Armed With the Facts

The topic of gun control elicits intense emotions on both sides. The fact is, gun rights advocates and gun control advocates alike, abhor needless shootings such as the recent Washington Navy Yard massacre or the Newtown nightmare.  The following offers some of the facts, in order to reach reasoned, not emotional, conclusions. 
 
Bill of Rights - The Second Amendment

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.

This amendment is not about keeping guns for hunting or sport shooting. This amendment goes to the heart of constitutional principles to preserve the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It was written to protect the people from a tyrannical government. It is what stands between 'we the people' and an ever-growing and intrusive government.  It is this right that protects our other rights.
An armed civilian population can defend itself against a tyrannical government, as well as individual violations.  A look back in history shows that tyrants like Hitler, Stalin and Mao relied on an unarmed population to control them and to seize power. The day after Kristallnacht, Hitler prohibited Jews from acquiring guns or any weapons, and those who possessed guns were ordered to turn them over to the police.  http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id14.html

"Gun ownership transcends petty partisan politics.  The intentional disarmament of the population has irrefutably been shown as a necessary though not sufficient condition to genocide." (Gun Control, Disarmament and the Threat of Genocide, by Dr. Jason J. Campbell) http://www.academia.edu/486853/Gun_Control_Disarmament_and_the_Threat_of_Genocide_Second_Amendment

"The threat to the Second Amendment is also coming internationally as the United Nations has a goal of disarmament. They have actively campaigned for worldwide gun control, and have declared that civilian ownership of guns is a major cause of violence around the world. The reality is that the UN has failed miserably in preventing crimes against humanity, and has further facilitated in the disarming of populations, leaving them defenseless."  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dana_gab_071217_disarming_of_the_pop.htm

In November 2012, the Obama administration voted for a renewed effort to pass the "Small Arms Treaty." Sen. Rand Paul is working to defeat this treaty in the Senate.  According to Paul,
"You can bet the UN is working to FORCE the U.S. to implement every single one of these anti-gun policies:
***  Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally;
***  CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL “unauthorized” civilian firearms (all firearms owned by the government are excluded, of course);
***  BAN the trade, sale and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons;
***  Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun CONFISCATION."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/11/rand-paul-obama-is-working-with-anti-american-globalists-plotting-against-our-constitution/

Gun Crime 

 Despite public perception, crimes committed with firearms continue a two decade decline, including the number of school type shootings.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/07/gun-control-would-address-declining-crim
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, "firearm-related homicides declined 39% and non-fatal firearm crime declined 69% from 1993 to 2011."
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/05/09/stats-gun-crime-plummets-over-last-two-decades-poll-public-totally-clueless-n1591940
There are almost double the number of guns since the early '90's, yet violent gun crime is cut in half.

Strict Gun Control

Strict gun control doesn't mean fewer gun crimes. California had the highest number of gun murders in 2011. That same year California was named the state with the strictest gun laws.
In 1976 Washington D.C. took strong measures.  It banned new handguns, it required all guns to be registered and required guns at home to be stored unloaded, disassembled or locked up. And it also topped the list of highest gun murder rates in 2011.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/06/the-firearms-statistics-that-gun-control-advocates-dont-want-to-see/
Another case in point, Chicago, which has one of the highest murder rates in the country and some of the strictest gun control laws.  http://www.policymic.com/articles/22622/gun-control-is-why-chicago-murder-rates-are-skyrocketing

"In reality, an extensive 2004 report by the National Academy of Science was not able to identify a single gun control regulation that actually reduces violent crime, suicides or accidents. The NAS panel reviewed 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications and some of its own empirical work on firearms. The shooters in Arizona, Colorado and Newtown were mentally ill persons.  They posed a danger to society before they committed their acts of violence." (Control, by Glenn Beck).  Navy veteran Aaron Alexis reportedly had mental illness as well.

Self Defense

Taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens won't prevent shootings like Newtown, because stricter gun control laws don't keep criminals from acquiring guns. In fact, there are many cases when a gun in the hands of a responsible person kept a situation from escalating. With more gun-free zones, and fewer armed law-abiding citizens, more helpless victims are created. In the case of the Washington Navy Yard, had the military personnel not been prohibited from carrying a firearm on the base (ban was imposed in 1993), it's likely that the casualties would've been limited. Bans simply disarm potential victims. With regard to the mass murders which have occurred in the last few years, what ultimately stopped the 'bad guy' with a gun, was a 'good guy' with a gun.  The police cannot protect us from immediate danger, they can only respond to it. And, waiting for the police to come offers more time for the criminal to commit more violence.   Individuals must be able to protect themselves from these criminals.

Although the estimates vary widely depending on a number of factors, statistics regarding defensive gun use range from a high estimate of 1-2 million per year, low estimates average between 250,000-370,000 incidents per year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use
Most defensive gun use incidents rarely get media attention, which is why the public by a majority of 56% believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago.

Assault Weapons

The assault weapon is rarely used by criminals since it is neither concealed nor portable.
The most commonly used weapon is a handgun, not a semi-automatic.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/07/gun-control-would-address-declining-crim

According to the assaultweapon.info website, "In the late 1980s, more than two decades after the AR-15 was first sold to the American public, the anti-gun lobby began a systematic campaign to conflate it and other "military-style" firearms with machine guns. The media followed suit, and soon the American public began to think that an assault weapon was, like the assault rifles it resembled, a machine gun.

This strategy came to fruition in 1993, when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) was introduced in Congress. The AWB would ban the sale of new assault weapons to American civilians.

However, since "assault weapon" was an invented term, it had no technical meaning. Before assault weapons could be banned, legislators had to define them.

Because assault rifles were already banned, and because an outright ban on semi-automatic firearms wasn't considered politically feasible, the AWB defined assault weapons as semi-automatic firearms that shared too many cosmetic features with their fully automatic counterparts."

"According to Senator Feinstein so-called assault weapons have been used in 385 murders since the AWB expired in 2004, or about 48 murders per year. But there were 8,583 total murders with guns in the United States in 2011, meaning so-called assault weapons were used 0.6% of the time."

"Further illustrating the small role so-called assault weapons play in crime, FBI data shows that 323 murders were committed with rifles of any kind in 2011. In comparison, 496 murders were committed with hammers and clubs, and 1,694 murders were perpetrated with knives.
The truth about assault weapons is that there is no such thing. So-called assault weapons are semi-automatic firearms—the guns most commonly used by millions of law-abiding Americans." (Semi-automatic means it fires one round each time the trigger is pulled.)
http://www.assaultweapon.info/

Conceal Carry Laws

Some data suggests that states with conceal carry laws have the lowest crime.
"The recent report from ABC News that in Florida, where there are more concealed weapons permits than anywhere else in the country, violent crime has dropped to the lowest point in history."
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/14859-florida-update-concealed-carry-permits-up-violent-crime-down
http://www.firearmsclasses.com/information/concealed-carry-facts/

"What did Sandy Hook Elementary School, Virginia Tech and the Century 16 movie theaters in Colorado have in common? They were all the sites of massacres that ended innocent lives. And they all were gun-free zones."
John Lott, an economist and gun rights advocate who authored the book "More Guns, Less Crime," recently examined mass shootings. He discovered that "not only are gun-free zones ineffective at preventing mass shootings, shootings are actually more likely to occur in gun-free zones because the shooter knows there will be less resistance."
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/mar/23/gun-free-zones-dont-work/

Background Checks

There are already a number of background checks on the books.  However, many states do not require a waiting period between the time of purchase and the transfer of the firearm. It may be more effective to impose waiting periods to allow law enforcement to perform the background checks, and it gives the purchaser a 'cooling off' time to prevent impulsive acts.
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#background
http://smartgunlaws.org/waiting-periods-policy-summary/

The problem is, the criminals don't buy guns legally, and therefore are able to circumvent the system. In the case of the Newtown shooter, Adam Lanza took guns from his mother, and thereby didn't have to go through a background check.  This 'private sale' loophole in the law allows anyone who isn't a federally licensed gun dealer to sell a gun without a background check.  According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "researchers in 2000 reviewed more than a decade of crime data in states with and without background checks. They found no significant difference in murder rates in states that had implemented the checks and states that had not." http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/guns-background-checks-do-they-work-86755_Page3.html
More regulations simply do not apply to those not following the laws in the first place. And law-abiding citizens simply don't need more laws and regulations since they are law-abiding.  However, improved checks on mentally unstable people seems to be in need. There was no criminal record for Aaron Alexis, but his mental instability, as evidenced by prior incidents, needed to raise a red flag for gun ownership, as well as for security clearances.

Other Factors

While many look at the guns used in mass shootings, a look at the people committing the mass shootings reveals some common background. As mentioned, several of the shooters had a history of mental illness.  If we are to improve mental health reporting, it will likely be more complex than meets the eye; how will it be determined who gets reported?  Does it have to entail prior commitment to a mental facility? Would that apply to those involuntarily committed or also to those who voluntarily went in for treatment? Would visiting a psychiatrist get reported? Would certain prescriptions raise a red flag? Besides the potentially inaccurate reporting, collecting that kind of information for a database could violate civil liberties.  There are many concerns and questions that arise here.
Another factor that some of the mass shooters had in common was that they were avid gamers. Does playing violent video games increase aggression? According to research presented by APA, when referring to children and adolescents, "there is a consensus amongst the vast majority of violent video game researchers that too much exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviors, leads to desensitization to violence and also leads to decreases in pro-social behaviors and empathy (Anderson et al, 2010; Huesmann 2010)." There are some detractors from this view that believe the methodology is flawed.   http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2010-2014/10ASISBSRS.pdf

Summary

The Second Amendment offers citizens the right to self protect.
A tyrannical government will seek to disarm the population.
The UN is actively campaigning to impose strict gun control internationally.
Gun crime has decreased despite the increase of gun sales.
Strict gun control does not translate into less gun crime.
Defensive gun use far outnumbers offensive gun use.
Assault weapons are used 0.06% of the time.
Data suggests that conceal carry laws deter gun crime.
Gun-free zones are ineffective at preventing crime.
Background checks won't find criminals. Criminals get guns illegally.
Many states don't impose waiting periods before taking possession of a firearm.
Private sales of guns represent a loophole in the laws.
Improvements in mental health reporting are needed.
Other factors in violent shootings play a role, e.g. mental illness, violent video games.


The point of controversy for gun control advocates vs. pro gun advocates, is that the former believes that guns are to blame, the latter believes the person is to blame. The lens with which you see this issue will determine how you feel it should be dealt with. However, when deciding where you stand on the Second Amendment, get armed with the facts.