One of the biggest studies to date tracked nearly 600,000 Californians and found that your odds of being killed by firearm are 8 in 100,000 and increase to 12 in 100,000 if you keep a gun in your house (source: theguardian.com/…/guns-handguns-safety-homicide-k…). That means that keeping a gun in your house increases your chances for dying to gunshot by 4 in 100,000 chances.
The average Californian dies from automobile accidents at a rate of 9.1 in 100,000. That’s more than double the death rate that keeping a gun in your house contributes. (Source: eastonlawoffices.com/…/odds-of-dying-in-a-car-cra…. )
So you can’t understand why people still keep guns? It’s because they don’t perceive it as a significant threat. And statistically, it isn’t. At least not as big a threat as many other common behaviors that are accepted as normal.
The takeaway is that if you are paranoid about dying from statistically small things, then ceasing doing a lot of other activities (like driving) is going to be statistically more impactful than not having a gun in your house.