Few people "feel the need to be armed to the teeth." I don't own a semi-automatic rifle capable of holding over ten rounds (hoplophobs incorrectly call them assault rifles). As a Marine I never heard my fully automatic M-16 referred to as an assault rifle. Assault was a verb. I not only don't need an AR-15, but I also don't want one.

You use the loaded word "gun deaths." When mayors have guns turned in and send them to a crushed for destruction, I suppose you could call that a gun death, except that gun are not alive in the first place.

Suicides? Surly you don't believe that people who decide to kill themselves wouldn't choose another method. My father checked himself out and he didn't use a gun. I don't understand the mentality of suicide. In my darkest moments I've never considered it.

Stopping crimes in progress is low because most good guy who own guns leave them at home, like me. The number of crimes preempted by people who are armed is another thing.

Most crimes of violence are committed by young men. If you could by magic make all the guns in America vanish, we'd still have violent young men, and be honest with yourself, MOST women, old men, weak and disabled men wouldn't stand a chance against a young able-bodied man in his physical prime. If they come as a group and you are not armed, they can do whatever they want.

In the early years after my return from Vietnam there was a thought about ticking time-bomb deranged Vietnam Veterans. Given the number of us, the number that did something was incredibly small. We weren't automatically inclined to kill people.

While in Vietnam, a group of about six of us, an equal number of black and white, were sitting, shooting the breeze. We all had loaded M-16s. One of the bros kept using the word "Chuck" referring to white people. One of the white ones said, "Listen, if I'm a Chuck, you're a n****r." Moment of silence and then the bro said, "Dig!" and stopped using the word. Nobody died just because we were armed.

America is not other countries. Times are changing, there has been a steady anti-2nd Amendment drone demonizing firearms for much of my life. Political propaganda works, that's why it's done. An increasing, or so it seems from the propaganda, number of people see guns as demonic violent entities. Where that will lead, I cannot say.

You may think me a toxic male gun-nut, I don't know. I can only say that you don't know me based upon one conversation.

Edit addition: Here's a picture from my 1964 high school yearbook. There probably aren't any pictures in the latest high school yearbooks like this one. America is changing. https://tinyurl.com/mrxkfpc2