Who do gun laws really protect? The criminal or The law abiding citizen?

Question

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED"

Answer 1

   The citizen. Neither the police nor the militia can protect everyone all of the time so citizen Smith has to be allowed to protect himself. I am a convicted felon and am no longer in life allowed to own a firearm, and in some states i can even go to jail for having a knife. But if i wanted a gun I could go on the streets in any city and buy a gun within an hour. People kill people, guns, knives, bombs, poison, cars, are inanimate objects and are unable to do anything without a person to put it into motion. Guns are also necessary to prevent a government from becoming a tyranny, that is the underlying premise upon which the 2nd amendment was based. We had just gained our independence from a tyrannical government and the framers of the our constitution and the amendments had enough foresight to write in a law that would allow us to protect ourselves from tyranny in the future.

Answer 2

People might as well be allowed to own guns...because the criminals will get them anyway....keep the field level....

EDIT: even if guns were outlawed law abiding citizens would be the only ones to actually give them up the criminals would still obtain them...

Answer 3

Gun laws protect the CRIMINAL....Law abiding people will follow the law and not be armed...in some states....Kind of funny that in states where they have open carry and easily accessible gun permits...CRIME STATS GO DOWN......Murders...DOWN...Robberies...D...

Could there be a correlation as criminals are afraid to attack someone that might fight back and kill them?

Answer 4

They don't protect the rights of criminals because they have illegally obtained weapons to begin with!

A 32 year gun ban in Washington D.C. did nothing to stop them from being the murder capital of the world in 1998!  It only hurt law abiding citizens who weren't able to effectively defend themselves.

Lots of answers from people who obviously have never been victims of violent crime...

Answer 5

I keep seeing statements from people saying that the right is so important that they will disregard laws that regulate guns.  If those include laws that are not found to be unconstitutional in the proper course of law, then that makes those folks who possess the guns criminals.  So, people seem to be arguing that because they will exercise the right be bear arms, and do so in a criminal manner, then criminals should have the right to bear arms.  Both sides of the debate are nuts.

Answer 6

The criminal

Answer 7

So, you would be okay with anyone at all being allowed to own any weapon at all?   That, apparently, is what you are saying.  Anyone, no matter what their criminal record or mental health, should be allowed to own fully automatic ak47s, surface-to-air missiles, nuclear bombs, any arms at all?  Where do you draw the line?

Of course, you ignore the "well regulated militia" part.

The OVERWHELMING number of gun deaths that have occured did not happen during the commission of a robbery; they have happened as acts of anger, accidents, domestic disputes, etc.

Answer 8

The criminal.