Arming citizens with guns is an ideal action to take to defend against the threat of criminals.

I think we have either reached an impasse or agreed up until the argument about opportunity. I would challenge my opponent to show how simply having a gun gives you an opportunity to kill someone that you wouldn't have if you didn't have a gun. Either way you must be within a pretty close proximity and the person must be visible to you. Unfortunately your data on gun purchases are inaccurate. According the FBI: [1]"2012 was busiest year in NICS history. Each month in 2012 saw a record number of background checks set for that month with December showing an all-time record of 2,783,765 checks. November 2012 was the first month to exceed two million checks (2,006,919) in the history of the system."[2]While NICS checks are not a one-to-one measure of gun sales they are definitely an indicator of overall trends and the current one is definitely of increased gun sales.The article to which you linked really didn't support your position. It even suggests that someone that doesn't have a gun somehow gets emboldened just at the site of one. The guns and suicide portion is debunked by the very fact that the U.S. is 33rd in the world in overall suicide rate,[3] behind 32 countries almost of which have stricter gun laws than us. And certainly lower gun ownership rates.[4]My favorite part of the article though is the study by Callaway and Branas. I was actually familiar with that study, and its many flaws before this debate. I won't hit each one of them but suffice it to say it suffers from obvious observation bias. In addition, like so many anti-gun studies it seems to be less a study of cause and effect and more of a study to support a particular position already held by the study's contributors. Even the study's authors admit to some pretty serious faults with the study.[5]I will agree with your assessment of the video and the man in it. A heightened sense of awareness in a training environment will lead to different results. But the fact remains that there countless examples of people using guns successfully every day to defend themselves. And not every attacker is going to be an ex Special Operations type with expert knife skills. Your average criminal is going to be younger and far less experienced than these guys and it levels the playing field a lot more than what this video implies. To dive more into the "ideal" question, let me pose a couple of scenarios:Scenario one: You are a 110lbs female walking to your car after a late night at work. Your building doesn't have security guards, or if they do tonight you didn't ask for an escort. You notice a really big guy, about 200lbs heading your way and you fear that his intentions are less than honorable. At that moment in time, which do you think would be the ideal tool? A) A cell phone, B) A knife, C) A gun?Scenario two: You are sitting in your apartment when all of a sudden at your door there begins an extremely loud banging and cursing from the other side. Someone is pissed and they are trying to get into your house to cause you harm. There is no question about it, this man is coming in and your family is looking to for protection. In this scenario, which do you want? A) An operator on the phone with the police an average of 6 minutes away, B) A self help book to calm down the impending intruder, or C) A gun? Consider that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the police have no duty to protect you in case of violent attack [6], the correct answer is of course a gun. If the police have no duty to protect you, on whom then does the responsibility fall if not you? Let's also explore whether or not anti-gun laws deter crime. Piers Morgan like to blather on about how the UK has so much less crime than the U.S. because of its strict gun laws. But both parts of that statement are false. The violent crime rate in the UK is about 3.5 times what it is in the U.S. In 2011 the U.S. had 1,203,564 instances of violent crime, or a rate of 386.3 per 100,000 people.[7] In the UK during the same year, they had a violent crime rate of 1,361/100,000.In addition, the murder rate of the UK over the past 100 years, despite passing gun control laws in 920, 1937, 1968, 1988, and 1997, has increased by 50%.During the same time period, despite being much more volatile, the U.S. has seen an overall drop in murder rates of about 40%.[9]Of all of the claims I have seen made about the U.S. crime rate, murder rate, etc. in comparison to other countries, there isn't one that compares a country that had a similar crime rate and gun laws to the U.S. over the same period of time to which the person with the anti-gun position is referring. In other words, claiming that Japan's low crime rate is due to its strict gun laws is easily refuted because they have historically had a lower crime rate. The same is true with the UK and most of Western Europe. I guess I'll keep it short for now. I look forward to your response, Jacob. [1] http://www.fbi.gov... [2] http://dailycaller.com... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://www.examiner.com... [6] Castle Rock vs. Gonzales [7] http://http//www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1 [8] http://https//www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/116435/hosb0812.pdf (page 11)[9] http://republicundersiege.com... (Full disclosure: I wrote this, so I am quoting myself, though the information is sourced.)