Just to give you an example of why I like my guns, here is something that happened to me last week. I was sitting here, on my computer, at 2 in the morning. Then I hear a diesel engine outside. Strange, since it's so late, and the only time I hear that kind of engine is when the UPS or garbage truck goes by. I peek outside, and parked right outside my house is a pickup truck, 1970-80s style, and the guy in the cab is shining a flashlight into the windows of my house. What the fuck is going on? He drives off, then turns around up the street and comes back, parking infront of my neighbor's house. By this point I have my rifle loaded and locked, and I'm observing him through a small slit in the blinds. He then proceeds to get out of his truck, walks onto my front lawn, still shining that flashlight into the windows. After about a minute, he starts up the walkway to my front door, which is on the left side of my house. I don't think so motherfucker. I threw back the curtains when he was right outside the window and let him see me pointing my assault rifle at his fucking chest. He beat feet back to his truck. It was scary as fuck, because I didn't know if he was going to produce a weapon from his truck or not, and I didn't want to be standing there like a big target, but I also didn't want to kill him, so I let the curtain drop back, and I watched through the slit again as he drove off. I called the cops and told them what happened, and they sent a car around to patrol the neighborhood for the rest of the night.
So, who was this person, and what the hell was he doing prowling around my house so early in the morning? I don't have a damn clue. I've never seen a pickup such as that in my neighborhood before. Was he a delivery guy who got lost and went to the wrong house? A bounty hunter? A theif? A rapist? A murderer? Who knows. But I'll tell you right now, I'm not about to risk the lives of my loved ones to find out. Now, you might say just letting him see me would have made him leave. Maybe. What if he had a gun himself? Then he'd just see a victim standing in the window. What if he just came back later better prepared, confident that he could overpower me? Well, he got the message loud and clear. I have a big gun, and I will shoot you if you try anything. When I bought my rifles, the main reason was to go shooting at the range with them, with a secondary role of home defense. However, I never thought that I'd actually have to use them to deter someone. I am happy that I had them at that moment. Right there, they paid for themselves an infinite amount of times. I hope that I will never actually have to fire at someone to protect my loved ones, myself, or my property, but it makes me feel more comfortable knowing that I have the option to be more that a victim against criminals in my own home.
I don't own a gun because the 2nd amendment says I can, I own it for fun, and for protection. I will never use it to harm an innocent, and you don't have to worry about me going out and preforming vigilante justice with it. I'm not worried about the US military turning on it's citizens either. However, I do think that people are deluded when they think the military could walk right over an armed citizenry. True, most gun owners only own handguns and rifles, and the military has jets, tanks, artillery, etc. However, think about the size of the military. There are only 1.42 million United States military personnel in the world
http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/M05/hst0403.pdf
Only about 100,000-150,000 of those people are combat infantry. There are roughly 286 million people that live in the US. Let's assume 1/3 own firearms, that's 95 million people. Even if only 10% decide to take up arms against an oppressive government/military, that's still 9.5 million people. Granted, they won't all be in the same place, but neither would the military. The military would be successful in the opening stages, but it would bog down pretty quickly. It relys on the civilian infastructure to move around, and it isn't autonomous. It gets all it's equipment from civilian manufacturers. So, they would quickly run out of fuel, food, ammunition, etc. The might be able to establish strongpoints around bases and such, but they would not be able to control the civilian populus. How long until they would be overrun and wiped out? Ok, what if the law enforcement agencies help the military? Well, according to this
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/03statab/law.pdf there were only roughly 1 million law officers. Given that they are mainly equipped with handguns and shotguns, they would be swept aside in a massive armed uprising. It would be bloody, just as any civil war is, and you might be quick to point out that most people wouldn't risk their lives, but then I would point out that almost no one in the military would follow orders to kill other Americans. Simply put, the United States military could not beat the United States, and this is largely due to the fact that we are an armed country.
Now, take a country with very few to no armed citizens (note: modern weapons, swords and the like don't count). The military would walk right over them. There might be isolated cases of people capturing military equipment after taking massive casualties, but in the end, they would be oppressed and put under the heel of the government.
That is my belief, and that is why I'm wary of gun control. As long as it makes the government think twice, I'm all for an armed populous. On that note, if the government wants my guns, they can come try to take them.