Pascal’s Wager and the Logic of Gun Ownership

Risk is an inescapable part of life. We wear seatbelts because we can’t predict when an accident will happen. We buy insurance because we don’t know when a disaster might strike. We lock our doors at night, not because we expect a break-in, but because failing to prepare for one could prove catastrophic.

Gun ownership operates on the same principle: it’s a rational hedge against an unpredictable world.

This reasoning finds a striking parallel in Pascal’s Wager, a classic philosophical argument that suggests belief in God is the “safest bet.” The argument goes like this: if God exists and you believe, you gain infinite reward. If he doesn’t, you lose little. But if you don’t believe and God does exist, the loss is infinite. Faced with uncertainty, the rational choice is clear: you should bet on the outcome that carries the highest possible upside and the lowest possible downside.

Gun ownership follows the same logic: when facing uncertainty, rationality dictates minimizing the worst possible loss. This becomes clear when we break down the possible outcomes in a simple decision matrix:

Decision	Need a Gun	Do Not Need a Gun
Own a Gun	Major gain: life and safety preserved.	Minimal cost: initial investment, secure storage, training, ammunition
Do Not Own a Gun	Catastrophic loss: Death or great bodily harm.	No gain or loss.

This breakdown exposes an obvious asymmetry. If you own a gun and never need it, the costs are relatively minor. If you own a gun and do need it, the benefits are immeasurable: you (and potentially others) are prevented from dying or suffering great bodily harm. But if you need a gun and don’t have one, the consequences can be life-altering, or worse, life-ending. That single worst-case scenario is so severe that it outweighs the relatively minor inconveniences of ownership. As sociologist David Yamane puts it, “it is better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.”

The key insight is that certain risks, even if they seem unlikely, are too devastating to ignore. Just as a rational person would not gamble with eternity, a rational person would not gamble with their own safety. The probability of needing a gun for self-defense may be uncertain in any given year, but if that moment ever arrives, the consequences of being unarmed could be irreversible. Unlike other decisions, where mistakes can be corrected, the stakes in self-defense are often final. Once you’re dead, the game is over. That’s why the cost-benefit calculation overwhelmingly favors gun ownership: it is a precautionary measure against an event whose likelihood may be debated, but whose consequences are undeniably severe.

Pascal’s Wager is not merely an argument for religious belief. At its core, it offers a powerful decision-making tool for navigating uncertainty. Pascal recognized that in situations where the stakes are immense and the probabilities uncertain, rationality dictates choosing the option with the greatest potential benefit and the least catastrophic downside. This logic extends far beyond theology. It applies to any situation where the consequences of being wrong are severe.

What About the Risks of Gun Ownership?

Some argue that owning a gun and never needing it carries serious risks, such as accidents, suicides, or other kinds of misuse. They claim these dangers are so significant that they outweigh the benefits of owning a gun for self-defense. This argument fails because it confuses individual risk with societal risk and ignores the difference between probabilistic risks and certain harms.

Gun ownership is an individual decision about personal safety, not a referendum on broad crime statistics. The risks of guns in the hands of others do not change the fact that a responsible individual can manage their own safety while avoiding unnecessary harm. A rational person does not ask, “What is the net effect of guns on crime rates?” but rather, “Does owning a gun make me personally safer?” Negative externalities, such as the possibility that more guns in circulation could lead to more crime, are irrelevant to the individual’s decision because they reflect aggregate trends, not the personal risks that a responsible gun owner faces. If an individual can manage their own risk effectively, then gun ownership remains a rational choice.

Moreover, gun-related risks (accidents, suicides, and misuse) are probabilistic and controllable. They might happen, but they are not inevitable and depend on individual choices. A responsible gun owner who follows proper training, secures their weapon, and handles it carefully reduces their risk to negligible levels. Just as a careful driver lowers their chance of a car accident, a responsible gun owner manages their exposure to risk.

By contrast, if a violent encounter occurs, the consequences of being unarmed are not probabilistic but certain. If an attacker intends to cause death or great bodily harm and no other means of defense is sufficient, then harm is guaranteed. At that moment, there is no further decision-making, no mitigating strategy, and no second chance.

The key difference is that gun-related risks can be managed or avoided, but violent attacks are externally imposed. The victim has no control over when, where, or how an attack occurs. Unlike gun-related risks, which stem from personal decisions, the decision to commit violence belongs entirely to the aggressor. The victim does not choose to be targeted, nor can they opt out once the attack begins. Their fate is dictated by the attacker's intent, and without a means of resistance, they are forced to accept whatever harm is inflicted upon them.

Rational decision-making prioritizes avoiding certain, externally imposed harm over managing uncertain, self-regulated risks. A rational person does not simply compare the likelihood of an event occurring; they consider what is at stake if it does. The risks of gun ownership are low probability and manageable, while the harms of being defenseless in a life-threatening attack are high consequence and unavoidable once the event begins. An accident may never happen, but if an attack does, the consequences are irreversible.

This is also why externalities should not matter to the rational individual considering gun ownership. The question is not whether guns, in general, create risks, but whether a responsible individual can manage their own risk while maintaining the ability to prevent certain harm. The answer is yes. Gun ownership is not about statistical debates or collective trends. It is about ensuring that when the moment comes, you are not powerless.

Do You Feel Lucky?

Gun owners are often dismissed as paranoid for planning for a worst case scenario that is extremely improbable, but this characterization ignores reality. Consider the odds of violent criminal victimization. In 2023, the Bureau of Justice Statistics recorded 22.5 violent victimizations per 1,000 people aged 12 or older. That translates to a general violent victimization rate of 2.25% per year for this group, a number that has remained relatively unchanged for the past several years. In simpler terms, the average person faces about a 1-in-44 chance of being violently victimized annually.

To put this in perspective, the chance of being violently victimized (1-in-44) is more than three times higher than the chance of being injured in a car crash (1-in-143). In 2022, NHTSA reported that nearly 2.4 million people were injured in nearly 6 million car crashes. This means that one’s baseline odds of being injured in a car crash is around .7%, compared to 2.25% for violent victimizations.

To be sure, most of us will go through life without ever being injured in a car accident or violently victimized. But are you willing to bet your safety on luck? Hope is not a plan, and luck is not a strategy. You don’t skip wearing a seatbelt just because you haven’t crashed before, nor do you cancel your insurance because you’ve never had a house fire. Precautions exist not because danger is certain, but because the cost of being unprepared is too high to ignore.

Yet when it comes to self-defense, some hesitate to take the same approach. No amount of policing or crime prevention can eliminate the reality that violent crime happens. When it does, survival comes down to what the individual is able to do in that moment. If you accept that it’s rational to prepare for a car accident, which is statistically less likely to harm you, then it is even more rational to prepare for the possibility of violence, which is both more likely and often far more destructive.

If we accept the need to prepare for violence, shouldn’t we do so in a way that actually gives us the best chance of survival? That is exactly why millions of ordinary Americans carry guns. Simple reflection on their features shows them to be extremely effective in preventing injury while only requiring minimal effort and upkeep. Guns are a perfectly reasonable, cost-effective, and convenient form of risk-mitigation. Defensive gun ownership isn’t primarily about your contribution to statistical trends: it’s about having the ability to resist violence when it happens to you.

Prudence, Not Fear

The bottom line is this: owning a gun is not about expecting danger; it’s about being prepared for it. The need to use one may be unlikely, but the consequences of being unprepared are so severe that even a small probability justifies the precaution. Any argument against gun ownership must grapple with this fundamental reality.

Just as people buy insurance for disasters they hope never happen, they carry guns not out of paranoia, but because self-defense is the rational hedge against an unacceptable loss. Prudence, not fear, motivates responsible gun owners. Pascal’s Wager was never about living in fear—it was about recognizing that when the cost of being wrong is catastrophic, the rational choice is to act.

This is exactly the logic behind Pascal’s Wager: when the consequences of being unprepared are unacceptable, even a low probability justifies action. David Yamane puts it nicely: “I am not a defensive gun owner because I think it is likely that I will need to use a firearm in self-defense. I simply think it is possible.” (emphasis mine)

Possibility alone is enough, because when the stakes are your life, even a small chance is too much to gamble with.