Self-defense fallacy full of pepperoni

Some of the many gun lovers who lovingly correspond with me appear to have found a new hero.

Their new idol is Slayde Henry.

Who, you ask? I’m so glad you asked.

Henry is the 24-year-old Domino’s pizza delivery driver who told investigators he fired shots at two armed robbers on Hollywood Boulevard last week, killing one. Police said he was approached by two masked men who might have had a gun.

“That should shut you up,” one gun lover said of the incident. “It shows we need our guns for selfdefense.”

“This proves you don’t need gun control,” said another.

It went on like that for a while. And it’s all very interesting. Totally bogus, but interesting. One South Florida guy uses a gun in self-defense, and the gun adorers jump on it. Using a gun in self-defense is so rare, in fact, that it usually gets big play in the papers.

The thousands of people who are shot to death often wind up as briefs.

How rare is using a gun in self-defense? Again, I’m so glad you asked.

A new study from the Violence Policy Center uses actual numbers — unlike gun lovers using one incident — to show that private citizens are far more likely to use guns to harm others than to use them in self-defense. As if we didn’t know.

According to the study, in 2012 (the most recent year for data), there were only 259 justifiable homicides in which a private citizen used a firearm. Thirteen states reported zero — as in zero — justifiable firearm homicides that year.

That same year, there were 8,342 criminal firearm homicides. In other words, in 2012, for every justifiable homicide in the U.S. involving a gun, guns were used in 32 criminal homicides. And that number doesn’t include suicides and unintentional shootings. You do the math. Numbers and facts don’t matter to gun fanatics, which is hardly surprising.

They have, sadly, won the gun control battle. In Florida and around the country, our spineless elected officials have given up trying to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. They have given up on serious background checks. They have given up on restricting assault weapons.

The gun lovers, and their be- loved National Rifle Association, have won. Sanity and common sense have lost.

And the gun lovers, they just smile and drive away. Some, you can bet, with their beloved Confederate flag bumper stickers on the back of their trucks.

Speaking of that Confederate flag, you probably noticed how, after the Charleston massacre in which nine African-Americans were gunned down, some politicians decided it was time to bring that symbol of the Confederacy down.

Other gutless politicians — and there are many — avoided the issue, saying it was a state’s rights matter, or the flag is just about Southern heritage. What garbage. It’s an in-your-face symbol of bigotry and hatred, and we all know that.

When the Confederate flag quickly became taboo, many of the nation’s biggest merchants — we’re talking Wal-Mart, Amazon, Sears, eBay — announced that their Confederate flag merchandise would be coming off the shelves.

A good and proper gesture, for sure. They decided it was no longer good business to keep selling the stuff.

Understandable. And appreciated.

But if you go on the websites of those businesses, you will see they all continue to sell weapons. Some sell rifles and ammo. Sites like Amazon sell handguns. You can surely build a nice arsenal from eBay. And I can understand that, too. I mean, we have to make sure the pizza delivery guys in this country are properly armed.

Gary Stein can be reached at gstein@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4616 or on Twitter @SSEditorial.