Gun Rights

First of all, I did not ask people to vote on my side or the other. I asked people to comment on this debate so it would get more attention. I am fairly sure I told my friends NOT to vote for me and to choose the person with the best debating skills and sources. You claim that guns are just for killing people and animals. Yes, that is true, but just like knives, guns also serve an important purpose...Unless you don't view hunting and killing animals for food so your family doesn't starve as a good purpose. Why do you think police have guns? Because, at times it is the ONLY WAY to stop a crime from taking place or continuing to take place. Why do you think there have been NO mass shootings at gun ranges or gun shows, but there have been a countless number of mass shootings at these so called, "Gun-Free Zones"? The answer is simple. CRIMINALS DO NOT CARE ABOUT LAWS. The quicker you understand that, the easier this debate will be. I wish we could have it your way. I wish that only good people received guns, I wish that criminals would submit to back round checks, so we would know who to give a gun to and who to say no to, and I wish, just like you do that criminals would respect gun free zones, but the fact is, THEY DO NOT CARE ONE BIT. I saw in your fist response where you mentioned kids getting a hold of guns and shooting each other and others. The gun is not to blame in this case. The ignorance of the parents is to blame. There are plenty of stories about children getting a hold of knives (who in your opinion serve a culinary purpose) and stabbing, cutting, disfiguring, and killing each other with those very knives. You may think I am talking about a Machete or a Hatchet, but the knives used in most if not all of these cases are everyday kitchen knives you and I use to cut our meet at the dinner table. Again, you refused to address Chicago's Hand Gun ban and the Gun Crime increase that followed. This is logic and common sense and it refers back to my argument of how there have been NO MASS SHOOTINGS IN ANY GUN SHOWS, but there are many in GUN FREE ZONES. The logic is right there in front of you. Criminals will get guns anyway and in the long run, you leave the citizen defenseless when push comes to shove. I wish we didn't have to worry about things like this, but when you are dealing with people (especially people in Chicago where crime has soared) you are going to have these problems. Let's take the Newtown crime and dissect what went wrong. The Newtown killer was a mentally disturbed young man living with his mother. She had legally purchased her arsenal and had even taught her son how to responsibly handle firearms. What she did not do was: (1) deal appropriately with her son"s mental illness; (2) safely contain her guns so that her son could not access them. As much as anyone, I am eager to do whatever will make a difference. But I"m unconvinced that what is being proposed will provide the solution we seek. Universal background checks are a perfectly good idea, except that they won"t stop the burglar who recently cleaned out our house of all our legally purchased rifles and shotguns, including an antique that had belonged to my great-grandfather, who, as sheriff of Barnwell County, S.C., confiscated the gun from the triple murderer he tracked for three days and finally killed. (I want that gun back, please.) Those guns are now in circulation among an element of society that has no intention of submitting to a background check or any other well-intentioned effort to ensure that only good guys have guns. Two new studies released at the beginning of May 2013 have shown that the primary factor in the reduction of the number of gun homicides and violent gun crimes is not gun control, but rather the proliferation of legal gun ownership. In a study released by Pew Research, violent gun crimes are significantly lower now than they were at their peak during the mid 1990s. Gun homicides declined 49% from 1993 to 2010, despite the fact that population in the United States grew during the same period. Other violent crimes involving firearms including robberies, assaults, and sex crimes declined 75% in 2011 as compared to 1993. The data also showed that six-in-ten firearms deaths are actually suicides, meaning they are not victims of criminal violence. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 31,672 deaths from guns in the U.S. during 2010. Nearly 20,000 of those deaths were gun related suicides. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans are unaware of this decline in firearms violence. The Pew study found that 56% incorrectly perceive that gun crime is actually higher now than it was two decades ago. Fortunately, mass murders, while tragic, are exceeding rare. Mass shootings represent less than 1% of all shooting related homicides. While many gun control advocates, including Senator Diane Feinstein attempted to use the Newtown tragedy to advance her Assault Weapons Ban proposal, an DOJ analysis of the 1994 ban failed to show that there was a "significant impact" on assault weapons use and failed to support the allegation that large capacity magazines lead to more violent gun crimes. In all of these studies, there is no data that supports the idea that a reinstatement of any Assault Weapons Ban would have an impact on future tragedies. The City of Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in America, yet in 2012 there were 512 gun related homicides, an increase of 15% over 2011. The murder rate in Chicago three times the murder rate in the rest of Illinois. Law enforcement also reports that 80% of the murders and shootings in Chicago are gang-related. It would appear that the 'gun problem' in Chicago is really more of a 'gang problem'. Despite the efforts of gun control advocates and much of the mainstream media to convince the American people that they must surrender some of their Second Amendment rights to reduce gun violence, the data simply does not support that conclusion. Perhaps these revelations will help the American people recognize the wisdom of Ben Franklin's words when he said "Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." I will finally rest my case in saying that no government can take the rights away from any citizen of owning a gun. The guns people use to defend their family should be their choice. We need to stop treating everyone like a criminals just because a few nut jobs go crazy with the means they have. There have been a numerous amount of other heinous crimes and destructive madness committed with knives and even something as harmless as a pencil. The point remains; If someone is intent on hurting another person, they are NOT going to give up when easy access to a gun is not present. They will either buy it illegally or steal it and end up committing the crime anyway. Even with gun control laws, if a gun is registered to me and then stolen from me, there is no way of finding where that gun is. Another harmful affect of gun registration is the government (or others) revealing who and who does not have a gun like they did in New York. This is an easy gateway for criminals to pick and choose the houses with the least amount of guns. There is one question you need to answer that I believe will solve this debate. If you were a criminal who wanted to cause extreme amounts of violence, would you go into a well armed area or a gun free zone? The answer is obvious. Criminals do not want to rob or disturb places with lots of guns because they know they wouldn't get far. I rest my case. http://www.examiner.com... http://www.washingtonpost.com...