> Uh, if you had a 30% chance of encountering an armed individual as a cop, you'd damn well assume they were armed every time.

I understand that thinking (see also 'would you play Russian roulette with those odds?'), but the "(>)1:1" comments hides the underlying distribution, which I think colours how people think about the (alleged) pervasiveness of firearms in the US.

As another example of perception versus reality, most people probably don't think of Canada as 'gun country', but we're in the top ten per capita (probably because of the history/culture of hunting up here):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

And if you're going to teach people about odds and statistics, perhaps it will help people understand that guns tend to make people's homes less safe:

* https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2013/03/guns-in-homes-a...

> but the "(>)1:1" comments hides the underlying distribution, which I think colours how people think about the (alleged) pervasiveness of firearms in the US.

GGParent commentator here. My point is: let's role-play as a police officer pulling over a car in the average US State vs. the average EU country.

In both of those continents, we cops have guns. However, what are the chances that the driver has one? In the EU, would you ever have your hand on your holster while just approaching the pulled-over speeder? Only in very special cases. Meanwhile, you better in the USA, right? I mean, you have your owns kids at home, and there is a decent chance whoever you just pulled over has a gun, right?

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crosschecked stats: (please confirm)

"While about 32% of US adults personally own a firearm, the individual gun ownership rate across the EU sits much lower at roughly ~5% of the total population."

However, due to gun availability, concealed carry, and handguns...

"A person in the United States is roughly 200 times more likely to have a loaded, accessible gun in their car cabin compared to a person in the European Union."

So, as a police officer in the USA pulling over a car, I should be around 200x more worried about making it home to my family. Two hundred freaking x.

No wonder US police officers are freaked the fuck out. I would be as well.

(200x is a guesstimate. However, a sanity check using US carry surveys and EU carry-permit numbers lands somewhere in the 60x–400x range)

You want to talk perception vs reality and then post that?

Yes, merely owning a gun does make you statistically more likely to die of a gun shot, but only in the same sense that owning alcohol mean you're more likely to drive drunk, owning a car means you're more likely to die in a car crash, and having a house wired for electricity means you're more likely to die of electrocution.

For instance, that article says that the risk of suicide is 5x higher with a gun in the house. Well my risk of suicide is presently zero, and 5 x 0 = 0.

There's a great deal of individual control over the risk when it comes to personal ownership. Compare that to a cop who is professionally obligated to pull over a large sample of people they don't get to select, and this sample is disproportionately violent or otherwise untrustworthy.