I am pro-gun for the simple fact that I believe in the power of the common citizen. And this has nothing to do with self-protection.

Admittedly, I am little extreme in that I do not believe the government should not be more powerful than its citizenry. This includes in weaponry as well. How else could the people overthrow the government if necessary?

Unfortunately, we do not have a “Break in Case of Revolution” box where we can hold enough weaponry to match the might of our government. So until we have that, the people have to hold that power in their closets. That’s what a government run by the people means.

Guns are the ultimate insurance against a tyrannical government. See Sweden and Kurdistan as a great examples of armed citizenry.

I do believe that guns should be heavily regulated. Especially handguns.

Scott - I want to comment on some of your points. I agree that it would be useful to look at the cost/benefit of allowing handguns (how often they hurt vs. how often a life is saved). I went online looking for information and found many people making the same point that guns save more lives than they take. I would submit that it is probably impossible to know if this is true. There is no sound way to measure it. A statistic I found in support of the claim turns out to have been produced by extrapolating from data that was gathered using very broad definitions. For example, people were asked if they or someone they knew had stopped a crime with a gun in the last year. It was left to the subject to interpret first if there was the threat of a crime and second that it was the fact of a gun that stopped the crime from happening. It counted someone hearing a noise outside and yelling “go away, I have a gun” as a crime stopped.

It is true that something could go wrong with a car, but there’s an important distinction between a car and a gun. The transportation provided by cars is a great benefit that our society decided is worth the cost (pollution, congestion, lost lives in accidents). A car can kill someone but that is not its purpose.

The purpose of a gun is to kill or cause great injury. That’s it. The reason to own one is to have the power of a gun at your disposal. The reason to own a car is transportation. The reason to own a gun is to kill.

Yes, I understand that maybe that sentence would be more complete if it ended with.”…kill someone who wished to hurt you or your loved ones.” Fair enough. I can see that some people are qualified enough to own a handgun responsibly but it is my impression that far too many more are thrilled by the power of a gun without having the training or judgment to own one. If someone wishes to own a handgun for personal defense I believe they should be required to go through training and meet qualifications for gun ownership that must be renewed every year.

Bob was shot not just because the young man was able to steal a gun from a relative who did not properly secure it, but because that young man wanted to have the power of that gun to hurt someone. We still don’t know why he knocked on Bob’s door. The police say it was totally random. But having that power he used it on an unarmed man. Did he understand the consequences of his actions?

It’s my opinion that the prevalence of guns in our society makes people less aware of the deadly seriousness of a gun. Most people in the U.S. will never find themselves in a situation where a gun will save their lives, but keep one because they want to be able to defend themselves. I must say I remain unconvinced of the need.

I appreciate the debate on a volatile subject and respect different points of view.

Dan and Av - you make good points, but they only serve to raise questions which lead me to the same conclusion:

Dan: “Too many things could go wrong..” Ok. But what about when a gun saves your life in a right circumstance? Don’t we need to weigh that against what could go wrong? Things could go wrong with driving an automobile, too, or with a pocket knife, etc.

AV: You seem to be saying our society is more violent. Two questions:
- In an increasingly violent society isn’t it important to be prepared when criminals have, and will get guns, no matter the laws?

- What do you think about the fact that many other societies around the globe, that have outlawed guns, have murder rates more than 2-3 times that in the US? World murder percentages (per 100k) show Russia — where guns are illegal to own — at 16.5, while the US is at 5.6 — see Wikipedia article, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate

People are violent, with or without the right to bear arms. Making guns illegal is not shown historically or presently to reduce murder rates. But it has been shown as a way for right meaning people to defend their liberty, dreams and pursuit of happiness.

Why would anyone want to take away the rights which freed us from crown tyranny? I just can’t wrap my mind around that.

Thanks Av, Dan and Scott for reasoned and sincere comments.

While gun ownership has indeed been a tradition of American life going back long before the Revolutionary War, current policies don’t reflect the profound changes in society, in firearms technology and in the number of gun murders that occur in the U.S. each year. In 2005, 10,100 murders were committed with firearms in the U.S., according to the FBI. That is an incredible cost to our society and an unacceptable price of the freedom to bear arms treasured by gun advocates.

Our gun laws must change to reflect the realities of the modern world. Or maybe we should follow Chris Rock’s advice: Let everyone keep all the damn guns they want, and just ban the manufacture of ammunition. That wouldn’t violate anyone’s rights under the Second Amendment.

Bob, I’m definitely looking forward to future posts.

There’s no perfect answer here, but I just can’t seem to get my head around Scott’s argument above.

Thanks again for the thought provoking post. Going to twitter this one right now.