CirilloMaybe not prevented, but definitely mitigated. Even someone who hates guns can't deny the fact that the easiest way to stop someone with a gun is with a gun.
That's faulty logic though because it ignores all the other potential consequences of people in society carrying more guns. It's all well and good arming more people with this insanely idealistic notion that those guns will only ever be used by 'good' guy who is lucky enough to be in the right place and the right time to shoot the 'bad guy'. The reality is though those guns held by the 'good guys' are more likely to be used themselves in a moment of rage, or in an accidental shooting, or when it turns out that the 'good guy' has mental problems too.
How can you possibly predict who should have guns so they can save the day? How do you know they won't be the ones who end up using them to harm someone? Or do you just make sure that everyone has guns and then when it kicks off just blindly hope that the good guys will win the shoot out and kill more bad guys than the number of good guys getting killed? That is insanity - what sort of society would that result in? One with more death and more murder and more mass shootings.
The fact is most studies show that more guns = more people are more likely to die from homicide. This fantasy of heroes shooting down the bad guys just doesn't stack up.
Here's the conclusion from one of many such studies (Firearm Justifiable
Homicides and Non-Fatal Self-Defense Gun Use - An Analysis of Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Crime Victimization Survey Data)
CONCLUSION
The reality of self-defense gun use bears no resemblance to the exaggerated claims of the gun lobby and gun industry. The number of justifiable homicides that occur
in our nation each year pale in comparison to criminal homicides, let alone gun suicides and fatal unintentional shootings. And contrary to the common stereotype
promulgated by the gun lobby, those killed in justifiable homicide incidents don’t always fit the expected profile of an attack by a stranger: in 35.5 percent of the justifiable
homicides that occurred in 2012 the persons shot were known to the shooter.
The devastation guns inflict on our nation each and every year is clear: more than 33,000 dead, more than 81,000 wounded, and an untold number of lives traumatized
and communities shattered. Unexamined claims of the efficacy and frequency of the self-defense use of firearms are the default rationale offered by the gun lobby and
gun industry for this unceasing, bloody toll. The idea that firearms are frequently used in self-defense is the primary argument that the gun lobby and firearms industry
use to expand the carrying of firearms into an ever-increasing number of public spaces and even to prevent the regulation of military-style semiautomatic assault
weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. Yet this argument is hollow and the assertions false. When analyzing the most reliable data available, what is most
striking is that in a nation of more than 300 million guns, how rarely firearms are used in self-defense.14
