Per SeaNymph:
And yet again, they ignore the criminal element.

I have no use for guns personally (although I recognize that others do)
and an extremely-low regard for the NRA.

Having said that....

A looooong time ago I lived in Hawaii for almost 10 years.

As a matter of fact - at that time - somebody could get beaten half to
death just walking down the street in *any* part of town or country.

Most places in the USA, you have an idea where to go and where not to go
for personal safety. .... Not so in the Hawaii of that time - the worst
could happen anytime anywhere without somebody even knowing what they
had done/not done to provoke it.

One phenomenon was theft from cars. You stop at a tourist spot, get
out of the car, look around, come back to the car, and there's Bla James
going through your glove compartment. No cops, nobody else around...
just 375# of Bla James.... so you keep your mouth shut and don't bother
the guy until he's finished with his business.

In that context of might-makes-right, the conventional wisdom was "Don't
mess with Filipinos because those guys carry *knives*".... So I have to,
however grudgingly, buy into the "Equalizer" aspect of the NRA's PR
efforts.

OTOH whether the "Equalizer" aspect of an armed public would outweigh
the inevitable gun battles and the probable emergence of relative
firepower as a determinant (as opposed to being armed vs unarmed) is
another issue that I do not claim to know enough to opine on.

i.e. If most people in Hawaii of that time carried handguns, maybe Bla
James would have a buddy and be packing a fully-automatic AR-15....
creating an even worse situation than unarmed vs armed....
--
Pete Cresswell