Seton Hall's Students For Liberty hosted a presentation on gun control with guest speaker Trevor Burrus, a research fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies, on Tuesday.
The presentation discussed both sides of the debate on guns and why people are for or against them.
People have a tendency to associate guns with violence and death, according to Burrus.
"When people say that 30,000 people die from guns, what they don't mention is that two-thirds of them are suicides," Burrus said. "In 2011 there were about 8,600 homicides by firearms, which is very low."
Students were surprised by the statistics presented to them.
"As a supporter of firearms I always knew that they were used for self-defense," freshman Jessica Bertonazzi said. "When I learned that 99 percent of guns are used for defensive purposes it really reaffirmed my belief that people should not be afraid of guns."
This is not to say that all guns should be considered safe, according to Burrus.
"I think machine guns should be banned," Burrus said. "They are used to essentially spray death."
It turns out even the military advises soldiers to refrain from using the fully automatic setting.
A portion of the presentation was spent on discussing the criminals that are misusing the weapons.
"People tend to forget that the guns don't pull the triggers themselves," Hayley Brown said. "If the government takes away guns from the population as a whole, then how will people defend themselves against the criminals who will no doubt obtain the weapons illegally?"
Danielle Adamkiewicz can be reached at victoria.plate@student.shu.edu.
