title: America, guns and freedom: Part II - An international perspective.
abstract: The need for reducing gun violence is discussed along with the necessity for citizens to assume some responsibility for protecting themselves, their families, and their property from criminal elements because the police cannot physically be everywhere to protect us all of the time. The problem of sensationalization of gun crimes by the media, multiple shootings by deranged individuals, accidents with firearms, suicide rates, and children with guns are discussed.The relationship of civilian disarmament in the context of tyrannical governments and genocide are also explored. Incidents in which liberty has been extinguished because firearms have been banned and citizens have been disarmed by increasingly oppressive governments, and the converse, countries where freedom has been preserved by armed citizens are also described. We conclude that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens deter crimes, and nations that trust their citizens with firearms have governments that sustain liberty and affirm individual freedom. Governments that do not trust their citizens with firearms tend to be despotic and tyrannical, and are a potential danger to good citizens - and a peril to humanity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery (ret) and Adjunct Professor of Medical History (ret.), Mercer University School of Medicine; President,  www.haciendapub.com , Macon, Georgia, USA.
authors.forename: Miguel A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Faria