All Guns Should Not Be Banned

Before I begin my argument I would like to point some statistics that have been gathered from various sources on violent crimes and gun use/legal ownership. Firstly violent crime rates are decreasing slowly and have been for at least 5 years. ( https://www.fbi.gov...) "This latest report reveals that the estimated number of violent crimes reported by law enforcement to UCR"s Summary Reporting System during 2014 decreased 0.2 percent when compared with 2013 data." The same report also shows that robberies and aggravated assaults account for 91.6% of all violent crimes in the United States. "There were an estimated 1,165,383 violent crimes (murder and non-negligent homicides, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults) reported by law enforcement. Aggravated assaults accounted for 63.6 percent of the violent crimes reported, while robberies accounted for 28.0 percent, rape 7.2 percent, and murders 1.2 percent." (Source: https://www.fbi.gov...) Now, there is no doubt correlations have been made between gun ownership and gun related injury and death. I do not deny that many gun statistics out there in favor of gun ownership often have poorly interpreted data to back their claims. However, I still believe there is a need for some type of gun ownership today. Obviously violent crime is slowly decreasing, but what if we look closer at the more violent areas of America. In Chicago: chances of a person becoming a victim of a crime" is 1 in 113 (http://www.neighborhoodscout.com...) In Detroit: "Detroit's 14,504 violent crimes " murder, rape, assault and robbery " gave the city the highest per-capita rate in the nation." (http://www.detroitnews.com...) In L.A.: contrary to the normal trend of violent crimes L.A. actually saw a rise in crime "Violent crime in L.A. climbed 19.9% and property crime increased 10.3%" (http://www.latimes.com...) In cities and neighborhoods where violence is high there is no question that parents and individuals worry about their safety constantly. I agree that there have been many unfortunate incidents where guns were not given the respect they needed and innocent lives were accidently taken. It would be immoral and unethical of me to disregard these incidents, but what about those who take responsibility for their weapons? What about those who are just looking for a way to stay safe in case crime ever comes into their lives. Now for the matter of having more guns means more criminals can get guns. This is only true to a point and this is also where gun control and proper background checking needs to come in to play. Even with that though is still not enough, there also needs to be a way to check on a gun owner to insure they haven't sold their weapon off illegally. There are many cases where that happens and legal guns are passed to the black market through legal appearing personal. I do not deny this is a problem. I do however argue that it is a preventable problem. You can never stop it entirely just as you can never stop criminals from obtaining guns (Mexico, Canada, lots of places to smuggle from, criminals are inventive), but if there was a stronger gun control policy focused on preventing legal guns from getting to criminals, then why should a family have to constantly feel threatened and be without proper protection. Yes, you can get a taser, mace, baton, and many other forms of "non-lethal" weapons, but many of these offer protection only in close range or for one attacker. In multiple attacker situations a gun is really the only effective means, besides running if possible, to handle or scare away the potential attackers. Now let me be clear, I distaste murder and death. I would never want to harm anyone or see anyone be harmed, but if my life was in danger, or even worse my children's life's were in danger, I'd want to have all the protection I could have to insure we all made it home safely. Even though the crime rate is slowly dropping it is still a large problem, and many people feel unsafe. How can we deny them the ability to protect themselves. Does the bad really outweigh the good? Does the fight to keep guns out of criminals hands really warrant taking them away from responsible families? If it does then by what means are families meant to protect themselves in the face of a violent criminal?