My personal belief is that guns are unecessary, but I can accept and (at least make a decent attempt to) understand the love affair many Americans have with them. The fact is, England is
not America, we do things differently here and I for one am glad that guns have managed to stay out of mainstream circulation.
Last year, 81 people were shot and killed in the entire country (data found
here). Tragic though each case undoubtedly is, thats not a huge figure in the slightest. Imagine, though, the increase in that figure if gun laws were slightly more lax and firearms fell into the possession of not only home owners, but burglars as well. I'm not suggesting outright guerilla warfare would break out each time an intruder was caught, but the intensity and violence of the situation would escalate to a level that could only result in more deaths and a greater consumption of police resources that far outsrips the nature of the original crime. While I agree that people have every right to defend their homes against intruders and to use violence if necessary, I think it's equally important to ensure that fighting to the death is restricted to the minority of cases where an intruder breaks into a house specifically to cause the occupants harm. To this end, the first step on the road to success is the maintenance and improvement of our current gun laws and
not their relaxation.
I guess I'm naive in that I draw the line at putting a dent in the head of anyone who puts me or my family at risk, but that's how it goes.