Dan, so sorry to hear that. I hope you treat her gently and she does not carry the grief of the event.


Now, if there is no gun present, then no one will get hurt from a gun. That is not arguable. It is a tautology: true by definition. No one can hurt someone else with a gun if they do not have a gun.

Second, I cannot find the reference, so flame away if you must. But I distinctly remember a carefully done study some years back that put the subjects in roll-playing hostile situations with a defined conflict. One group sat at a table. Another group sat at a table with a knife on it. The third group sat at a table with a pistol on it.

In the first group, the hostility did not escalate. In the second, it did escalate, but not that much. In the third, it escalated a LOT, and one of the participants reached for the gun.

This study was done in strict accordance with scientific principles and integrity. It was not pre-loaded with a conclusion which the conductors of the study then cherry-picked data to "prove" their point.

Saul