I was approached yesterday at dinner with a disappointing standpoint from someone very close to me. We were talking about the different gun laws in different states, concealed carry law and open carry laws. He said, “You know what is interesting is in places where guns are not allowed, there is less crime.”

My response? “That is absolutely not true. In fact, it has been proven time and time again that places with strict gun control laws actually had crime rise when the laws were put into action. Think about it this way. Criminals and bad guys are going to have a gun, whether it is against the law or not. They are criminals and breaking a gun control law does not really matter to them. But now, instead of having a gun to protect themselves and their families, the law abiding citizens have to fight against these armed bad guys empty handed. Gun control does not lower the crime rate; it just puts the innocent people in more danger.”

Eventually, he said, “Don’t get me wrong. I believe in guns and think that people should be able to own them. I own several guns. But it’s these people that go around using them that don’t actually know HOW to use them properly that make it dangerous for the rest of the country. Guns are dangerous. But they are very useful if you know what you are doing with them.”

I was glad he had that point of view about the importance of gun training. I responded, “I agree completely that people need to get gun training if they want to own guns. But the idea of gun control reducing crime is not accurate. That is more of the issue in the places that want gun control. It’s not gun control that they need. It’s gun training.”

As described in “More Guns, Less Crime (Again) in 2008,” there have been a lot of gun control laws that have been changed or taken away completely in this country. As a result, even though gun control supporters feared the worst, violent crime has been declining and even reached a 35 year low in 2008. The murder rate was even more impressive, and these statistics have been credited to less gun control. It also states that, “States that have the most restrictive gun control laws tend to have the highest ratios of robberies (confrontational violent crimes) to non-confrontational property crimes.” (http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=206&issue=007 )

Front Sight Firearms Training Institute and founder, Dr. Ignatius Piazza, support the Second Amendment and want to provide us with the chance to get the gun training we need to safely operate a firearm. Ignatius Piazza offers several interesting and exciting gun training courses at Front Sight, each teaching students everything they need to know about gun training. Being the best gun training school in the entire world, one self defense gun training course at Front Sight will make any student way more than a proficient shooter. Ignatius Piazza takes special care to show students how to work toward keeping their Second Amendment rights and how to stay as safe as possible in a time when our rights are at risk of being taken away.

As American citizens, we have the right to keep and bear arms for a reason. Gun control is not the right idea. If we want to limit our safety, sure, limit our guns. But we want more safety. Gun control does not provide safety. Gun training does.