"If my neighbor fires off a round, the odds are better than 99% he'll miss me. If he opens up with a machine gun; he may miss me, but he's gonna do a LOT of damage to everythign around him. Someone is going to get hurt/killed."
So what you are saying is that if the neighbor shoots and misses with anything other than a machine gun, no one will get hurt/killed? Wrong, that happens quite often.
Re-read my response. If a neighbor fires off a ROUND (singular, one) the odds (ie. liklihood) of getting hit is small. If the same neighbor fires off with a machine-gun, the fact is that a plurality (ie. many) bullets will be fired. The more bullets that are fired, the greater my chance of being hit. Am I making sense so far?
My stance is that I am safer, and everyone around me is safer if we each have a semi-automatic pistol with which we may defend our homes; rather than any of us having a fully automatic weapon. I like being safe, I've been shot - it hurts. Remaining unshot for the remainder of my life is one of the goals I have set for myself - call me selfish; but that's one of my goals.