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This argument unfortunately fails on the point that gun nuts are not really arguing (at least not in so many words) for our right to kill people. Just as cigarette companies deny this nearly inevitable consequence of smoking, gun nuts deny this nearly inevitable consequence of, you know, lots and lots of GUNS.

Gun nuts will, in fact, argue (as they do here) that guns SAVE lives.

Just like sex helps preserve virginity.

Even in the Wild West, people surrendered their guns

I can effectively "still get to my gun" because my gun cabinet is in my bedroom.

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SER: I am genuinely confused here. It seems that you have identified a fault in the design of your home but the solution you've come up with will result in someone's death*. Is there no means to have an effective secuirty system that alerts you to someone's unlawful entry and a means of easy escape?

What you describe is also the set-up for stories I've read about inadvertant killings of family members (e.g. the daughter who arrives home from college earlier than expected and so on).

*Yes, this person is a criminal, but I know few police officers who would not have preferred another means of preventing a crime rather than having to use lethal force.

Then she'd just hide it under the crib.

Just kidding.

The underlying belief that "might makes right" seems so prevalent in so many citizens of the United States that I'm not sure how many even recognize it in themselves or their culture.  Old movies show us that the good guy, who is pure of heart, will always triumph over the villain, who is so cowardly that he won't engage in a fair fight (because he'll always lose).  The amount of force employed by the good guy is always justified (up to and including lethal force) because the bad guy forced his hand.  He'd have prefered just minding his own business peacefully, but the bad guy went and made a move, and a response was required.

This translates into private citizens who see themselves as "the good guys", hardworking, peaceful, law-abiding individuals, who will only react when provoked.  They seem to truly believe this.  Other people who have lost children to gun-related accidents weren't as "good" as they are, not as careful, not as competent.  Safeguards might have been overlooked or ignored in that other house, but by God that could never happen here.  I don't need to rely on others (or an alarm, or whatever) because I'm a Good Guy!  I know what I'm doing, and I'll never relax my guard, not even for a moment.  Accidents won't happen to me, because I'm the hero of the movie I'm living in.  And therefore I'll be okay.

And more people die.