While we're at it, why don't we ban seat belts, too?

The Gun Guys just love to point out incidents in which people with guns nearby are nevertheless victimized by criminals. Apparently, they figure that such stories constitute "proof" that being armed is of no value in empowering oneself for defense against thugs. Never mind the fact that no one has ever claimed that being armed is a guarantee against criminal attack--the Gun Guys prefer knocking down straw man arguments (that's much easier than addressing what freedom advocates actually say).

Here are a couple examples of what I'm referring to. In the first, some idiot robs a gun store (of cash, not guns), and the staff of the store wisely lets the guy go, but write down his license plate number for the police, who quickly catch the genius. In the second, a man was robbed as he was leaving a gun show, with the robbers taking his truck and a trailer full of guns.

So, if I follow their "logic" correctly, they're saying that a couple incidents of armed people being robbed prove that guns are worthless for protection, so guns ought to be banned. It would be interesting to see what their reaction would be to cases in which criminals' intended victims did use guns to stop the crime (and save their lives in the process). How are such incidents any less valid in a discussion about guns' utility in stopping attacks than the Gun Guys' stories in which the guns did not?

Probably the most despicable of the Gun Guys' use of this type of argument is in this post, where they gleefully point out that a murdered family of seven tried to defend themselves with a gun, but were killed anyway. Apparently, the Gun Guys would argue that the family should have just died without making any effort to defend themselves. Even if one agrees with such a strategy of abject cowardice, it's pretty disgusting to exploit these deaths to sell their civilian disarmament agenda.

Going back to the title of this post, I can find examples where people died in car accidents, despite wearing seat belts. By the Gun Guys' way of looking at things, that means seat belts are worthless.