Gun Control.

This is such a hot topic. People on both sides of the issue tend to take it way too far. As for me, I am for guns, but only in a smart way. Banning guns is not going to make crime go away, nor is it even going to make crime go down. Unless you can find a way to make all the of the guns in the entire world, the blueprints for these guns, and the knowledge already held by people to instantly disappear and never come back, criminals are still going to find a way to get guns and use them. The very definition of a criminal is someone that doesn't follow laws, as such they are not going to listen to gun ban laws and not arm themselves.

So, by completely banning guns all you are going to do is take them away from law abiding citizens. Let's not tip toe around it either. I am talking about the ability for someone to respond to being robbed, mugged, raped, etc via the use of a handgun. There are tons of studies out there that show crime rates go down when you legalize concealed carry laws. I would link to some but when I do I always get then "That's just biased, those numbers don't mean anything." Of course, numbers can always be biased. Remember, 80% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

However, lets look at this in another way. Say that you and two of your friends are walking down a city street. In the shadows is a criminal with a gun. Now, he knows that since these city has completely banned guns most likely the three people approaching him have no weapons. This means that his gun gives him the ability to do whatever he wants to those people. However, if it is in a city that allows carry concealed he has to stop and think, "What if those three are both better armed and better shots than me?".

Guns are a tool. Yes they are a tool for the taking of another life, yet you could also say that they are a tool that allows someone to protect themselves by having the means of taking the life of someone that is threatening to take theirs. I think a lot of the more militant complete gun ban comes from peoples fear of guns. They are scary, made to seem scary, as such I think a lot of people just have a knee jerk reaction that guns=bad.

All that being said though, allow to say that I am not for complete and total unrestricted gun ownership. There is a large percentage of idiots out there. They don't need to be legally carrying a gun around with them everywhere they go. That's where the permit part comes in. If you can't pass a simple class, or a simple background check you don't need a permit. Along with that, if you do have a permit you don't need a full machine gun. Even the military has gotten away from weapons that are fully automatic. A machine gun is a strategic weapon used as support, not a tactical weapon used in hunting or home protection.

Yes, I do believe that there are certain restrictions that should be placed on weapon ownership. As for the assault weapon ban, can we just forget that now? It was mostly a cosmetic ban, and designed to scare people. Let's have a little lesson here. Fully automatic-You pull the trigger the gun keeps firing until you run out of bullets in the clip. Semi-automatic- You pull the trigger one round is fired, the recoil action chambers the next round. If you want to shoot again, you have to pull the trigger. Now do you see the difference? Yes I agree that your average person does not need a fully automatic weapon, but there is nothing wrong with semi-automatic.

Basically, I say legalize concealed carry nationwide. Have a permit system for it. As for gun control, ban fully automatic gun but nothing else. I mean, yes there are some rifle out there that look really scary and militant. But guess what? If they are semi-automatic then they are pretty much the exact same as the not so scary looking guns. As for the banning the high capacity clips? That's an exercise in futility. There is not difference between one clip that can hold 30 rounds and 3 clips that can hold 10 rounds in the hands of someone that is even passingly good at changing clips.