Lol I agree. It's a sad personal choice but it definitely is not an act of violence towards others.

Exactly! Not only only is it very rare but it is also something a person has some aspect of control over to further reduce the risks. For example leaving high crime areas and making personal choices to be aware of ones surroundings and not making themselves appear as an easy target for crime. Also choosing to be a nice, polite, respectful person who avoids, and doesn't instigate, confrontations also helps to further reduce the chances of being in a violent encounter where a gun could get used.

And despite the fact that it happens everyday the stats for 2023 were: 43,071 deaths *(24,090 of that were suicides which could be considered victimless but we'll leave them in the numbers)* and 36,391 injured. source: [https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls](https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls) That means a total of 79,462 people in US were affected by gun violence. There were 336 million people in the US in 2023. If we do the math: 79,462 / 336,000,000 = 0.0002364 So 0.02% of the population experienced a gun related injury or death. Meaning 99.98% of the population won't ever be impacted by gun violence in a given year. When most people see the actual stats and are presented with how unlikely they are to be impacted by guns, they tend to stop worrying about it and ask their lawmakers to instead focus on things more likely to impact their lives like taxes and jobs and healthcare and pretty much everything else.