gun regulation please

I wrote this a while ago: might as well post it now or never.

Gun control is something that I’ve switched stances on during my lifetime. As an idealist, it’s wonderful to proclaim guns as a necessary tool to protect our individuality and a great sport for hunting. We need guns to protect us from an oppressive government; that’s precisely why the Founding Fathers put in the Second Amendment. Oh, and it’s a great way to protect yourself. Think for a second: if everyone carried a gun, then homicide would logically not be such a big issue. After all, once one person opens fire, then others would immediately shoot him back, preventing a homicidal rampage, right?

Wrong. Very smart statisticians have made it clear that having a gun in your home makes you much more likely to be shot – by accident, suicide or homicide (I wouldn’t read this if I were you, but here’s my source: http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayres/Ayres_Donohue_article.pdf). Any logical thinker not swayed by excessive patriotism and affinity to the gun culture will realize that the Second Amendment is outdated: to prevent a dictatorship from when the country was still young. China is a place I’d like to cite as being a country with a strong police presence and extensive gun control – and yet you will almost never hear about gun violence. Sure, there are a few exceptional cases here and there, but nothing remotely close to the amount US has (and it’s not because of media censorship). We criticize China as a tyrant to its people, but in exchange for what you Americans call “freedom,” its government actually works to protect its people.

Sure, people like to hunt for sport. But it’s hard to justify the use of handguns (especially semi-automatic ones) and extended magazines for any purpose other than to shoot other people. The lack of gun regulation in America is a huge public health concern; just because the swimming pool kills more people annually than guns do doesn’t make it any less of a problem. A gun is still a weapon; don’t you find it strange that police officers can give tickets for a person not wearing a seatbelt or arrest minors for underaged drinking or smoking, and yet can’t ban guns and accessories which often serve no purpose other than for killing?