The second amendment of the constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. As the specter of gun violence continues in our workplaces, roads and schools, the question keeps arising: do guns keep you safe, or just increase the level of violence?
As we noted in our comments on another issue raised in this forum, the notion that "more guns automatically means more crime" is demonstrably false. Since 1991, the number of guns in America has risen by more than four million annually, to an all-time high; gun control at the federal, state and local level has been eliminated or lessened (the federal waiting period on handguns sales and the federal "assault weapon" ban have both expired; state waiting periods and purchase permit requirements have been abolished, etc.); and the number of states in which people can easily carry firearms for protection has nearly tripled to an all-time high (40).
Meanwhile, total violent crime has decreased 39 percent; murder, in particular, has decreased 44 percent.
Gun control supporters really ought to take a hard look at themselves, and try to figure out why they keep saying things that the American people do not believe, and which are so easily disproven by looking at facts that are not in dispute.
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