I'm pro-guns myself. I want a firearm, I want access to firearms (and I have no criminal record and no history of violence, so I don't see why I shouldn't have it), and I don't see why I should have that access taken away. I have done no wrong, and I will never do no wrong. I know how to handle a firearm. I know how to be safe. I know how to be cautious.
However, if that access is taken away from me, and criminals still have access to guns, then you aren't creating a situation where you have two unarmed men in a room. You have one armed convict and one unarmed civilian. I feel safer being armed in that situation (though I'd rather be out of the room altogether!)
You cannot take guns out of the hands of criminals in the U.S. It isn't just the idea of guns being part of our culture, on the part of heirlooms (my grandmother keeps her husband's M1911-A1 in memory of him), but also as part of our heritage; but also the fact that the U.S. is absolutely saturated with firearms. If you ban firearms, you also have to recall all of the firearms to keep them out of the black market, to keep them out of the hands of the common criminal. And that's almost impossible!
That's a lot of firearms you have to recall. I don't think I can emphasize this enough. I believe that the M1911-A1 handgun went up to, like, 100 million firearms made, even though many ended up overseas. That's a lot of guns! There's 300 million people in the U.S. I think I can safely say that the number of firearms available in the U.S. surpasses the population in multiples. It's also very difficult to trace those firearms after they've been resold, and you can bet that if you pass a law that demands a recall of those firearms, you'd end up with a lot of stolen firearms.
So, in the end, this is what I think: Banning firearm does not protect the average civilian, it disarms them. It does not stop the criminal, but it keeps them armed.
I live in Corpus Christ, Texas currently. I just discovered that a vast majority of people here walk around armed, with a concealed weapon. Far more than I originally thought; yet I feel just as safe knowing that than when I didn't. I don't feel like my life is in jeapordy at any moment. I don't feel like people are suddenly going to go psycho and shoot me up just because they touched some sort of "Killing Disease" that apparently some people think that firearms are mass-produced with.
And, furthermore, humans aren't monkeys. We're primates, maybe, but we're also capable of making decisions and judgement calls. Sometimes they're faulty, but I do not see people walking around shooting everyone else because of bad judgement calls. It happens at times, but I find that in the majority of shootings, the shooters had reasons to be sure that NO ONE COULD FIRE BACK.
For example: Almost ALL (if not all) school shootings happen on "guns free zones". In a local incident here in Corpus, someone walked into a resteraunt and emptied his firearm into the place, killing many people. He could have killed less if there was return fire, but the resteraunt was a "guns free" zone.
I don't see any way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and the fact is we do try. There's a reason why you have to undergo a background check before you're sold a firearm here. But you can still get firearms from other sources, and that will always be true as long as there is a single handgun in the black market. And, there will ALWAYS be at least one. Once a weapon is made, it's out there; it's circulated; and it's darn hard to recall once it's resold.
Now, this doesn't mean that I think that all gun control policies are bad. Singapore has a pretty good gun control policy, but they aren't saturated with firearms. They put a VERY strict control on it from the very beginning, and they are a small country with a relatively small population (4 million people, I believe). I know this as I have a friend in the Singapore military, and she gave me a pretty good argument as to why gun control works in Singapore. They're very careful about keeping firearms out, and are very strict in controlling imported goods to make sure no one's smuggling them into it. They also impose strict controls on the firearms and ammunition handed out to police and soldiers, ensuring that they have a set number of bullets at all times, to be checked routinely. If a single fire has been shot without due cause, then there will be a severe investigation. However, these very strict limitations just wouldn't work on the U.S.; once you saturate a country with weapons, it's extremely hard to take them out, especially if you don't have a good paper trail to follow.
Hmm... I'm not sure what the main argument here is, actually. I just realized that it was about Gun Control, but what kind of Gun Control? I think that background checks and the like are a good way to do business, and that you shouldn't be allowed to have every weapon on the books. Pump-action shotguns, pistols, and hunting rifles are a-okay by me, but I certainly don't see the need for assault/battle rifles, .50 BMGs, and machineguns.
