For me , the less powerful part isn ' t what ' s scary . In my view , semiautomatic weapons are scary in general , especially because so far as I can tell , there is no reason you would need to use one of these guns if you only wanted to own a firearm in order to go hunting . <| sep |> DGU defensive gun uses in the US estimates range from ~ 50 , 000 yr to over 2 millionyr depending on which studies you refer to . Unfortunately , there is no central database for these types of incidents , and many of them probably go unreported . As for other countries , you ' d have to look into studies for them . The point is , violent crime is not a rare occurrence . People should be allowed to lawfully defend themselves , whether they are a 200 lb . man or a 90 lb . woman . It ' s a crime if they don ' t successfully lodge reasonable belief of need to use force for selfdefense as an affirmative defense , and whether or not they can do so is a jury issue . Correct , and if they had a reasonable belief that someone was trying to hurt them in a jurisdiction where such defense is legal , then it would be lawful . Allowing them on the theory that they are useful for selfdefense doesn ' t seem to be justified if the unintended costs outweigh the benefits of allowing people to carry guns for selfdefense . And I completely disagree . They are completely justified . There are over 300 million guns in our country . even if we somehow outlawed the sale of guns , there would still be plenty out there . Not to mention the illegal sale of guns that would certainly still exist . So this would only disadvantage those people who intended to follow the law . I tend to err on the side of regular people having the means for lawful selfdefense . This is more important to me than the gang crime , suicide , etc . that constitutes the vast majority of gun deaths in the US .