Arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order in the world as well as property.
-- Thomas Paine, Writings of Thomas Paine

Sam,
How is it that the same people who insist that the 1st amendment provides shelter for pornographers (including pedophiles provided the images are computer generated), that the 14th amendment provides for the destruction of human life, even up to the moment of birth, and the right to commit sodomy (though nowhere in the language of the Constitution are these "rights" apparent), seem unable to discern the right to self defense in an amendment that specifically states, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed"?

In his arguments on behalf of British troops in the Boston Massacre, John Adams invoked the English Common Law of self-defense. The right to bear arms and the right to self defense predate the Constitution and were part of many state constitutions and Common Law before the federal constitution was written. The 2cd amendment simply affirmed a right the people already possessed and had exercised for centuries. It was not invented by Madison.

Your argument that the framers intent was to establish a national firearms collectors club, affirming a citizens right to possess arms while denying their right to use them in self defense is amusing. Please keep posting. It is only when arguments like yours are expressed that we see how truly lame they are.

Whoa there, Art...when did I frame any sort of argument? All I did was respond to your comment. I am a member of the NRA, gun owner and avid hunter. I have no problem with the 2nd Amendment, or anyone's right to own or use firearms. All I did was say that no where in the Constitution is it "enshrined" (using your words here, not mine) that firearms can be used for self-defense. That's wonderful that English Common Law and many state's constitutions protect the right to self-defense. All I'm stating is that the way our Constitution was written, along with the Bill of Rights, does nothing to "enshrine" a person's right to use a firearm in self defense.

"Your comment has been queued for moderation by site administrators and will be published after approval." Art, I think that my comments DO need to be approved before posting them! Thank you, Kurt!
As I posted elsewhere, it's very interesting how concerned folks are about the second amendment while the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th have been shredded by the Bush administration and the Patriot act. Seems that the Bill of Rights has bigger problems.
"It's also true that the "wild west", where everyone was armed, was considerably less violent than the eastern cities where gun restrictions were in place. While the media does not report it, every state that has enacted a "right to carry" law has seen their crime rate go down. More guns, less crime." A fascinating statement. I didn't see your source quoted?
Here are a few statistics along with their sources:

In 1992, handguns killed 33 people in Great Britain, 36 in Sweden, 97 in Switzerland, 60 in Japan, 13 in Australia, 128 in Canada, and 13,200 in the United States. [Handgun Control Inc., cited in The Washington Post, 1998]
In less than 2 years, more people are killed by handguns in the United States than were killed in the Korean War.

Annual rates of firearm homicides for youths age 15-19 increased 155% between 1989 and 1994. [National Summary of Injury Mortality Data, 1987-1994; National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 1996]

Between 1986 and 1992, the total number of children killed by firearms rose by 144 percent. [National Campaign to Reduce Youth Violence]

Handguns are used in 80 percent of homicides, nearly 70 percent of suicides and nearly all accidental shootings. [Prevention First]

Nearly 16 children a day died in 1997 as a result of a firearms homicide, suicide or unintentional shooting. [Children’s Defense Fund, 1998]

In the U.S., youth homicide rates are more than 10 times that of other leading industrialized nations, on par with the rates in developing countries and those experiencing rapid social and economic changes. The youth homicide rate in the U.S. stood at 11.0 per 100,000 compared to France (0.6 per 100 000), Germany (0.8 per 100 000), the United Kingdom (0.9 per 100 000) and Japan (0.4 per 100 000). [World Report on Violence and Health, World Health Organization 2002]

"Since insensitive remarks can lead to violence, and peace is the only legitimate objective......" I am always very careful to avoid insensitive remarks; and, though peace may not be the only legitimate objective, it is always an honorable one.

Your statistics are from an unreliable source at best. If you want to find out how tough it is to be an African American in the USA don't ask a member of the KKK.

Three out of four violent crimes committed in the U.S. do not involve firearms. Since 1991, the number of privately owned firearms in the U.S. has increased between 65-70 million, and the nation's murder rate has decreased 43%. (BATFE and FBI)

Right off the NRA Web Site: http://www.nraila.org//Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?ID=209

FABLE VI: Since firearm accidents are a large and growing problem, we need laws mandating how people store their firearms.

To the contrary, fatal firearm accidents in the United States have been decreasing dramatically from year to year, decade to decade.1 Today they're at an all-time low among the entire population and among children in particular, and account for only 1% of fatal accidents. More common are fatal accidents involving, or due to, motor vehicles, falls, fires, poisoning, drowning, choking on ingested objects and mistakes during medical care.2 Since 1930, the U.S. population has more than doubled, the number of privately owned firearms has quintupled, and the annual number of fatal firearm accidents has declined by 74%.3 Among children, fatal firearm accidents have declined 84% since 1975.4

Anti-gun activists exaggerate the number of firearm-related deaths among children more than 500%, by counting deaths among persons under the age of 20 as deaths of "children."5 To these activists a 19-year-old gangster who is shot by police during a convenience store robbery is a "child." In some instances, they even have pretended that persons under the age of 25 were "children," and Handgun Control, Inc., on at least one occasion, pretended that anyone under the age of 35 was a "child."6

Along with misrepresenting accident and other statistics in an effort to frighten people into not keeping guns in their homes, anti-gun activists also advocate "mandatory storage" laws (to require all gun owners to store their firearms unloaded and locked away) and "triggerlock" laws (to require some sort of locking device to be provided with every gun sold.) Both concepts are intended to prohibit or, at least, discourage people from keeping their firearms ready for protection against criminals--the most common reason many people buy firearms today.

NRA opposes such laws because it would be unreasonable and potentially dangerous to impose one storage requirement upon all gun owners. Individual gun owners have different factors to consider when determining how best to store their guns. They alone are capable of making the decision that is best for themselves. Gun safes and trigger locking devices have been on the market for years, of course, and remain available to anyone who decides that those products fit their individual needs.

Storage and triggerlock laws could also give people the false impression that it is safe to rely upon mechanical devices, rather than upon proper firearm handling procedures. Mechanical devices can fail and many trigger locking devices pose a danger when installed on loaded firearms.

Mandatory storage laws also would be virtually impossible to enforce without violating the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches. American gun owners and civil libertarians are keenly aware that in Great Britain, a mandatory storage law was a precursor to that country's prohibition on handgun ownership.

Most states provide penalties for reckless endangerment, under which an adult found grossly negligent in the storage of a firearm can be prosecuted for a criminal offense. Responsible gun owners already store their firearms safely, in accordance with their personal needs. Irresponsible persons are not likely to undergo a character change because of a law that restates their inherent responsibilities.

NRA recognizes that education has been the key to the decline in firearm accidents. NRA's network of 39,000 Certified Instructors and Coaches nationwide trains hundreds of thousands of gun owners each year. Separately, NRA's award-winning Eddie Eagle® Gun Safety Education program for children pre-K through 6th grade has reached more than 15 million youngsters nationwide. NRA's Home Firearm Safety Manual advises: "The proper storage of firearms is the responsibility of all gun owners," and that gun owners should "store guns so they are not accessible to untrained or unauthorized persons."

Frank,

Your first source, Handgun Control Inc., cites only the absolute number of murders. Since the U.S. has a larger population it stands to reason that it would have more homicides. The last source you cite, the WHO, correctly compares incidents per hundred thousand. It's important to note that in both cases they are apparently talking about all homicides not just those involving a firearm.

France, England, Sweden and Germany are small homogeneous countries. If compared with certain states or blocks of states with approximately the same demographics, say Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, etc., U.S. homicide statistics are about the same despite our greater gun ownership.

The Korean War claimed more than 33,000 American lives, so either the 13,200 figure is wrong, the "less than 2 years" time frame is wrong, or the statement is meaningless.

As for the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and the National Campaign to Reduce Youth Violence, these sources cite percentage increases without baselines making it impossible to judge their significance. For example: If one person were killed in 2000 and two were killed in 2001 that would be a 100 percent increase, but without knowing the size of the population, the baseline number of incidents, etc. the increase may be statistically meaningless.

You asked for sources so I will provide a few. Unlike you, I've tried to avoid interest groups like the Handgun Control inc. or the NRA. If you follow the link you will find the entire document.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice:

The National Crime Victimization Survey for 2005 (PDF page 81) reports that handguns are used in fewer than 8% of all crimes of violence. This doesn't include homicide, but homicides are fewer than 0.5% of all crimes of violence, so even if one includes homicides the answer would be about 8%.

According to the Justice Department's National Crime Victimization Survey (2005 data), table 66, handguns are used in 5.4% of U.S. assaults and 26.3% of robberies.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus05.pdf

The Times of London:

"New York has “banned” pistols since 1911, and its fellow murder capitals, Washington DC and Chicago, have similar bans. One can draw a map of the US, showing the inverse relationship of the strictness of its gun laws, and levels of violence: all the way down to Vermont, with no gun laws at all, and the lowest level of armed violence (one thirteenth that of Britain)."

"America’s disenchantment with “gun control” is based on experience: whereas in the 1960s and 1970s armed crime rose in the face of more restrictive gun laws (in much of the US, it was illegal to possess a firearm away from the home or workplace), over the past 20 years all violent crime has dropped dramatically, in lockstep with the spread of laws allowing the carrying of concealed weapons by law-abiding citizens. Florida set this trend in 1987, and within five years the states that had followed its example showed an 8 per cent reduction in murders, 7 per cent reduction in aggravated assaults, and 5 per cent reduction in rapes. Today 40 states have such laws, and by 2004 the US Bureau of Justice reported that “firearms-related crime has plummeted”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/a...

The Detroit Free Press:

"Six years after new rules made it much easier to get a license to carry concealed weapons, the number of Michiganders legally packing heat has increased more than six-fold."

"But dire predictions about increased violence and bloodshed have largely gone unfulfilled, according to law enforcement officials and, to the extent they can be measured, crime statistics. The incidence of violent crime in Michigan in the six years since the law went into effect has been, on average, below the rate of the previous six years. The overall incidence of death from firearms, including suicide and accidents, also has declined."

"More than 155,000 Michiganders -- about one in every 65 -- are now authorized to carry loaded guns as they go about their everyday affairs, according to Michigan State Police records."

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080106/NEWS06/80106060...

Statistics are like a bikini...they reveal a lot, but what they don't show is usually more interesting.