How is it that so many kids raised on "Harry Potter", "The Hunger Games", "Star Wars", and all the Marvel action figure movies manage to miss a critical point of the stories? The lesson being: If you want to prevail over evil villains, you must have the proper tools to fight back.

Millions of people protect themselves and their families with guns every day in the United States. They choose guns as a means of self-defense for the same reason the Secret Service uses them to protect the president: guns stop bad people from doing bad things to good people.

It's absurd to speak about the right of self-defense in theory but then deny people the tools they need to exercise that right.

Without a gun, most Americans are defenseless at the hands of a violent criminal. How many of us have training in hand-to-hand fighting, the physical strength, and the mental resilience to react in a fight-or-flight situation to repel an aggressive predator, especially someone who attacks us first and is armed with a deadly weapon?

Does a gun guarantee your safety? No, but it gives you the ability to defend yourself against an armed, physically superior, or mentally unstable attacker (or all three).

Why in the world would anyone not want to have the means to protect themselves and their families against criminal predators and lunatics? Worse yet, why would anyone actively lobby their government to deprive themselves and every other law-abiding citizen of the most effective means to protect themselves?

Guns Are Life-Saving Tools

The gun grabbers are convinced that if we shut down the National Rifle Association and take away guns from law-abiding gun owners, then bad people will no longer have the tools to do bad things.

A gun is a tool, plain and simple. You should own a gun for the same reason you install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, purchase fire extinguishers, and buckle your seat belt. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Smart people are prepared. Foolish people bring a knife—or nothing at all—to a gunfight.

The gun grabbers say: "There is no evidence that guns save lives." The truth: If there is no proof that guns save lives, then why does every American law enforcement agency, including the U.S. Secret Service, carry guns? What's the point of the guns?