Experts estimate that there are presently in excess of 200 million guns in the United States, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms(BATF). Each year this number grows by 4 to 5 million. There are 60 to 65 million legal owners of one or more guns. There is a firearm on the premises of more than half the households in America. Most of them keep guns for protection. The others keep them for hunting, target shooting, collecting, and similar pursuits. .
In recent years nearly 35,000 people have been killed annually by guns in the United States. These deaths include 15,000 murders, 18,000 suicides, and 1,500 accidents. It is because of these statistics that many would like to ban guns altogether. But is that really in your best interest? Would it really benefit this country, or reduce the number of murders in this country? Consider the evidence in this article and you will see that guns should not be outlawed and that less gun control in necessary to preserve what the founders of this country believed in. .
Guns can help prevent crime. This is a view held by many opponents to gun control. The criminals themselves agree. In Alan Gottliebs Gun Rights Fact Book , he claims that as part of a three - year study by the U. S. Department of Justice, criminals in prisons across the nation were interviewed. "Sixty percent feared being shot by an armed citizen more than being shot by the police." " fifty - three percent did not commit a specific crime because they were afraid the victim was armed." " Fifty - seven percent of them were scared off by an armed victim who either brandished a gun or actually fired it." This alone shows that crime would drop if more citizens owned, carried and knew how to use guns. .
Neil Bernard, the author of Gun Control, recalls a story in which one such case involved eleven - year old Jason Green of Houston, Texas. Home alone one night, he heard noises in the house.