Control guns, kill Americans

March 1789, the Congress of the United States gathered to add on to their Constitution. They would create a Bill of Rights written in straightforward and restrictive language, to prevent any abuse or misconstructions of power.

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.

During this time Americans were spread far and wide. There was little transportation, making it hard to get from one place to another. This made law enforcement extremely difficult, and a person would have to fend for himself. There was just no way for help to arrive in time. It would make sense for an average person to have a gun. 200 years later, average cars drive 100 miles an hour and there are police stations situated in every city. Some would argue times have changed; there is just no need for Joe Average to have a gun anymore. All guns do is kill people.

For every life lost to a gun, 65 lives are saved. That is five lives protected every minute. Guns are the safest and most effective mode of defense. A gun is much better method of defense than not resisting at all, and it keeps the user further away from the threat resulting in fewer injuries.

Citizens use their guns to stop crime and apprehend criminals seven to tens times more frequently than police, and do so with a better safety record. A person who keeps their gun permit legal and up to date usually takes the weapon seriously. They know what sort of power they are wielding, and know they just cannot whip it around. A responsible gun owner considers about how much aid their gun would actually be in a situation. They have to consider others in the area, and have to ensure the attacker could not potentially take their gun from them. They do not want to be responsible for theirs or other innocent’s injuries or even death.

Many believe that gun control will keep guns off the street. It will keep many citizens from carrying firearms, but that just means that only those who are breaking the law, also known as criminals, are the only people carrying. Murder, robbery and rape are against the law, but that does not stop it from happening. Wishful thinking will not keep criminals from breaking the law, but they will affect good people who honor the law. Washington, DC does not allow guns, and also has the highest crime rate in America.

Actually, in the District of Columbia the African-American teenage male homicide rate is 20 times the national average. For over 20 years now it has been illegal for a teen to carry or even own a gun. And yet, middle-aged white men, who have a homicide rate of less than half of the national average, own the majority of guns.

“A homeowner is 43 times as likely to be killed or kill a family member as an intruder,” is Dr. Kellermann’s much repeated and long discredited claim. It is unlikely that a person’s use of a gun in defense will result in a death; only 1 in 1000 do. Kellermann did not take into account any lives saved, and he only studied groups with high rates of violence, alcoholism, drug addiction, and domestic abuse. Kellermann has since changed his figures to “2.7 times” as likely, and admitted that if his wife were attacked he would want her to have a gun.