Last year was a bloody one.  It seemed all too often the headlines were announcing a new mass-shooting massacre, each one more horrible than the last. Each shooting stirred calls for gun regulations in the United States, which re-ignited a ferocious debate.

The massacres that grabbed the most headlines, the Aurora movie theater shooting and the Newtown school shooting, were committed with AR-15 assault rifles (a semi-automatic civilian copy of the M16 rifle), so gun control advocates have focused on banning this gun as well as other "assault weapons." Their argument is simple and makes great sense at face value: if we prevent people from getting this sort of weapon, people will not be able to use these assault weapons. A closer examination, however, reveals that such an approach, albeit noble, would prove to be futile.

First, the myth that fewer guns equals less crime ought to be exposed as a farce. The oft-paraded statistic citing Britain's sweeping gun ban resulting in under 100 annual gun murders seems to be damning proof when compared to America's comparatively loose gun laws and gun murders checking in at around 10,000 each year. After all, when viewed on a per-capita basis, this statistic puts America's gun murder rate close to 40 times that of Britain.

When comparing only these two statistics, it's easy to believe that legally-enforced low gun ownership rates results in a safer society. Surely, if this premise is true, the nation with the highest rate in gun ownership would see the highest rate of gun violence-but this does not hold up. Despite being first worldwide in gun ownership (both total and per-capita), the United States ranks a distant 28th in gun homicides per 100,000 people. In comparison, Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica, which make up the top three, have less than 10 percent of the average firearms per 100 people that the United States does.

Clearly, diminished availability of firearms does not lower the rate of gun murders-there are many other variables at work here. Legally reducing the availability of guns is not a guarantee to curb gun violence; in fact, despite an increase of overall gun ownership in the United States over the past decade, violent crime has decreased over the past decade (point being: no single statistic can give the whole picture, but more guns equals more crime is an obviously disingenuous claim).

Aside from abiding by cherry-picked statistics, gun control advocates also unfortunately tend to focus on headline-grabbing mass-shootings rather than the overall picture when considering policy prescriptions. The calls to renew the "assault weapon" ban, aimed particularly at the AR-15 rifles, are an understandable emotional impulse. They must be treated, however, as just that-emotional impulses-and ought to be considered rationally and analytically.

Many people, typically those who are less familiar with guns, are often fooled by the "assault weapons" rhetoric, believing that politicians are attempting to ban machine guns. A more accurate term for these would be "automatic weapons"-firearms which shoot many bullets per trigger-pull. The current definition of "assault weapons" includes semi-automatic weapons-firearms which shoot one bullet per trigger-pull-which spans everything from hunting rifles, to pistols, to the maligned AR-15.

The majority of gun homicides in the United States are not from madmen on shooting sprees with AR-15s. Rather, the overwhelming majority are caused by handguns, with the majority of these shootings gang-related. According to the Center for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Report, 95 percent of gang violence involves guns. Given that gangs are well plugged-in to the black market, and have little trouble acquiring illicit drugs and weapons outside of the law, I defy any lawmaker or regulator to prevent gangs from acquiring the easy-to-smuggle handguns which make up most of America's gun crime.

According to the FBI's crime statistics, the amount of deaths caused by all rifles was under 400 in 2012, and AR-15s (and other assault rifles) are only a small subset of these. Comparatively, nearly 800 deaths were caused by hands and fists. So, treating AR-15s as a leading cause of violence in the United States is irresponsible and misleading.

Still, despite the fact that more restrictive gun laws will not make America a safer place, a gun control advocate may argue that there is no reason for an American citizen to own weapons like an AR-15, since it is hardly necessary to use a military-grade weapon for hunting and recreation. The Second Amendment, however, is about much more than shooting deer and clay pigeons. It is, in essence, the enshrinement of Americans' right to self-defense. In order to defend yourself from criminals, you must be at least as well-armed as they are.

The Second Amendment was also intended to allow the population to resist a tyrannical government-this is thoroughly supported by Jefferson's writings, the Federalist Papers and other documents surrounding the Constitution. In case criminals gain control of the government, it is necessary for the population to be legally permitted to own and bear modern infantry-grade small arms.

In the 20th century alone, several governments were taken over by democratically elected tyrants who took advantage of a disarmed population. Such a possibility seems remote in today's America, but the right to defend oneself from tyrants must be protected for the uncertain future.

When the First Amendment is taken, the Second is meant to rise in its defense. If the people are prevented from wielding infantry-grade small arms, they will be left with no recourse to prevent the sorts of atrocities seen under Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin.
*