No, I really don't believe that harm is a result of a bad decision made by a sober person. Not if we're talking majority.
Not going to recite the list, but I've seen plenty of people, good people, people I would have trusted with my life start with one. One became two. Two begat six. Six turned into one at lunch and six on the way home. Every single person I've ever encountered who was addicted told me exactly the same things:
1) I can stop whenever, I just like the taste
2) I know when to quit (and in my experience, most who say they know when really don't, they keep going way past the point of embarrassing themselves)
3) I'm not hurting anybody
4) I got it under control
Very few of the addicts I've known were the type who were falling down, slobbering over themselves, passing out drunks. Those are bingers. Addicts go a little bit at a time. And a little more. And a little more. Until they can't make the rational intelligent decisions they honestly believe they can.
It's like boiling a frog. If the water's boiling and you throw him in there, he's going to try to get out. But put him in cool water and turn it up slowly five degrees at a time and the poor bastard will sit there until his skin boils off.
What you're failing (refusing) to acknowledge in the baseless gun analogy is that the gun itself can do no harm. It cannot change your mental state, it cannot alter your sensibilities. As 
admitted the first sip of alcohol begins that process. It's not the same argument by any stretch.
I truly and deeply believe that if alcohol did not exist, most of the problems that accompany it would cease to exist as well. A person who drives in an inebriated state and kills the innocent is not going to go get a shotgun and kill people for sport. His desire is not to kill.
You're misunderstanding what I'm asking. There's really two prongs to the issues you raise.
Harm to others, and Harm to one's self. Then Harm to Others is broken down in to two prongs. Harm to innocent bystanders, ie drunk driver striking someone vs harm to family, friends, professional acquaintances through addiction.
In the harm to others like drunk driving can do, I argue that those are preventable by human decision making made while sober, and even to an extent while slightly impaired but not so much you're not able to make a sound decision. This is the only area I would apply the gun analogy to this.
You're right about addiction. It does sneak up on people, and they don't make a conscience decision to be one. The gun analogy doesn't remotely apply here, and I should have been more clear on how I thought it did. Alcohol is cunning, baffling and powerful. To the addict anyway. To most it's just an enjoyable way to unwind Do all alcoholics make the same excuses you list? Yes, but not all drinkers are alcoholics, nor are they all potential alcoholics. The twist is, you don't know if you are or aren't until it's too late. Do they trash personal and professional relationships? Yes, but again, that's not most drinkers. It's not pulling a pin on a live grenade, or ingesting poison to everybody. If you truly believed that you would not ever have a sip, which you admit you do, rare though it is. By your own admission of drinking lightly once or twice a year, you suggest it can be done responsibly by you.
As far as harm to one's self. Well, that's my right. My decision. And I know the arguments about everyone paying the bill via health care and insurance costs. Everybody has something harmful they do to themselves that affects this. Those same arguments go to banning fatty foods, foods with sugar, riding motorcycles and the list goes on.
If alcohol didn't exist? Someone would invent it. Or they'd find a suitable alternative. Folks been getting high, drunk, or stoned long before anybody was selling drugs or alcohol for profit. Now, make the human desire to get high, drunk, or stoned go away, then you'd have something.
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