Of course government is one of many factors in lower crime, but I might also point out that gun ownership is also a factor. That being said, there is plenty to correlate that people want guns because their government fails to protect. I am not making a statement of right or wrong, I am telling you how people feel. One thing that trips me up about the gun-control crowd from countires that have effectively had strict gun controls for decades, is that their arguments fail to consider the pure saturation of guns in this nation. We can argue and go round and round endlessly about what came first the chicken or the egg, but the simple fact is that there are plenty of bad people in this country who have guns, gun control would not convonce them to turn in their guns as they are crooks already, and citizens lacking guns will cause a field day for the criminals with guns. You, Ironside, may think it worthwhile to partake in such a social experiment for the greater, long term good, and that is probably where we will never see eye to eye.

Washington DC is one of the worst places in the nation. Chicagos gun ban has been fail. Meanwhile, states that enact conceal-carry laws see an almost immediate drop in victim-type crimes, while counties in adjacent states that dont have conceal-carry have an immediate increase in victim-crime, because the professional criminals are migrating targets.

Guns are not the solution, and neither is banning them wholesale.