The tragic side effect of this kind of self defense is that private gun owners shoot more innocent people than criminals, whether by accident or intent. In spite of irrefutable evidence of this phenomenon, gun sales increase, crime rates multiply, prison cells runneth over, and gun entrepreneurs smile all the way to the bank, supported by the National Rifle Association and its cohorts in government. 19,228 One Oregon citizen was appalled at the reference to prisons as a growth industry for the state. California used to spend six times as much on higher education as on prisons. Now the prison budget is larger.
Prison guards have a powerful union and now earn more than public school teachers.
Even if the prison business is booming, it can boom only so far. Not the prisoners or the unemployed. By now almost everyone realizes that machines eliminate jobs. At last, the new slaves are taking over and we should rejoice, but our government in its antiquity makes little allowance in its budget for massive unemployment. Many displaced workers will try to survive any way they can, even if it means breaking the law, and often they wind up in prison.