Coolcoolcool about your friends getting published. Gun control. Phew. I actually saw an episode about this on 20/20 two weeks ago (I know, I know, not exactly the epitome of news reporting...it was a slow Friday night...well every Friday night is slow for me, but now I'm digressing). I'm not an expert on the subject by any means, but I don't really get the need, in the sense that the people who are really pushing to own guns definitely don't need them in the neighborhoods they live in. Like, I've lived in Ultra-White Suburbia, I've seen both sides of the coin. There's a very low chance some hoodlum is going to pick your giant house out of hundreds to try and break into or whatever. Then again, that's just my experience in Colorado, so I could be wrong about the rest of the US.
Studies seem to show that the act of owning a gun has a psychological effect; you think about it a lot, have "protection fantasies," are more likely to resort to it instead of intelligence in a crisis, etc. Guns are destructive, hunting for sport is evil, killing in general is almost always bad. Just so we're clear with where I stand.
I think claiming theses guns are for protection is being a bit disingenuous. Again, not very knowledgeable on the subject, but bht there's obviously something else at play here that isn't really being admitted as the primary reason people want guns so bad.
They might need them to defend against their crazy white neighbors with guns.