Are guns better than gun bans?

Everyone that has been paying attention knows that the Second Amendment was written to provide, despite the fact that the government has nuclear weapons, American citizens with a means to protect themselves from the type of government encroachment predicted by James Madison in Federalist No. 46 that would provoke “plans of resistance” and an “appeal to the trial of force.”

Or, as George Washington stated, “Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s teeth and keystone under independence.” Government takeover, independence, and liberty aside, guns play a vital role in keeping Americans safe from crime as they are used as many as 2.5 million times a year to keep us from becoming victims or statistics. In fact, throughout the history of America guns have done far more good than harm.

· The Second Amendment right protected the abolitionists who took the message that slavery was evil directly into the slave states.

· After the civil war, the right to bear arms was used to protect freedmen from the brutal violence of the Ku Klux Klan.

· Arms continued to protect civil rights workers even through the 1960s as the twin specters of racism and the Klan itself, had permeated local law enforcement.

· The right to self defense protects mothers and daughters from rapists, merchants from robbers, and citizens from home invasions.

· Armed Secret Service protects the President of the United States from harm.

· Armed guards protect banks, jewelry stores, Brinks trucks, museums, and other places from robbery

· Guns protect celebrities, athletes, politicians, high profile business people, and the wealthy from harm

Unquestionably, guns have benefited society but what harm have they done? Is the damage done by guns worth even considering efforts to rid society of them? Are guns, as many suggest, the root of all evil? Do we have too many? And, are they used to commit crimes more often than they are not?

There are varying estimates on the number of households in America that have a gun in them but, according to a Gallup survey conducted in 2005 the number is around 42 percent. With approximately 150 million households in the U.S., that means that a gun is present in roughly 63 million households, seems like an awful lot so there must be a lot of gun crime.

Yet even with over 63 million present, the number of murders, according to FBI statistics, committed using guns in 2011 was 8,583 with 6,220 of those committed with a handgun vs. an assault weapon of some kind, a number that represents 0.0136 percent of all guns owned in the country.

The president and proponents of gun control want us to believe that they are looking out for us, trying to keep us safe, and trying to save just one life but, are they? If guns caused murders, wouldn’t we be seeing a lot more of them?

Watch what the other hand is doing or watch for this to be the first part of a nationwide gun-grab that will make us all vulnerable to both government and criminals.

With more than 99 percent of Americans apparently capable of owning guns without committing murder, it’s hard to make the case that more controls of any kind are necessary.

Read more from James Alfred here.