With the ever-increasing crimes such as home invasions, reductions to budgets for police protection, increasing unrest between races and classes, and the slow, but steady emergence of the "Big Brother" government, I'll keep my own firearms, thank you.

If you put it into perspective, Osama bin Laden would need at least nine twin towers like attacks each year to equal what Americans do to themselves every year with
guns.

What a moronic hypothetical. Guns do exist, are you going to make them "not exist"?.
WTF. And since they do exist do you propose they only are held by those who presume to use them for "our own good'. How old are you anyway? Are you really that naive? Or just stupid?

No. No. 32. No. Maybe.

Christian, if you do an internet search for rankings by country of homicides per 100,000 of the population (Wikipedia has one), you will see that the U.S. is very far from the the highest homicide rate out of all the world's countries. Many of these countries with far worse rates either have low gun ownership or gun ownership is very restricted by law. Just looking at this list shows other factors such as demographics and culture which could have a far greater influence than simple gun ownership. The problem I see is that gun ownership is the typical easy target. Eliminating private ownership of guns would have no real effect on the homicide rate in this country. It would only serve as a temporary "feel good" action for those who want to control the masses with legislation.

I do not own a gun, but I do support the 2nd amendment. All said, I don't believe guns are the issue. I believe the issue is the society we live in. This article illustrates differences between Switzerland and the US. (http://www.ibtimes.com/us-gun-control-debate-what-can-we-learn-switzerland-732104) The Swiss have very relaxed gun laws and very low crime rates. Their society is much different. People kill people with guns. take guns away, they will find a different weapon.

To M. Sullivan: I completely agree with you that there are many factors besides gun ownership rate which influence the rate of violent gun crimes. As I had written previously somewhere in this comment section I believe that economic inequality has a tremendous impact on this phenomenon. Also perhaps I could have been clearer against whom I believe we should compare ourselves to. There are many nations with far worse statistics than the United States, Panama and Swaziland come to mind. But I don't believe a meaningful comparison can be made. But I do believe western Europe, Canada etc. can be used in this discussion because of our similarity. Even Australia, which organizations like the NRA like to use as a posterchild against gun control, has a far lower rate of violent firearms-related crime than we do. I am currently working on my next post which will address some of the factors which you and I seem to agree also influence gun violence besides ownership policy.

Forks and spoons are the leading cause of obesity following the insane logic of the writer.

Gun ownership is at all time highs and violent crime has decreased nationally.
Anti civil rights people like the writer use emotion instead of reason and facts.

Mothers kill hundreds of their own children every year. It is called filicide.

"When a young child is murdered, the most frequent perpetrator is a victim's parent or stepparent (1). Rates of infanticide parallel suicide rates rather than murder rates (2). The risk of being a homicide victim is highest during the first year of life (3-5). Though the US has the highest rates of child homicide (8.0/100,000 for infants, 2.5/100,000 for preschool-age children, and 1.5/100,000 for school-age children), the problem of child homicide transcends national boundaries (6). These rates of child murder are probably underestimates, due to inaccurate coroner rulings and some bodies never being discovered (4,7,8)."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2174580/

"More than 200 women in the United States kill their children every year according to aaanet.org."

A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.

(B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000.

(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171

Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Now think about this:

(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. (Yes, that's 80 million)

(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.

(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188

Statistics courtesy of the FBI

I'll keep my firearms and be very wary of my doctors.

To Mike Petrella: Switzerland is very frequently used as an example of low violent crime and relaxed gun ownership policy but that isn't really true. Firstly Switzerland is a tiny nation with virtually zero poverty, largely the result of its welfare state model, I am not trying to start a discussion on the merits and disadvantages of a welfare state, but it's a point that I believe is worth mentioning. Secondly, and I think more importantly, gun ownership is highly controlled. Just because every able-bodied male is required to keep his service rifle does not mean their gun laws are relaxed. Ownership of firearms other than the service rifle is almost non-existent. Ammunition is tightly controlled and the government maintains the inventory rolls each and every year. If a citizen (who are also members of the military which is why they get the rifle in the first place) cannot account for his rifle and ammunition it is a very, very serious issue. That is a very different scenario from Pa Kettle and his buckshot or a drug dealer in Baltimore City. That kind of gun control, while effective, would be unthinkable in this country.

Thank you all for this discussion. Here is an interesting article if you are curious about Switzerland. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/de-quilling-the-porcupine-swiss-mull-tighter-gun-laws-a-480545.html

The writer opines "But what I can say is that if there were no guns in our society....."

Well, follow that logic to its end. If there were no evil people guns would not be an issue.

That article is for the purposes of demonstrating that a discussion is taking place in many countries, not just here. Since the publication of that article, voters rejected the referendum to ban home storage of rifles but ammunition is rarely stored at home anymore in Switzerland. Let me also state that I was a Machine Gunner in the Marine Corps and a police officer. I am not advocating the repeal of the 2nd Amendment.

"It doesn’t matter how much money the NRA pours into its efforts to highjack America’s founding fathers into advocating a position that many of them would have found abhorrent."

And you channeled which of them to make that absurd assumption? Read the Federalist papers and why the 2nd was demand by the same founders you seem to be speaking for.

who is going to protect me and my family at our house? the county police? by the time they put away the coffee and donuts the bad guy will be gone and drinking a beer.

you never need a gun until you need one badly. remember, it is called the second amendment, not the second suggestion..

Firearms save as many if not more lives than they take.
Fact! Not emotional pablum.

"Armed bystander stops stabbing outside school"
http://www.woai.com/mostpopular/story/Armed-bystander-stops-stabbing-outside-school/6zTYMpy8pUOeyrbElEBOTQ.cspx

"92-year-old man shoots, kills alleged burglar"
http://freebeacon.com/24981/

"Winslow Township Pharmacist Fires Handgun At Would-Be Robber"
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/09/12/winslow-township-pharmacist-fires-handgun-at-would-be-robber/

"12-year-old Oklahoma girl shoots intruder"
http://www.koco.com/news/oklahomanews/around-oklahoma/12-year-old-Oklahoma-girl-shoots-intruder/-/12530084/17053634/-/142tpxt/-/index.html

"Update: Dollar General robbery suspect charged with murder"
http://www.wokv.com/news/news/local/customer-shoots-robber-dead/nRLjK/

"The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office says a customer at the store on Dunn Avenue shot 22 year-old Rakeem Odoms three times when Odoms refused to hand over his gun.

Odom's partner, 19 year-old Aundre Campbell, fled the scene and has since been caught by police.

He faces a felony murder charge for Odom's death because it happened while he was committing a crime.

The 57-year-old grandfather who shot Odoms was doing some late-night shopping at the Dollar General store on Dunn Avenue when all of the sudden, two men stormed in and tried robbing it."

Now you did it. You are going to get cut and pasted to death by JoeBlob. He is going to scour the internet and find every example of anyone ever using a gun for self defense and paste it here. It's his common defense when he feels he is losing an argument.

It's his version of a little kid sticking his fingers in his ears and going "La,La, La Laaa!"

Mr Erickson, the "American gun culture" is LAW ABIDING American's for centuries using firearms for sustenance, safety, protection and recreation and since the Bill of Rights, Americans exercising their God given right and the guarantee WE the People wrote into the Constitution. It is NOT the urban problem we see today with the vast majority of murderers being prior criminals. It is NOT the use of firearms for evil.

LOL "Urban problem" First you get caught perpetuating hoax e-mails, now you get caught trying to use racist code speak.

In the words of the famous Antoine Dodson "You are Dumb. You are sooo Dumb."

You posted a hoax e-mail and tried to pass it off as your own idea.

Didn't fly.

Then you use your racist code speak referring to the "urban problem". Studies have repeatedly shown that deaths by firearms are evenly distributed between urban and rural areas.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/405837

The website must have changed something. I linked to the actual study. Here is a synopsis:

http://www.kbtx.com/health/headlines/94916809.html

Don't be silly. Everybody knows exactly what you mean when you and your ilk through your code words out there. Don't try to play dumb.......

It doesn't matter if they are child deaths or adult deaths the same thing holds true. There are as many rural deaths by firearm as their are urban deaths.

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/ficap/forum/docs/dec03branas.pdf

You are the only one flailing here. MAybe it's time for you to post a hoax e-mail or start with one of your "Lawnmowers can kill people. Why don't we ban lawnmowers." crapola.

Joe and Steve,
Stop the fighting. Bottom line. Americans are granted the right to possess and carry firearms by the 2nd amendment if you are not a felon, criminal, or have any domestic violence charges against you. I am all for an extensive background check to make sure the individual is sound and can legally purchase a firearm. But once I pass all of this, I should be able to carry and use a firearm to protect me and my family from criminals and our government.

Steve does not want you to talk about facts and truths. Instead, yes, wait for it, yes, here it comes......the race card. After being proven wrong time and time again on this site, he once again resorts to using the race card. But one question he will not be answering anytime soon is this:

If asking for voter id discriminates against those that are poor or minorities, is it not racist and bigoted to ask us to show or id in purchasing a firearm in the background check process?

As far as Christian, you guys should have sniffed this out miles and miles away. His next article will talk about the "economic inequalities" of inner cities as being the reason for violence, and not the cultural flaws that make it acceptable for violence to flourish in the first place. Soon after that post, we will start hearing about how if only they took 10 percent or more out of bank accounts past the FDIC insurance limit and transferred the funds to "urban" banks, the violence would all melt away like the wicked witch of the west.

If I may, I would also like to bring up the fact that Christian goes into that same tired mold of trying to equivocate the 2nd amendment and modern society and make statements about the 2nd amendment being only viable to a frontier country. Does that, in effect, mean Christian that the 1st amendment does not apply to the internet, smart phones, cell phones, tv, and dvds and netflix, or even cable because the 1st amendment does not specify them?

"After being proven wrong time and time again on this site,...."

You've never proven me wrong even one time, Escargot.

Tony, Louisiana just passed legislation which gives Felons the right to carry firearms in public. The 2nd Amendment doesn't exclude Felons and doesn't even mention "law abiding".

Steve, you are right, the 2nd amendment does not exclude Felons or mentally disturbed. Once you are convicted of a felony you lose certain rights by the definition of a felon. We have a real problem with Common Sense in this country. Common sense would tell you not to allow weapons to get into the hands of the mentally ill, criminals, those convicted of a felony.

Our state and federal governments are about as messed up as they can get.