Second Amendment Right to own a firearm is first and foremost a derivative right of the right to self defense.  In and of itself, the right to self defense gives no mention to the means by which we should be able to defend ourselves, whether it be a spoon, a machete or even kung fu (personally I wrestled in high school).  The primary motivation other than self defense that individuals use to recognize private ownership of gun is for sport.  This is an absur-

Oh wait.. I’m getting ahead of myself again…

THE FALLACY:

Cars Kill People, what should we ban cars too?!?! 

It’s rather hard, in my view, to see how anybody believes that they have a moral right to own a gun.  First of all, driving -which is a much more practical part of our daily lives- is not considered a right.  You must EARN the right to drive in America, and this right can be taken away.

Moreover, the real argument that people like to get at is that personal security will be much higher if everybody walking the street owns a firearm.  The hilarity of this statement is how blatantly and empirically false it is when compared against the statistics.  Countries, FOR THE MOST PART, (read: excluding canada, few others) countries with widespread gun ownership see much more gun violence than countries with well regulated arms controls.  I see it similarly to a prisoner’s dilemma: it may be true that responsible gun owners become safe, but if his gun ownership is contingent upon allowing EVERY SINGLE OTHER PERSON to own a gun, the collective safety of society drops dramatically.

Now, after Newtown, the surprising thing was that a Chinaman went on a similar violent rampage a day or so later with a knife.  He injured twenty-ish children, yet killed none.  Compare this with Adam Lanza, who killed TWENTY-SIX children and teachers in the span of several minutes.  So, no clearly guns don’t kill people; but people with guns KILL more people than without guns.

So, personally, it isn’t worth it to me to own a gun.  I don’t need one and won’t ever.   The thing I find particularly funny is the fact that most academics, (professors, philosophers) see the gun problem as a very serious one, yet they all seem to side in the pro gun control camps.  Is it surprising that the more educated members of our society oppose these violent tools?  I think it’s just as hilarious as the disparity between education and tolerance to gay marriage.