guy pulls a knife on you, average citizen has a very real chance of walking away, it's not as instant-kill and undefendable as a gun.
Try an experiment. First give your wife a rubber knife. Save the 'approach' and have her put it at your neck. Run away BEFORE she has a chance to flick her wrist. It can't be done. Now that's at inches difference between you and her. If given a choice at a distance of less than 25 feet I'd RATHER have a good blade than a firearm. At less than 25 feet a firearm is fairly worthless as most assailants come a bit more prepared than victims. Victims typically do not have their defensive weapon in their hand and ready. Petty much ALL assailants do as their intentions are pre-determined. I for one would rather have an attacker at 21 feet with a gun than an attacker at 2" with a knife.
The average, yes AVERAGE human can cover a distance of about 21 feet in less than 2 seconds. The AVERAGE human can draw a gun from a concealed position in about 3 seconds. So just by analyzing the numbers that's why I carry mace, a 4" blade, and a firearm. I've pulled my mace 5 times in my life, my blade once, and my firearm once. Guess how many dead have been left in my wake. None. Injured? Not a single one.
You might live in a happy utopia, but my under paid and under appreciated job takes me to places I personally don't want to be. They take me around EVERY aspect of 'person' in a singular place where it's illegal to carry weapons of any kind in the US. I value you my income so I do not carry my weapons on the state property. I would have infinitely preferred to have had my weapons on my person at work a total of 9 times in the last 5 years. In those instances my martial arts training in conflict avoidance just barely saved my a$$ in situations which I had nothing to do with other than the fact I was present at the time.
Your government would rather offer you up as meat to the violent element of society, there are governments here that feel the same way. Chicago, LA, New York, and Washington D.C. they gladly offer their citizens up as meat to the people intent on doing violence. They have the highest crime rates, they have the highest murder rates, they have the highest rape rates. Where I live all of the crimes are VERY rare because the criminals KNOW that there's a 1/4 chance that the person they think about going after is armed with a fire arm and that there's a 3/4 chance that your average person on the street has some sort of 'non-lethal' defensive tool.
I carry non-lethal and lethal so I have what may be needed for the worse situations on earth. I hope that you never know a hostage situation (I have) I hope that you never see a stabbing (I have) I hope that you never witness an attempted rape of your wife (the time I pulled my gun.) Don't kid yourself, those happen all over the world in every culture regardless of gun and weapon laws. If you trust your feet enough to out run a knife at your throat then you should strongly consider becoming an Olympiad. I for one would rather have an option as to how to defend myself other than words or turning my back on someone who has a knife at my throat. (One of the macings.)
If I practiced continually since I was a teen then I myself could have been considered a lethal weapon. I posess advance training in 3 martial arts. I however chose a path of music instead and 10 hours a day practicing tends to have an effect on ones physical prowess.
I'm glad you have the foresight to never find yourself in the right place at the wrong time, or the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm glad you have the physical prowess to outrun a lunatic with a blade at your throat. I'm glad you have absolutely no need to EVER in your entire life be forced to defend yourself. Some of us weren't born with that kind of luck.
I've spend 25 years of my life studying defensive practices starting with Tea Kwon Do followed my Ju Jitsu, and I stopped at Hap Ki Do. The one thing all my instructor through the years emphasized is that there is only so much one can do with their hands before a weapon of some kind is needed for defense. I shoot (and train) defensive pistol competitions as well as long range rifle competitions and I frequently win on the local and State circuits.
I ask exactly how much training do you have in keeping yourself alive? What makes your knowledge so proof positive that in our world is safe to live in without ANY form of weapon? I for one know full well that a criminal or government could gladly use ANY means necessary to destroy those who think that passive and peaceful is the only way to live? How easy it is that the brits so conveniently forget Nazi Germany.
Call it paranoia, call it what you will, I don't particularly care. Gun control ALREADY EXISTS IN THE US. The gun control that DOES exist is a violation of the Unisted States Bill or Rights and it is getting worse.
Robert A Heinlein, "An armed society is a polite society."
Time Enough for Love
Pardon me while I laugh at the thought of "guy pulls a knife on you, average citizen has a very real chance of walking away." That's completely comical. As I personally have been 'killed' by a knife and I never saw it comming. Of course I wasn't killed and it was only a rubber knife. It was part of my Hap Ki-Do training. The instructor was speaking to us about how we had performed for our Red belt test, as he did he very calmly slit each and every one of his students throats with a rubber blade measuring 3" long. Myself and his son were the best students in the class and we didn't see it comming either, we were killed with the rest the class and we all had to wait another 6 months to achieve our advancement. The next test he pulled a very real full legnth sword that was completely concealed behind his back, 7 students got cut that day (minor scratches), I was not one of them. Keep telling yourself that if you run you'll be safe. My opinion is that if an assailant is functionally capable of using any weapon to harm you and you 'flee' that assailant will only enjoy harming you more. Out gun him, render him unable to utilize his tools, or destroy him are the only real options for ending an assault.
Ignorance doesn't always equal bliss... If I was nieve as you I'd already be dead, the best weapon I've ever had is my knoweldge of the anatomy of an attack.
Oh my oh so dangerous job. A network technician for a state agency that has nothing to do with crime, criminals, or violent people. It's an agency that all people utilize violent and passive alike. Not exactly a postition where they tell you you'll be working in the lowest rent neighborhoods (that's all the state will spend the money on) or that you'll be in close proximilty to violent people.
Have fun in the UK, my gun toting, 'violent,' 'American' a$$ will gladly be staying where I don't have to wait on a bobby with a stick for personal defense. There's no chance I'll ever be darkening your door. Hell I won't even visit my wifes family in Chicago because I can't take my gun, I certainly won't be going to Europe.
-RT76