I see you’re missing the forest for the trees, and making mountains out of molehills. No one is dismissing the right to self protection.

I support the 2nd amendment. I’ve also been active in sport shooting. I love archery. I don’t hunt myself, though I appreciate those who do because they help fund wildlife management programs and without apex predators, larger herbivores need culling from time to time to prevent starvation and disease.

That is not the point. I’ll say it again. That was not the point of the article. You’re stuck in the weeds of presumed grievance, getting worked up over gun rights when that’s not what the article was about.

Change the analogy.

You’re the driver with 3 other passengers. Your job is to get yourself and those other passengers from point A to point B safely. You tell everyone to buckle their seatbelts.

But… you fail to turn on your lights when it gets dark. You never look around you before you switch lanes. It rains but you don’t slow down so you don’t hydroplane or turn on your wipers. You couldn’t be bothered to fill up your tank with gas so you run out. You never got your oil changed so you throw a rod through your engine block. Your car is now stranded in the middle of oncoming traffic and you have no emergency gear.

Have you safely gotten your passengers to point B? No? That’s the point.

Real protection comes from mundane every day acts that you do before hand. They’re boring. They don’t come with applause or fanfare. You do them over and over ad nauseum infinitum. You drill them in your kids so they learn to take care of themselves.

These are the real acts of heroism. It’s 99.9% absolute drudgery. Not fantasy. Not overly focusing on the things that are unlikely to happen to the detriment of everything else that is needed so much more.

That’s the point.