Long before this country was founded, murder, rape and robbery were illegal. More than two centuries after the nation’s founding, they remain illegal. Despite centuries of illegality and vast improvements in police practices and investigative abilities, the crimes continue.

Laws do not stop criminal conduct. They define what conduct is criminal. Because of the punishments laws impose, they can have some deterrent effect but not much. If they were a strong deterrent there’d be no murders because murder has been illegal since Moses came down from a mountain with a Commandment that read, “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”

It’s not law that stops us doing these things. It’s morality, decency, empathy, conscience. These aspects of our character make us who we are, and for the vast, vast majority of us, who we are is good, decent, caring, and peaceful

Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote that they would oppose any legislation that infringes "on the American people's constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance." [80]

Background checks would require government databases that keep personal individual information on gun owners, including name, addresses, mental health history, criminal records, and more.

Prohibition didn't stop liquor use; the drug laws can't stop drug use. Making gun ownership illegal will not stop gun ownership.

Law-abiding, responsible citizens do not and should not need to ask anyone's permission or approval to engage in a peaceful activity. Gun ownership, by itself, harms no other person and cannot morally justify criminal penalties.

In 2013, there were a total of 33,636 firearm deaths, and 21,175, or 63 percent, were suicides, according to the CDC.

We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don’t work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals [to] still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence.

However a key finding is that "the illegal market is the most likely source" for these people to obtain a gun. "In fact, more than half the arrestees say it is easy to obtain guns illegally," the report states. Responding to a question of how they obtained their most recent handgun, the arrestees answered as follows: 56% said they paid cash; 15% said it was a gift; 10% said they borrowed it; 8% said they traded for it; while 5% only said that they stole it.

Wachtel says one of the most common ways criminals get guns is through straw purchase sales. A straw purchase occurs when someone who may not legally acquire a firearm, or who wants to do so anonymously, has a companion buy it on their behalf. According to a 1994 ATF study on "Sources of Crime Guns in Southern California," many straw purchases are conducted in an openly "suggestive" manner where two people walk into a gun store, one selects a firearm, and then the other uses identification for the purchase and pays for the gun. Or, several underage people walk into a store and an adult with them makes the purchases. Both of these are illegal activities.

Background checks are run to prevent sales to people who have been convicted of certain crimes, who are running from the law or who otherwise have been banned from buying guns for a variety of other reasons.

Consistently, at least 70 percent of Americans said they favor background checks. Often, far more do. In October, a CBS News/New York Times poll found that 92 percent of Americans — including 87 percent of Republicans — favor background checks for all gun buyers.1

In dozens of polls over the past two decades, Americans have been asked if they support expanding background checks for the purchase of firearms.

Guns were used in 11,078 homicides in the U.S. in 2010, comprising almost 35% of all gun deaths, and over 68% of all homicides.6 On average, 33 gun homicides were committed each day for the years 2005-2010

Between 1955 and 1975, the Vietnam War killed over 58,000 American soldiers – less than the number of civilians killed with guns in the U.S. in an average two-year period

Firearms were the third-leading cause of injury-related deaths nationwide in 2010, following poisoning and motor vehicle accidents.

73,505 Americans were treated in hospital emergency departments for non-fatal gunshot wounds in 2010.2

n 2010, guns took the lives of 31,076 Americans in homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings.  This is the equivalent of more than 85 deaths each day and more than three deaths each hour.1

four-cornered.

I am silver and exact.

Now I am a lake.

Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).

ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain,

I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet;

I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.