Gun Rights and Gun Control Arguments

The 2nd Amendment was intended to make it clear that citizens should be able to own weapons, that it is a natural right, so that they can fight their government if necessary in the event of tyrannical leadership or other various scenarios. Under the 2nd Amendment citizens also have the right to defend themselves with a weapon in daily life.

The 2nd Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The use of the word “a” rather than “the” implies a militia made by a group of people rather than a militia made by the government.

Gun control advocates sometimes make the point that the use of the word regulated means gun ownership should be controlled/regulated by the government. Looking at some definitions of regulate:

regulate
verb
1 control or maintain the rate or speed of (a machine or process) so that it operates properly.
"a hormone that regulates metabolism and organ function"
synonyms:
control, adjust, manage
"the flow of the river has been regulated"

2 control or supervise (something, especially a company or business activity) by means of rules and regulations.
"the organization that regulates fishing in the region"
synonyms:
supervise, police, monitor, check, check up on, be responsible for;

Considering the context of why the constitution was written and judging by a few quotes of the founding fathers they meant regulate as a properly working militia. Using that definition of regulated, another way to word it is: In order for a state’s militia to operate properly, so that they can ensure the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It is the right of the people to keep and bear arms not the right of militiamen to keep and bear arms. The people have the right so that they can choose to form a militia when they want to.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Quotes by the founding fathers and others:

George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788:
"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison:
"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."

Points on Gun Control and Gun Rights:

1
Places with Relaxed Laws vs Places with Strict Gun Control

A lot of the states in America with relaxed gun laws have the lowest gun murder rates.

Maine for example, has basically no gun laws and has one of the lowest crime rates in the US. If I’m not mistaken you can simply walk into a gun shop pay for a gun and walk out with the gun without any kind of background check or registration involved. And you can open carry/conceal carry without needing a permit. However Maine has a somewhat low gun ownership rate. So I think Maine is a good example of the “guns don’t kill people people kill people argument”. Everyone in Maine has the option to walk into a shop and buy a gun with no hassle and do whatever they want with that gun. But the people there are peaceful and don’t commit many gun related murders despite it being very easy for them to do so.

Montana is a state with a very high rate of gun ownership yet they have one of the lowest gun murder rates.

Murder by State, Types of Weapons, 2016
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-12

This FBI 2011 Chart of Gun Crimes by US State shows the gun murder rate by each state. I would show the 2016 chart but I can’t find a chart that shows the rates. From what I can tell the rates are about the same each year from 2011 to 2016.

Comparing the 2011 and 2016 firearm murder rates with the below map showing the percent of how many people own guns it shows that the states like Montana, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota etc with high gun ownership and or relaxed gun laws do not have higher gun murder rates. Many of the states with high gun ownership and very relaxed gun laws have lower rates of gun murder than states like California and New York that have strict gun control laws. Some states with relaxed gun laws do have similar gun murder rates to California and New York but as you can see plenty of states are doing just fine without gun control laws.

2
A citizen revolt could never stop the United States army!

ISIS has 20,000 to 200,000 members depending who you ask. The war against ISIS has gone on for years and cost billions. There are 400 million US citizens. Imagine what 1 million armed US citizens could do. 10 million. 50 million. If something were to happen where a large amount of right wing citizens decided to revolt whose side do you think the boys in the military would take? A citizen rebellion would not be as simple as some people rebelling and the military going after them. It would basically be impossible to stop an armed US citizen revolt. Millions of rebelling citizens not paying taxes anymore and capturing infrastructure would cripple an already massively in debt nation. If the US army can barely handle a tiny group of terrorists despite bombing the shit out of them with drones and tanks they aren’t going to stop US citizens.

3
Gun Control Intended to stop Mass Shootings and Terrorist Attacks

Even if we did ban guns or somehow made it impossible for criminals to access guns they would simply switch from guns to another method such as running people over with cars. The Paris Nice truck attack killed 86 people and injured 458 others. As it turns out running people over with a truck is a massively effective way to kill people. The deadliest shootings by a single attacker tend to kill around 10-50 people and injure 10-50 people. As we just saw with the Vegas shooting around 59 people were killed and 500 injured. I’m guessing the Vegas shooter could have easily ran people over instead of shooting them considering the people were all packed close together in a small area.

Sometimes people make the point that Australia banned certain guns a while ago and they haven’t had any mass shootings. People still have the option of running crowds over with a vehicle. In Australia on Jan 20th 2017 a man drove a car into Bourke St Mall, resulting in the deaths of 6 people and injuring 30+ others.

The only thing assault rifles and fully auto guns are really meant for is fighting wars. General gun related crime is almost exclusively done with pistols. Yes rifles can be used for mass killings but since mass killings of civilians are easily done with cars and trucks rifle bans don’t stop that. So banning semi and full auto rifles really only makes the government more powerful than making people safer from mass killing attacks.

4
Necessity
One could argue it doesn’t matter if vehicles are more effective at killing since vehicles are a necessity for everyday life. Guns are also a necessity for the security of a free state and personal protection.

How many people were killed by their government after they were disarmed? A few communist/socialist regimes where millions of people were executed come to mind...

Women who carry guns statistically protect themselves from rape attacks with a very high success rate. And of course armed citizens defend themselves from other types of crime like robbery.

I’ve heard people say nobody really needs guns for personal defense because “the odds of being a victim of a crime is so low”. An estimated 3.7 million household burglaries occurred each year on average from 2003 to 2007 in the US. In about 28% of these burglaries, a household member was present during the burglary. In 7% of all household burglaries, a household member experienced some form of violent victimization.
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/vdhb.txt

5
Guns, Alcohol, and other Drugs as well as Accidental Deaths

“An estimated 88,000 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity. In 2014, alcohol-impaired driving fatalities accounted for 9,967 deaths (31 percent of overall driving fatalities)”. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics

“In 2015, 10,265 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (29%) of all traffic-related deaths in the United States”.

So why do people get so emotional about gun crime but driving while intoxicated isn’t a hot topic? Depending on the circumstances felons can still buy alcohol and drive cars. There are no background checks for alcohol purchases. You can have a history of violent crime and can still legally own a car which can potentially kill people in drunk driving accidents or be used as a weapon.

And there is the topic of doctor prescribed drugs that allegedly cause people to go crazy and go on a killing spree like we have seen discussed with school shootings.

Around X amount of toddlers find a loaded gun and kill someone with it every year in the US. How many toddlers are backed over by cars? Get ahold of kitchen knives? Prescription drugs? Alcohol?
“Roughly 165 young children in the U.S. are treated in the emergency rooms every day after getting into medications, says a new report from Safe Kids Worldwide. That's more than 60,000 kids a year ages 5 and under who unintentionally take a medicine or overdose on it”. https://www.webmd.com/children/news/20120320/medication-leading-cause-child-poisoning-us#1

6
Guns used for Suicide
Sometimes it is pointed out that people use guns to commit suicide. As far as I know most liberals believe people should be in charge of their own life. It seems like they switch stances on suicide just to make a point against gun ownership. People commit suicide by overdosing on drugs and alcohol but nobody says we need better alcohol or drug laws.

7
Driver's licenses, Gun licenses, CCW Permits, Background Checks, Registration

From what I can tell gun control typically serves as more of a tax than a safeguard. My biggest issue with licenses/registration etc is that you have to pay money to get them. Every time I buy a gun in California it costs me around $100-200 more than it normally would in another state. Permits and background check fees are just an annoying waste of money rather than a useful tool for stopping criminals. Sure a background check can hinder a criminal with a criminal background, if the criminal can’t get a gun at the store it will potentially take him longer to find a way to get one like having to buy one from a gang or drive to another state to buy one.

Concealed carry weapon (CCW) permits are something I have a huge problem with. I don’t see any point to ccw permits at all. No criminal is going to think well I can’t take my gun with me to rob that store since I don’t have a permit to carry it! If a criminal gets caught with a concealed weapon after committing a robbery or murder a no permit charge isn’t going to mean much compared to a robbery or murder charge. What difference does that make? Sure a cop could search a potential school shooter for whatever reason and find a handgun on him and then arrest him for carrying a gun without a permit which would in that moment stop the shooting from happening. But the odds of a cop actually searching a robber or a school shooter before he commits the shooting or robbery must be very low. It obviously doesn’t make much difference for school shooters or someone planning a murder. Granted it could be problematic for say a gang member that sells drugs on a street corner. But the amount of non criminals a CCW permit law would screw over compared to criminals doesn’t make it fair or sensible.

States or counties that do not allow concealed or open carry at all are the most rediculous. That is what really blows my mind. Trying to stop criminals from obtaining weapons is one thing. But refusing to let people with clean backgrounds carry a gun is ridiculous. The only argument I have heard for that one is someone with a gun on them may get into a heated argument and then shoot the person they are argueing with. Only a lunatic would do that. It’s like saying restaurants shouldn’t have steak knives because people might get into arguments while eating and start stabbing each other. The vast majority of people are not that crazy. A school shooter will still bring a gun to school to commit murder but a perfectly sane student with a CCW isn’t going to murder his teacher in the heat of the moment for giving his essay an F. He may on the other hand stop a school shooter with his CCW.

On the topic of CCW permits currently there is an act called: S.446 - Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017. I looked into this some and as far as I can tell the point of it is to combat the states/counties/cities that either do not allow concealed carry or make it very difficult. So if this act passes and you get a CCW permit from wherever, that same permit can be used anywhere. So if you can’t get a permit in Los Angeles you can go somewhere else and get a permit which can then be used in Los Angeles. This would also mean if you are traveling you would not have to apply for a new permit for every single country you enter. You would be able to carry your concealed gun anywhere like the 2nd amendment intended.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with making sure people know how to use guns. It’s just that at least in my opinion a gun really isn’t that hard to use. A quick internet search has all the information you could possibly need and almost everything gun related is common sense. I had to get a Firearm Safety Certificate in California so I can legally purchase guns. It was a 30 question test with no shit sherlock style questions and answers. Where as learning to drive a car is much harder. It isn’t super complicated to know that you shouldn’t point a gun at anyone you don’t intend to shoot. It doesn't take a genius to know that you shouldn't leave your finger on the trigger like a retard. Having to pay money to take such a simple test is just more of an annoying tax than helpful. Even getting your driver's license is pretty retarded. You can miss a lot of the questions on the written test as well as the driving portion and still pass. All they really check is that you have a somewhat basic knowledge and will get better at driving on your own. And it's not like you have to pass a test to drink alcohol, it's common sense not to drink an entire bottle of vodka by yourself, yet people still have accidental overdoses while the left doesn't care. The only reason the left complains about gun violence is because it's more theatrical than all these other issues. I'm really not against gun background checks and such in general it's just that the god damn left pushes and pushes so if we give them an inch they take a mile and screw everyone till nobody has rights anymore. You might say that’s not true the left doesn’t want to fully ban guns they just want a few laws like background checks. If that was true some states would not have banned fully automatic guns and be constantly pushing to totally ban assault rifles.

The other issue with gun registration is if the government were to ban guns then they would know who has them. Which means police could potentially go door to door taking everyone’s guns away. Registration isn’t just a matter of tracking criminals it is also an issue of giving the government the information they need to declare war on gun owners and go after each individual because they know who has what. Before a citizen vs government war they would obviously try to disarm the opposition before the war breaks out. Why let your potential enemy dictate laws that would hinder your ability to fight them in the future? Allowing what could one day be a tyrannical government to decide your guns laws doesn’t make any sense.

8
Guns vs Knives and Self defense vs Combat in War.

One of the main differences between a pistol and a rifle is convenience. If everyone could easily carry a rifle they would. But since rifles are big, hard to conceal, and heavy it makes more sense to use a pistol for both self defense and general crime. An assault rifle is more effective at killing people in certain scenarios like a crowd of people that are close together. But if you want to rob a store quickly and run away with the cash then you would use a pistol. Or if you wanted to kill a certain individual you would use a pistol since it would be easy to walk up to them pull out the pistol and shoot them. Where if you used a rifle they would notice you have a gun and could try to stop you since the rifle would be more noticeable than a pistol hidden under a jacket. Carrying a rifle would raise too much attention and be a hassle to carry.

According to the FBI: Firearms were used in 41.4 percent of the robberies for which the UCR Program received additional information in 2010. In a nearly equal percentage of robberies (42.0 percent), strong-arm tactics were used, followed by knives and cutting instruments used in 7.9 percent of robberies, and other dangerous weapons used in 8.8 percent of robberies in 2010.

"The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines robbery as the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear". So we aren't talking about just stealing someone's belongings when they aren't around. People get robbed by people face to face when the robber doesn't even have a weapon. So if robbers do not have a weapon a huge percentage will just do the crime without a weapon of any kind.

Generally speaking a pistol is good for self defense while out on the town. While an assault rifle or shotgun is good for home defense. It’s situational but both pistols and rifles are used for home defense. So if anything it would be better to have a pistol and a rifle for home defense.

An AR is better than a pistol for killing people at a longer range. If it is fully automatic an AR is effective at killing large amounts of people like we saw with the 2017 Vegas shooting. But as mentioned before a truck is just as effective at killing large amounts of people. The main reason people need an AR is for war. If we were to overthrow our government we would need AR’s. An AR is still very useful for home defense but the main point in having one is to preserve freedom.

9
Shootings That Were Stopped By a Good Samaritan With a Gun / Gun Free Zones

Sometimes people say well it is rare that someone with a gun ever foils a school shooter. To that I say of course it’s rare you banned guns at schools so the good samaritans didn’t have the opportunity in the first place. How many school shootings could have been foiled if the school hired armed security guards, allowed teachers or adult students to have concealed guns?

Someone might also say it’s not like the average person is trained well enough to react to a criminal shooting at people. To that I say look at the times someone stopped a criminal using their gun. 12 times mass shootings were stopped by good guys with guns:
http://controversialtimes.com/issues/constitutional-rights/12-times-mass-shootings-were-stopped-by-good-guys-with-guns/