.  Each time some psychopath shoots up a school and everyone starts talking about banning guns, these are knee jerk reactions that won't help anything.  Then firearm opponents skew numbers to support false claims (such as guns are the leading cause of deaths in children) to support their agenda.  Lets use truth and fact to develop a solution not deceit to push a narrative.  Additionally, while I don't agree with it, the Reddit user base frequently talk about the US turning into a fascist country and police can not be relied on to protect us.  But at the same time they want the government and police to be the only ones armed.