protect themselves from who exactly? so you have these people with a gun basically waiting to be a victim in order to use it.

so basically everybody is a potential victimizer because there is no way you can tell who is a crook, a rapist, a murderer, a serial killer and etc. you do not know.
you do realize that paranoia is actually a mental disorder. would you want a bunch of paranoid people to own guns?
folks forgot that trayvon martin was basically a victim because of that paranoia shyt. you have a paranoid jackass that became the same person that he was trying to "protect" his community against. he thought that the black man wearing a hoodie is a potential criminal despite not having any proof.

we can't even wear hoodies anymore because some paranoid jackasses with nothing better to do than to look for people that look like potential criminals through their eyes want to get the "victimizers" before they get them even though they have no clue to who they are to begin with.
yeah, let's have these people with guns.
and let's not forget how life is viewed as cheap nowadays. that's what hurts the most. the nra, the pill companies, the news and etc see life as being cheap these days where basically money is treated with more value. look @ the nra with how they can't lose a dollar using the sandy hook shooting as an opportunity to sell more guns. "put armed guards in our schools". yeah, so you guys can make more money.