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Gun control and lack of trust in the goverment leads to stockpiling weapons!
here are about 240 million guns in America according to Federal estimates, a total that gives the country one of the highest per-capita rates of gun
ownership in the world. For gun-rights proponents, the large numbers of guns are a reflection of a fundamental freedom and a sign of national
strength.
Gun-control advocates view the statistic as a cause for national shame, the easy availability a factor in the 750,000 deaths by firearms since 1960
and in violent episodes like the killings earlier this year at Columbine High School in Colorado and a Jewish community center in Los Angeles.
The debate over gun rights continues in Congress, in statehouses and in the Federal courts, where a Texas case may well wind its way to the Supreme
Court as a landmark test of whether the Second Amendment to the Constitution specifically gives individuals, and not just state militias, the right to
bear arms.
But the fight over the guns, the numbers and the laws often overlooks some surprisingly basic questions: Who owns all these guns, and why?
Some criminals, of course, steal guns or buy them illegally with the intent to intimidate or to kill.
This gallery of portraits, assembled by Sarah Weissman, picture editor of the Week in Review, reflects gun owners (all those pictured say their guns
are legal) who offer a range of other reasons for owning a weapon: for sport, for hunting, for collecting, for self-protection (against rattlesnakes
as well as human intruders), for sentimental reasons and as a financial investment.
And one man, asked to complete the sentence that begins, "I own guns because . . ." answered, simply: "I can."