"Create jobs" is a fallacy. When you spend more money providing the same service, that will in fact shrink your GDP. You can produce less goods from your available labor pool since you used more of it to produce a single good.

From every possible metric it is a step backwards. It's not a win win. Not at all.

What does it matter that consciousness does not survive brain death or that you have theories for why people claim white lights or what not?

Empiricism (and thus science) is limited by what can be observed, and by it's very nature, death is out of bounds. Coming back to report observations, since you discount near-death-experiences, is impossible.

Since empiricism can neither prove nor disprove an afterlife, we are left to other-than-science to explain it if we attempt it at all. I believe it exists.

I shall devide the argument into two points.

Should we exercise self-preservation?

I believe that this premise is self-evident that we should. However there is a segment of today's society that teaches otherwise so I will indulge an argument. Self preservation is instinctual in every animal species, they fight in every manner they can to protect themselves. Every nation on earth has defense forces for the purpose of self preservation against outside forces. Since this has been debated and decided in the past, and the powers of government are derived from the governed, it is fundamental to nature and every society we have constructed that people have the individual right to defend themselves against agressors.

Is a gun a proper tool for that self-preservation?

Take the case of an old lady protecting herself against a very large thug in his prime. The physical differences between them lend themselves heavily in the thugs direction. Even with simple tools of defense, a stick, a knife, a baseball bat or other common implements will heavily favor the thug even if he remains completely unarmed. With a gun, the old lady has a very good chance to defend herself, which we stablished earlier is her right. Even if the thug has a gun of his own, the old woman will fair much better gun vs gun than hand to hand.

Thus the gun is the superior tool of defense, and self-defense is right.

The moral fabric of society is what allows civil human interaction. If you have no moral fabric, say, nobody in your society is moral and everybody is okay with stealing. Then you would devolve to a survival of the fittest where might vs might rules - aka anarky. Our society can survive some immoral people because the majority remain moral.

The civil options to the issue of no food is to seek charity to meet immediate needs. Or to seek to exchange your labor for those needs.