Wrtiting an essay on the benefits of guns

[BigMat]

Another thing that comes to mind for me.

People often compare the US and the UK in terms of crime rates and gun laws. If one was to get into comparisons I think one that would be far more accurate and informational would be the US and Mexico. Geographically the two are far more similar, i.e. NOT AN ISLAND, and culturally the two are far more similar. New World and all that involves for the people and their beliefs(independent, trouble with authority), Large racial divides, NOT AN ISLAND, large imported drug problems, gang cultures. I could go on. In any event, Mexico has some of the worlds strictest gun laws, we do not. There is no need to explain the difference in crime rates.

[Irving]

You have to be careful with the peaceful checks and balance thing. It IS true, and I whole heartedly agree with it, but it is easily countered with a slippery slope or sliding scale argument.

For instance, yesterday I read an article about "Women as young as 2 years old vicitms of rape in tent cities in haiti." The article talked about men with holding food from women and demanding sexual favors. The first thought that came into my head was that those guys deserve a bullet to the face, then, that wouldn't be an issue if one in five people had a firearm to prevent rapes.

However, I was careful not to make that comment, because I just KNEW that some gun grabbing, surrender monkey would just turn that around on me and say that the people with guns would turn around and rape women AND steal food. So build your argument carefully. You could re-enforce the CCW issue by explaining the laws about displaying or threatening with firearms. So the combination of wanting to keep your gun rights and wanting to appear unarmed, helps maintain an appropriate balance. This is evidenced by the US not being the wild west that surrender monkeys fantasize about all the time.

[KFinn]

Biggest benefit: Peaceful check and balance. Politics runs up against an invisible barrier where politicians worry about *issing off the populace to the point where they take up arms. This may sound ridiculous at first, but look at the current admins labeling of domestic extremists, some of the "Obama" quotes and their complete unwillingness to tackle "gun control" and certain other issues now, despite that being one of the biggest elements of their campaign platform. Not because they don't want to, because they fear what will happen to them if they do (not getting reelected or worse) There is always a degree of corruption in politics. Firearm ownership is THE check and balance that ensures we will continue holding elections for a long time in the future. Firearm ownership also protects minority opinions. Because you don't have to *iss off the entire country, you just need to *iss off a small number of them badly enough - so it helps us avoid becoming a true democracy (which many liberals really want us to be) AKA mob rule (we are a republic).
All this benefit without a shot being fired. This is also the underlying intent of the second amendment. Contrary to what hollywood and liberals would want you to believe, the 2A has absolutely nothing to do with hunting.

The more "control" you have, and the greater difference between forces (military, peace officer, civilian) the less effect this check and balance has. Which is part of the reason many politicians push for "gun control" in the first place.

And force equalizer - as has been mentioned, that is not in regards to the military. It's in regards to a 90 year old grandma defending against a 6'4" 260 pound assailant. Firearms are pretty much the only thing that can "level" the playing field.

Great write up !!!!!!

[SA Friday]

This might help you out. This site has saved me hours of reviewing in whatever english book for the right format for my citations. You still have to understand the basics, but you can plug in your info and get a properly formatted citation for your reference page from here. It's the most accurate I've found so far, but it still will occasionally throw out a wierd punctionation in the citation.

http://www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/index.php