This article will be controversial to some people. Now, most likely, since you’re reading this site, you won’t find this article to be controversial, but, certainly, some people in the world will be shocked by what I’m about to say:
You should support universal gun rights.
Now, unlike advocating gun control, there are sane, rational arguments for universal gun rights. Since I’m writing in the United States, I’m going to start with what should be the only argument necessary: the Constitutional issue.
To put it simply: the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Full stop. No exceptions. And, just to be clear, the Second Amendment did not place any limitation on the definition of “arms.” This means, for those who aren’t familiar with a dictionary, that any weapon is allowed Constitutionally.
But, since there are people who don’t care about real rights (and tend to want to make up other non-existent rights), let’s take the argument to a practical level: self-defense. T.J. Roberts says it well:
Anyone can kill anyone with a gun. That is one of the purposes of weapons. It is important to realize, however, that guns have saved far more lives than they have ended. Studies show that there are anywhere between 500,000 to 3 million defensive gun uses per year in America. The threat of immediate lethal force is a powerful deterrent to crime. In an overwhelming majority of these defensive gun uses, no one died or suffered injuries. The mere presence of a gun is frequently enough to stop a violent crime. People with guns save lives. Anytime someone talks about gun homicides (approximately 35,000 gun deaths occurred in 2017 with 22,274 of these being suicides and many of the homicides being self defense) and gun injuries (approximately 90,000 gun injuries occurred in 2017), they are lying if they do not talk about how guns save lives.
And, if that isn’t clear enough, let me remind you that a gun isn’t going to fire on it’s own. It will have to have had some intervention at some point in order to go off (Yes, even a dropped gun had to be loaded by someone). Thus, the gun is never at fault and is morally neutral. But your right to protect yourself and your family is not morally neutral. It is absolutely your right.
Because everyone has the right to protect themselves, everyone has the right to bear arms. Now, it’s time that we re-educate our governments to the truth of this and protect our right to bear arms.