This is a slightly less practical and more philosophical point, but I think it's important to consider. No one will ever argue that it would have been somehow bad or immoral to shoot and kill a guy murdering a classroom of kindergarteners. But, like the article says, the chance of such a clear-cut, black and white scenario involving guns happening to you is pretty unlikely. Instead, you have a lot of slightly more murky situations: you are being robbed, or raped, or just kind of threatened, or whatever, and you pull a gun and fire on your assailant and hopefully they die.

The author of the article explains that "When I said “stop an attacker quickly” somebody on Twitter thought that he’d gotten me and said “Stop. That’s just a euphemism for kill!” Nope. I am perfectly happy if the attacker surrenders or passes out from blood loss too. Tactically and legally, all I care about is making them stop doing whatever it is that they are doing which caused me to shoot them to begin with."

But, really? Guns aren't meant to disable, injure, or stun opponents, they're meant to kill them. I can't really condemn the use of guns for self-defense, but I can't whole-heartedly support it either. The penalty for small-time robbery or even physical assault isn't death, and it probably shouldn't be. By putting guns into the hands of regular, every day civilians you're not only betting that they will be stand-up guys who will only use their weapons appropriately in situations of duress, but also essentially giving them license and immunity to take other peoples' lives. Yes, bad guys can and do take other peoples' lives and that is wrong. But is it a good thing to have the right to quickly and easily kill anyone committing any sort of crime against you?