The Right to Bear Arms

(I always read bear as in ursidae, but let's not begin with a digression.)

The Second Amendment is basically the right to protect your family and home with force against those who would harm them.

A lot of people choose to believe the odds are on their side, and that this will never be necessary. Alternately, they believe the odds are against them and their own gun would harm their own family.

Others would rather be prepared for the worst case scenario.

Personally, I have no problem with the right of law-abiding Americans to own guns. I also have no problem with reasonable requirements being met before the sale of a firearm.

What I do take issue with is the rhetoric from both sides. They feed on fear and ignorance.

The truth is, we don't have a gun problem--we have a cultural problem. If you look at Sweden, for example, they have a very high percentage of gun owners but a low rate of homicides. Even looking state-by-state, New Hampshire has a low rate of homicides (.9 per 100,000 people in 2009) while Louisiana is sky-high (12.3 per 100,000 people in 2009). Neither Louisiana nor New Hampshire require permits or registration to own handguns, and both are shall-issue concealed carry states.

The District of Columbia has extremely strict gun laws, and their 2009 homicide rate was 24.2 per 100,000 people. To be fair, they don't have a low-crime rural population to balance them out like a state would, but New York City's murder rate with only slightly less stringent gun laws was 5.6 per 100,000 people in 2009.

Drugs are illegal, yet somehow anyone who is so inclined manages to get ahold of them; I doubt a ban on guns would be much different. Gun violence is an issue that goes much deeper than gun control: what we need to do is figure out the root of the problem and work on that.