What Do Guns Mean to Americans?

Recommend (13) Comments (46)

Written by Chris W. Cox, NRA-ILA executive director.

America's 80 million gun owners could give 80 million answers to this question. To hunters, guns mean a day with family and friends, enjoying the beauty of the outdoors.  To gun collectors, they provide a connection to the inventors, craftsmen, warriors and pioneers of days gone by. To competitive shooters, they provide an opportunity for self-mastery, through the discipline of training and the forge of competition.

Most important, though, is that guns provide an effective means of exercising the God-given, individual right of self-defense. To America's founders, that right was a hallmark of individual freedom in our new nation. Thomas Jefferson-an avid gun collector and hunter-said, "No free man shall be debarred the use of arms," and Thomas Paine said, "[A]rms . . . discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe."

While the founders were mainly concerned with "invaders and plunderers" of the political kind, the right is equally important in protecting individuals from the violent "invaders and plunderers" on our streets. In the recent case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court recognized this, declaring that the Second Amendment protects "the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation."

Indeed, the most comprehensive study of gun use to date, by award-winning criminologist Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, found that Americans use guns for self-defense against crime more than two million times per year. Certainly today, with 40 states having adopted laws that allow honest citizens to carry handguns for protection outside the home, guns mean much of what they meant to our founders: the freedom to protect yourself, your family, and your community.