The idea of universal armament and armed self-defense is often attempted to be portrayed as untenable by resorting to the argument of the attacker’s advantage. After all, what difference does it make whether the victim is armed or not if the attacker is still better prepared for the clash, since he is the one who planned it, while the victim expects nothing. And in general, few attackers will risk encountering a stronger opponent; they will prefer to choose a weak victim and bypass a strong one. The attacker always has the advantage; he is most often stronger, and freedom of armament will only give him more of an advantage since he will be able to arm himself freely.
To begin with, it should be noted that it is precisely the restriction of the freedom to arm oneself that gives the attacker an advantage. The ban only works for law-abiding citizens. If we take statistics from the USA, then 94% of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones, and 80% of armed criminals obtained their weapons illegally, most often on the black market, rather than simply buying them in a regular gun store; furthermore, 57% of criminals fear armed citizens more than they fear the police. All these facts directly indicate that it is precisely the regulation and prohibition of armament that gives the attacker an additional advantage.
And even if, after this, the attacker still retains some advantage over the victim, in general, this still decides nothing. The attacker cannot guarantee success; in the best-case scenario for him, his chance of success is merely higher than that of his victim. However, the risk of his failure in the event that the victim is armed is also high, and he will expose himself to this risk with every attack. Victory in one individual clash will not make him a winner overall; soon he will face a failure that could cost him his own life. And violent criminals make up an overwhelming minority of the population; as analysis of Russian crime shows, in the worst case, we have one violent criminal per year per 695 people (and that is considering not only murders, rapes, and the infliction of serious physical harm, but also, for example, battery). This means that, purely statistically, rapists and violent criminals have no chance of defeating an armed civilian population, or even inflicting any serious harm on society.
