I heard of this small town. The mayor ran on one thing: Guns. He promised to GIVE a gun and lessons to every resident of his town. WAIT! The funny part is coming still. After that happened crime essentially STOPPED! There were no criminals ballsy enough to take the off chance the person or home he was going to rob didn't have the gun with them.

I would personally argue that the main reason there is so much gun violence in the United States is the distribution of wealth in the United States is one of the least equal in the world; it is similar to countries like Brazil, China and other countries where the wealthy need bodyguards to prevent them from being killed for the money they carry around with them. On top of this, the war on drugs has created an industry where the most violent person and dangerous people are rewarded ...

Of course you can't, but you can eliminate one of the most deadly and destructive weapons they have available to do so.

As for the protection argument: There is signifficant statistical evidence that shows that owning a gun in no way lowers your chances of being the victim of a violent crime, and signifficantly increases the ratio of gun related deaths in and around the household.  As Rath said, trying to use your gun against someone using a gun on you is simply pure stupidity.  

You had a midly reasonable argument until, "it'd probably save Americans though."

Also there is a reason people in a lot of southern states can leave there houses unlocked, because everyone knows there is a guy with a shotgun inside.

That's a perfectly reasonable argument for America's relatively high crime rate, but we can't just group crime and gun violence together. Gun violence is a type of crime, but it's not all crime, and most gun related deaths (as shown above) are simply idiots killing themselves and their families on accident.  Again, there is signifficant evidence that the ability to posess firearms raises homicide and suicide rates signifficantly.

 In the time it took you to post this I was adding to my other so see that also.  

 I agree 100% with the mugging part, nothing I own is worth my life, but I think burglary is a fundamentally different scenario.  First, your average burglar is most likely less gutsy than your average mugger because generaly burglars don't have to face anyone, they just grab the stuff and run.  Second, houses have multiple rooms, and if he's on the other side of the house you're not in immediate danger reaching for your gun, assuming it's close by.  You shouldn't go to him, but you'd be prepared if he came to you.   

The length of this thread does seem to prove gun rights are an important issue to many.

If 'nerds' who never leave there homes care this much...you can imagine how big the issue really must be!

It's a little off topic, but has anyone here read Freakonomics? The author has some pretty interesting ideas about the reason for the decline in crime in the 90's

The reality of the situation is this. The Constitution of the United States is not an inviolable document. Entire passages can be nullified, and amendments can be rescinded. The precedent stands for such occurrences and thus they are utterly legal. These are the consequences of the removal of legal slavery, and the right to get blind drunk legally.

The Constitution like any religious text is subject to either a literal or subjective interpretation. This goes towards the intent of the document to preserve the public good. Which is the purpose of all government well all good government. Many of the principles that we hold so dear are actually only subjective determinations. The constitution does not forbid after all state religion. However it is implied that there is to be a separation, because the freedom of religion would be impacted by a state religion enforcing religious laws. With which certain individuals might take exception.

The second amendment embodies an ideal which sadly is antiquated. The majority of citizens no longer have a legitimate need for firearms, and more specifically have no need for weaponry which could be described as instruments of mass terror. We have to be realistic at the time a single man with a gun was only so much of a threat. He had one gun one shot. Now we have weaponry that in short order can dispatch dozens of people.

There isn't actually a logical defense to highly effective firearms. Which by the way are not hunting weapons. The statistics bare out that they are poor defensive implements. Usually being more hazardous to the owner, his family, and innocent neighbors then to any burglar. They aren't even a effective anarchist statement since in a state of rebellion the government would have the incredible military edge over your average citizen. We have to rely on the integrity of our military to disobey orders contrary to the public good. Your assault pistol isn't going to be very effective against a fuel air bomb, or against a military sniper at two thousand yards.

I think you will find that the Supreme Court is going to uphold gun control bans, but it isn't the end of the world the real gun fanatics will go to Montana where it will probably be very legal for a very long time.