This disturbing video is worth watching, because I think it encapsulates much of the consequentalist side of American gun control debate:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUAL6ie1ufc]

Gun control proponents think: More and better gun control would have kept that guy from having a gun in the first place. Gun control would produce a net loss of crime.

Gun advocates think: Weaker gun control, plus a culture that encourages everyone, especially women, to keep guns in self-defense, would have prevented this story from happening. The guy would have thought twice about kicking down the door if the mother were armed, and even if he did kick down the door, she’d have had a fighting chance. After all, the police couldn’t save her. Gun control produces a net increase of crime.

Of course, these are factual, empirical claims. A rational person would start off more or less agnostic between these two claims, and then form a belief on the basis of the evidence as proper social scientific studies come in, with only as much credence as the studies allow.