my goodness how this thread has come to give me a headache..
1. in confrontations under 30ft, its been pretty well demonstrated that hands are better than pistols. watch some Philippine police training tapes.. basically, action is faster than reaction..
IF, you know what your doing... the gun is worthless.. otherwise a gun is a handy thing to have in a less than professional situation..
2. there are a buttload of statistics that show that guns are very good for defense.
c. the american fascination with guns, and personal ownership is a fundamental part of our system.
personal ownership of firearms has nothing at all to do with defense from criminals, or anything of that sort. guns = freedom. specifically freedom from tyrannical government and public defense.
also, consider here
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/311.html (generally says unless your a part of the regular military/guard or under/over aged your part of the militia..)
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."
-- Abraham Lincoln, 4 April 1861
"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms."
-- Constitutional scholar Joseph Story, 1840
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
-- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."
-- Patrick Henry, speech of June 5 1788
"To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
-- George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
-- John F. Kennedy
ya, i know i hand picked my quotes... there are lots of eloquent quotes that defend the opposite argument..
a gun can be the tool of a murderer.. but the same is true of a car or hand..
the base purpose for a gun in the hands of an american citizen is defense of the public from all threats foreign and domestic.