That's why the mainstream media gives a platform for the disingenuous fears professed by people like pediatrician Mark Schuster. Those firearms are primed for action because they are the self-defense guns of Americans. But if self-defense can be disparaged, it becomes easier to minimize its importance. According to Yale researcher Dr. John Lott, guns are used in preventing crime five times more frequently than in committing them. And the research of Dr. Gary Kleck has shown that ordinary Americans use firearms 2.5 million times, or more, each year, for self-defense.
Science affords a means of predicting the future, from the observation of past experience.
Good science allows us to make better life choices. The situation Great Britain now faces could have been easily predicted from John Lotts' science. To the extent that guns are an equalizer, their elimination will strengthen criminals relative to physically weak victims. Great Britain is now getting a crash-course on John Lott's science.