Guns should be legal for home defense in the U.S.

I'm looking forward to a good debate. There is a fundamental right to self-defense The nature of humans is that they want to survive, to protect their families, and to protect their homes and property. If humans were indifferent to the matter of survival, homo sapiens would have long since gone instinct. That makes the right to self-defense a fundamental right that government is obliged to preserve. The right to bear arms for self-defense is acknowledged by America's founders. For example: Resistance to sudden violence for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I never surrendered to the public by the compact of society and which, perhaps, I could not surrender if I would. .. . John Adams, US. President, Signer of the Declaration [2. . http://www.madisonbrigade.com...] No [citizen] shall be debarred the use of arms within his own lands. … Thomas Jefferson, US. President, Signer of the Declaration [3. . http://www.monticello.org...] Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly, to property - together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. Samuel Adams, Signer of the Declaration, "Father of the American Revolution" [4. . http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu...] The Federal Constitution reflects the State constitutions “that affirm that 'the right to keep and bear arms' was universally understood to be an individual right. In fact, State constitutions adopted even a century-and-a-half after the Second Amendment still continued to reflect the original understanding. ” [5. Barton, David, The Second Amendment, chapter 4] Barton gives many examples of the language in State constitutions, with that of Delaware (1831) being typical:”All men [have] inalienable rights, among which are the rights of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, [and] of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property. ” Guns are the only practical means of self-defense Guns are potentially lethal, and for that reason they serve as the most effective means of scaring off criminals. A criminal is far more like to flee a gun than any other common weapon. “The National Self-Defense Survey was the first survey specifically designed to estimate the frequency of defensive gun uses. It asked all respondents about both their own uses and those of other household members, inquired about all gun types, excluded uses against animals or connected with occupational duties, and limited recall periods to one and five years. Equally importantly, it established, with detailed questioning, whether persons claiming a defensive gun use had actually confronted an adversary (as distinct from, say, merely investigating a suspicious noise in the backyard), actually used their guns in some way, such as, at minimum, threatening their adversaries (as distinct from merely owning or carrying a gun for defensive reasons), and had done so in connection with what they regarded as a specific crime being committed against them. “ [6. . http://www.pulpless.com...] The survey established that there were 2.5 million defensive uses of guns per year in the period from 1988 to 1996. Since then, at least 15 surveys have confirmed the results. Recently, the Center for Disease Control, charged by President Obama with studying the problem of gun violence, reported “Defensive uses of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed. Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008. ” [7. . http://www.guns.com...] There is one defective outlying survey. The right to self-defense with a gun is not absolute. When the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's ban on guns for home defense, it “did not prohibit many existing federal limitations to gun ownership, including limitations for convicted felons and the mentally ill, or limitations preventing the possession of firearms in schools and government buildings. ” [8. . http://civilliberty.about.com...] I think it is reasonable to require completion of a course in gun safety as a prerequisite to gun purchase. The Supreme Court decision in D. C. vs. Heller affirms the natural right to self defense and provides redundant support for the interpretation of a right to personal self-defense with a gun. [9. . http://www.law.cornell.edu...] The benefits of guns outweigh the disadvantages Many things in modern life require serious tradeoffs. Using automobiles results in 32,000 deaths from accidents each year, a rate of 10.9 per 100,000. The convenience of cars is judged to outweigh the risks. Fuel economy standards have resulted in many more small cars, and “a 500-lb weight reduction of the average car increased annual highway fatalities by 2,200-3,900 and serious injuries by 11,000 to 19,500 per year. USA Today found that 7,700 deaths occurred for every mile per gallon gained in fuel economy standards. ” [10. . http://www.nationalreview.com...]. Very few people argue that added fuel economy is not worth the death toll. It is not even an issue. In 2010, total death rate from all accidents was 69.1. [11. . http://www.cdc.gov...] In the same year, the rate of accidental deaths from guns was 0.19. [12. calculated from . http://smartgunlaws.org...] That includes hunting accidents and others outside of homes. Accidental deaths from automobiles pose seven times the danger to children as guns. Drowning in a home pool and choking each pose more than twice the risk. [13. . http://gunowners.org...] Almost three times as many children drown in bathtubs as from all types of firearm accidents. [14. Lott, John, More Guns, Less Crime, p.10] There are about 25% more suicides in homes that have guns than in homes that do not have guns. The question is what would happen if guns were made illegal in homes. We have learned from drugs that making something illegal does not make it vanish. When Washington, D. C. imposed a strict gun ban, the percentage of suicides due to guns did not drop. [14. op cit p.310] Moreover, while drugs are consumed and must be continuously supplied to users, guns are durable and easy to hide. But let's imagine that all guns could be made to vanish. Japan has had strict gun bans for many years, yet they have about twice the suicide rate of the U. S. [15. . http://en.wikipedia.org...] In Japan, there was a strong tradition from the samurai era to use a sword for suicide, but there is a strict ban on swords as well. Suicide is a cultural and mental health challenge, not an instrumental one. In the U. S. , suicidal people think of a gun first, but if there were no guns other methods, like drug overdosing or hanging, would become the first choice. If armed home self defense were made illegal, a fundamental right of self-defense would be denied. Preserving the rights cherished by Americans is far more important than any marginal cost result. If it happened, a successful ban would likely produce millions more crime victims. With fewer people able to defend themselves, criminals would have a field day. However, homeowners who chose to keep weapons would then become criminals, and the punishment for self-defense could be worse than that for the offending criminals. Guns should remain legal for home defense.