I don’t like to repeat myself, but some things bear repeating.  Here, again, is the link to that excellent article I cited in a previous post.  Among other things, it thoroughly demolishes the gun nuts’ familiar claim that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.  The statistics seem dispositive: whether you compare states within the US or countries of the world, gun ownership, and lax regulation of gun ownership, are correlated with more, not fewer gun deaths.  The US, which somewhat surprisingly (to me, anyway) is not far from the average of advanced countries for criminal violence, is off the charts for gun ownership and gun deaths.   For still more statistical evidence along the same lines, check this out.