Why not Ban X Instead?

A Canadian friend of mine, Miss W, came up with this out of the blue (Okay it turns out it was from reading this at Popehat):

"Oddly enough, I think a good argument against the gun control crowd is smoking. Smoking causes  vastly  more deaths than firearms do. The US loses about 6 500 people to guns in a year. And 443 000 to cigarettes. If you're gonna ban one..."

I pointed out  a similar argument could be made about Alcohol too. Which she agreed with. Though this doesn't even get into the precrime and collective punishment stuff Further:

"And cigarettes really *do* serve no purpose, save the pleasure of the owner. (And probably kill more people with secondhand alone than guns do) Basically, it's a question of which you're gonna do - ban things because they cause harm? Or let them out there because the incursion on freedoms is a greater harm?"

Or if you want more apples versus apples well..
In 2011  323 people were murdered in the US by someone using a rifle. That same year  496 were murdered with hammers and clubs.

Huh. But that won't keep the gun grabbers from trying to DO Something.
Such as these bills they've filed so far.

Should definitely contact your reps if you haven't already. It's quick and easy.  For example Indiana's Senators can be found here.

And here's the order of importance:  "Visit personally, fax, e-mail, call, formal written letter. Formal written letters used to be the best, but that changed with the Anthrax scare, and now it take forever to get snail mail through."