The idea that having a gun makes you safer is one of the most commonly quoted but most problematic facts used in this debate. Households with guns have higher incidents of accidental deaths, suicides and also higher rates of murders during robberies. Someone breaking into a house that he knows has a gun is also more likely to bring one himself (read this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2759797/)

Guns may sometimes prove useful in defensive situations, but as I said (and you then said, as if in argument with me), defensive weapons and weapons used in attack cannot be separated, they are the same objects. Given the price that the US is paying for the "safety" granted by the extremely high gun ownership statistics, it is obvious to everyone else in the world that having a gun is not an answer. If having a gun makes you so much safer, and gun ownership in the US is higher than any other western country (at a ratio of almost 1:1), then why are more people killed by guns in the US than in any other western country, even in relation to population size (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate)? This is of course not the whole problem, but it plays a large part.
I think the crime problems in Chicago cannot be tied only to the number of firearms, it is a city that has many socio-economic problems. You could as easily say that it is due to the fact that you have less rain in Arizona… You have to look at all the cities in the US, the percentage of gun ownership and the number of firearms deaths, and then factor in other things such as socio-economic factors. Anecdotal evidence means nothing. The fact that there are a huge number of illegal firearms there is also a side-effect of the ease with which legal firearms can be acquired and how many firearms there are in the country in general.

I am personally of the opinion that any weapon the government has at its disposal should be available to all citizens….my father, back in the 80s had a chance to buy an anti-tank gun. He didn't but if he wanted to. He should be able too. Anyone, mentally sound, with no criminal background should be able to buy any weapon they wish. Freedom is not an easy concept to ensure but an armed society is a more politer society. Compare Phoenix, Arizona ( where I live) vs Chicago, Il (strictest gun control in the country). We have less shootings, less robberies, less crime. Why? We can be packing heat. And you never really know if someone is carrying their weapon concealled. In 1988, Willie Horton, a bank robber was quoted that he robs banks because that is where the money is. Well, if you are going to be a thief, where would you prefer to be a thief? A place where the government restricts weapons or a place where you have to roll the dice praying the homeowner does not have a gun? I know my answer.

I have no idea where you got the 4% argument from, I have heard very different figures elsewhere. Case in point, all weapons used in Sandy Hook were legally acquired. It is true that the black market in the US is flooded with weapons, this is greatly helped by the ease with which weapons can be legally acquired.

I have no idea where you got the 4% argument from, I have heard very different figures elsewhere. Case in point, all weapons used in Sandy Hook were legally acquired. It is true that the black market in the US is flooded with weapons, this is greatly helped by the ease with which weapons can be legally acquired.

Crafty, nefarious Obama and his criminal Attorney General Erich Holder sold high power weapons to the Mexican drug cartel under the BATF,'s Fast and Furious criminal enterprise and many innocent people died and the government and their media whores covered it up while the sleeping public never demanded any accountability.
You have to be a fool to trust the corrupt US Government.

Fundamentally, way before questions of individual or civil rights, of taxation and redistribution, of the attainment of national values and dreams, politics has a very simple goal which is to protect human life except for the innocent, defenseless unborn babies in their mothers womb, then we will do like the Nazi's and give them a subhuman face and name then a fetus and kill them without pity or remorse.
No funerals for the pre-borns we murder under government law. That is the new death culture of the West that has far outdone Adolph's genocide by millions of dead.
Is it any wonder why life is so cheap in America's elementary schools today?

Crafty, nefarious Obama and his criminal Attorney General Erich Holder sold high power weapons to the Mexican drug cartel under the BATF,'s Fast and Furious criminal enterprise and many innocent people died and the government and their media whores covered it up while the sleeping public never demanded any accountability.
You have to be a fool to trust the corrupt US Government.

Fundamentally, way before questions of individual or civil rights, of taxation and redistribution, of the attainment of national values and dreams, politics has a very simple goal which is to protect human life except for the innocent, defenseless unborn babies in their mothers womb, then we will do like the Nazi's and give them a subhuman face and name then a fetus and kill them without pity or remorse.
No funerals for the pre-borns we murder under government law. That is the new death culture of the West that has far outdone Adolph's genocide by millions of dead.
Is it any wonder why life is so cheap in America's elementary schools today?