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Whether you want to see it as a "God-given right" or simply the prerogative of every living creature, the right to defend oneself and one's household is as inalienable as rights come; it's what the Second Amendment to the Constitution was created to protect. Adequate self-defense means ownership of the means that may be used against you, and US law confirms this (Rowe 1).

In 2015, the US reached a point where there were more guns in the country than people. Statistics on ownership of these guns are unreliable and mostly unavailable, so it's impossible to know how many of these guns are legally owned and how many are illegally possessed. If a person intent on doing harm wants to get a gun, they either have one already, or can easily get one (Rowe 1).

No nation is free of murder and assault. Granted, guns do make the job easier, but in places like the UK, knives and blunt objects are still regularly used for acts of assault. It is true that victims of assault are more likely to survive, but the raw rate of assaults in gun-banning nations isn't much lower than it is in America (Rowe 1).

Murder rates have been dropping steadily since they peaked in 1994. In fact, over the last 20 years, the murder rate has dropped by half – while the number of guns in circulation has increased (Rowe 1).

Statisticians believe the drop in murders is attributable to a number of factors (Rowe 1).

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If the government restricts types of rifles or limits the amount of rounds, there’s no limit to what else they will restrict. The infringement of your constitutional rights won’t just stop at the type of arms you can bear. Who knows what other rights they’ll take away… free speech, freedom of religion (“If You Believe in Gun Control” 1)...

I’m referring to the first modern mass shooting in Austin, Texas in 1966. A sniper in a tower shot at University of Austin students for 90 minutes. The police who reacted had help. Students went to their trucks and grabbed their rifles and shot along side of the police. It was enough to pin the shooter down and allow the police to take the shooter out. Police then thanked the civilians for helping them fire on the shooter (“If You Believe in Gun Control” 1).

The people who prospered during Prohibition by importing and supplying alcohol were gangsters like Al Capone. If gun control were in place, the people we’d really have to worry about would be the modern-day Al Capone supplying guns(“If You Believe in Gun Control” 1).

This is simple enough. Gun control does not address the issue of gun-related crimes. In 2010, gun sales in Chicago were verboten. There were 432 murders in 2010 and 500 in 2012. The FBI named Chicago the nation’s murder capital. If a criminal is going to break the law, they will find a way(“If You Believe in Gun Control” 1).

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D.C. still has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and consequently is one of the most dangerous places in the country to live, but the facts clearly show that homicides in D.C. rose after the ban was implemented and then subsequently declined after the Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional(Bandler 1).

In Britain's case, the Crime Research Prevention Center found that after the gun ban was implemented, there was initially a severe increase in the homicide rate, followed by a gradual decline once Britain beefed up their police force. However, there has only been one year where the homicide rate was lower than it was pre-ban (Bandler 1)

3. The vast majority of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones. The Crime Research Prevention Center determined that since 1950, nearly 99 percent of mass public shootings have occurred in gun-free zones. The terror attack in Orlando, FL and the shooting that murdered singer Christina Grimmie in June also took place in gun-free zones. The reason is obvious: deranged murderers want to be in a position to murder as many as possible, so they target areas where they're least likely to find armed resistance, which happen to be gun-free zones(Bandler 1).

4. According to Lott, there is a clear correlation between higher firearm ownership and reducing police killings. The conclusion he came to was that there is a 3.6 percent decrease in police killings for every percentage point increase in those owning a firearm. Naturally, the inverse was also true: Lott found that "from 2013 to 2015, the six states (plus the District of Columbia) that banned open carry actually experienced higher rates of police death (20.2 versus 17.3 per 100,000 officers) (Bandler 1).

No wonder a recent National Association of Chiefs of Police survey found that 86.4 percent of 20,000 police chiefs and sheriffs support concealed carry and are overwhelmingly against further gun control. In light of the recent murders of cops, it has become even more important to have an armed citizenry (Bandler 1).

5. There is also a correlation between fewer mass public shootings and higher gun ownership. According to Lott and the University of Chicago's Bill Landes, between 1977 and 1999 "right-to-carry laws reduced both the frequency and the severity of mass public shootings; and to the extent to which mass shootings still occurred, they took place in those tiny areas in the states where permitted concealed handguns were not allowed (Bandler 1).”

6. As the number of guns per person has increased, gun violence has declined. This is according to the Centers for Disease Control, which found that gun ownership increased by 56 percent, and yet gun violence declined by almost 50 percent between 1993 and 2003. If the premise of gun control zealots were correct, then wouldn't gun violence have increased during that period of time (Bandler 1)?

7. The number of defensive gun uses are higher than the number of criminal firearm uses. There was a range of 500,000 to over 3 million defensive gun uses in 2013, according to research from the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council published by the CDC. That same year, there were 11,208 firearm homicides and 414,562 nonfatal illegal gun uses, according to the CDC and National Justice Institute, respectively. Even when taking the low end of the defensive gun uses, it's clear that there are more defensive gun uses than criminal gun uses by Americans (Bandler 1)

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https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/06/second-amendment-not-responsible-easy-gun-access/

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http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/10/04/tammy-bruce-why-gun-control-wont-end-mass-murder.html

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“Here's Why Gun Control Doesn't Make Sense Right Now.” Ranker, m.ranker.com/list/arguments-against-gun-control/richard-rowe.

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“If You Believe in ‘Gun Control," This Is Probably Not for You...” The Crux, www.thecrux.com/ten-powerful-arguments-against-gun-control/.

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Bandler, Aaron. “7 Facts On Gun Crime That Show Gun Control Doesn't Work.” Daily Wire, The Daily Wire, 28 July 2016, www.dailywire.com/news/7872/7-facts-gun-crime-show-gun-control-doesnt-work-aaron-bandler.