Gun Control

Yes, and hopefully this will be entertaining and thank you very much for responding. I would like to address your slippery-slope argument. First off, we live in America--possibly the freest nation on earth and I doubt that we will experience any government tyranny as you describe in our lifetime. Nevertheless, are you more afraid of potential government tyranny than mass shootings in schools and movie theaters? This ability to take the lives of mass amounts of people at once is the true tyranny. Also, even if the government was in the state of tyranny that you describe, couldn't they easily demolish us with their tanks, RPG's, and infantry weapons of the like? I mean I do not see how our weapons would be effective in the least whilst protecting ourselves from a potentially tyrannical government. Also, just in curiosity, how is our freedom of speech stripped from us? As well as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? You say that I am not "paying attention" to 55+ million people but that is certainly untrue. I believe that working to drastically lower the homicide rate in our country is definitely in the interest of ALL Americans. I mean, If you look at Japan (again, they have practically abolished guns in the country), they have close to 5 gun deaths per year. Now if you compare this to America, we have close to 34,000 gun-related deaths every year. To the latest data available from both countries, the U. S. has about 11 gun deaths per 100,000 compared to Japan's 0. If you would like to have a look, here you go: . http://www.bbc.com.... This, I would say, is not "protecting" us, but moreso maiming us as a country (literally and metaphorically). Another study that was very interesting, done by Harvard, found that the amount of guns in a country directly correlates with the suicide rate. For example, "Research Associate Deborah Azrael, and colleagues at the School"s Injury Control Research Center (ICRC), found that in states where guns were prevalent"as in Wyoming, where 63 percent of households reported owning guns"rates of suicide were higher. The inverse was also true: where gun ownership was less common, suicide rates were also lower. " Lastly, I want to touch on the second amendment. If you look at the United States history, limitations on guns have been implemented for over 200 years, which is how the 2nd amendment was understood until the Heller case with Justice Scalia in a 5 to 4 vote. In these 200 years, the 2nd amendment was never seen as an independent right as many claim it is, but rather as a right to a "well-regulated militia" as stated in the 2nd Amendment. One example of this is the ruling in 1989 where the Supreme Court unanimously decided that Congress could prohibit the possession of a "sawed-off shotgun" because that particular weapon had no reasonable relation to the efficiency or preservation of a "well-regulated militia. " *Also, Justice Scalia's justification in the Heller decision in 2008 was that individuals had the right to bear arms so that they could then bring those arms to finally contribute them to the militia. Don't you see? Guns were only originally granted for the ultimate purpose of forming a militia.