Orders Of Magnitude Of Insecurity. I'd Rather Live with My Own Set of Risk

"It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C. S. Lewis

Perhaps the best response is a prayer: "Lord, I will defend myself from my enemies. But spare me, Oh Lord, from the hands of my benefactors."

I hate to agree with much of anything said by the late Mr. Hitchens... but yes, risk assessment varies greatly by individual, and by circumstance. I used to believe that "gun control" was about very naive people trying to find "causes" to justify their place in the public sector... and little else. Over the years, I've come to accept that there's much more to it than that; it's a fundamental difference between the U.S.A. I grew up in... and the one I currently reside in. It's about a collective "push" to remove the "what ifs", and for lack of a better word... "control" society in much the same way one would attempt to "control" a classroom. It's about money, power, and "class status"... the last refuge of the truly unimaginative. I'm sure barring peasants from wearing swords in the past did little to improve anyone's safety... but it certainly drove home a stark message about who made, and who was expected to follow the so-called "law".