When it comes to national issues, few are as hotly debated as gun control. Despite efforts by the National Rifle Association to cut off federal funding for research and data collection and sharing, studies have indeed come out, revealing some of the pro-gun party’s favorite arguments to be full of holes. The numbers don’t lie: When it comes to cold, hard statistics, the pro-gun argument doesn’t have legs to stand on.

Let’s start off by dispelling that silly “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” nonsense. If you throw a gun on the ground and tell it to kill, chances are that nothing will happen. But at the same time, a person is a lot less effective at killing without a firearm. States with high gun ownership rates have more than twice as many crimes than those with low gun ownership rates on average. To the surprise of no one, gun death rates also tend to be a lot higher in states with higher rates of gun ownership.

Another false claim by those in the anti-control camp is that if more people were armed, people would be more polite and less likely to commit crimes. In reality, studies show that drivers who carry guns are 44% more likely than unarmed drivers to make rude or obscene gestures at other motorists, as well as 77% more likely to follow them aggressively after such interactions. According to one study, among Texan convicts, those with concealed-handgun licenses were sentenced for threatening someone nearly 5 times more than those without. Curiously, in states with Stand Your Ground laws making it easier to shoot in self-defense, there is generally a 10% increase in firearm homicides and other gun-related crimes.

Furthermore, even only arming “good guys” solves nothing. Good guys with guns can’t stop rampaging criminals any better than an unarmed civilian. You know how many mass shootings have been stopped by armed civilians in the past 30 years? Zero. Zilch. Nada. Goose eggs. On the contrary, armed civilians more often than not wind up being the victim. 1 in 5 shooting victims in the ER are guards whose gun was taken and used against them.

Predictably, carrying a gun on your person for self-defense is not as beneficial as it is made out to be, to say the least. In fact, in 2011 nearly 10 times more gun owners were shot and killed in arguments than by civilians trying to stop such crimes. An additional study conducted in Philadelphia found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if they carried a gun. Their odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater. Out of the less than 1% of Americans that reported successfully using guns to defend themselves or their property, 50% involved using guns in an aggressive manner, such as escalating the argument to a violent level.

Personally keeping a gun at home doesn’t make you any safer either. In fact, having a gun in your home has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun. For every 1 time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home. 43% of gun owners with children have at least one unlocked firearm. In one experiment, one third of children in the 8 to 12 year range who found a handgun pulled the trigger. In 2010, nearly 6 times more women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex-partners than murdered by male strangers in their homes. A woman's chances of being killed by her abuser increase more than 7 times if he has access to a gun. One study found that women in states with higher gun ownership rates were 4.9 times more likely to be murdered by a gun than women in states with lower gun ownership rates.

But does the problem go beyond guns? Some think that the blame lies not on guns, or even the people that commit the crimes, but rather the way violence is depicted in media. Do "vicious, violent video games" deserve more blame than guns as NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre claims? Well, in Japan, the average per capita spending on video games is $55 to America’s $44.  Japan’s civilian firearms per 100 people rate is 0.6 to America’s 88. Japan had just 11 gun homicides in 2008, whereas the United States had over 11,000. Not-so-coincidentally, Japan also has much stricter gun control laws.

Clearly, there’s an issue here. Some would argue, however, that we don’t need more gun laws—we just need to enforce the ones we have. In reality, the blame lies with weak laws and loopholes backed by the gun lobby make it easier to get guns illegally. Around 40% of all legal gun sales involve private sellers and don't require background checks. 40% of prison inmates who used guns in the crimes that got them incarcerated obtained them this way. Worse yet, a federal investigation found 62% of online gun sellers were willing to sell to buyers who said they couldn't pass a background check. An additional study found that 20% of licensed California gun dealers agreed to sell handguns to researchers posing as illegal "straw" buyers. Unfortunately, this doesn’t look to change anytime soon, as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has not had a permanent director for 6 years, due to an NRA-backed requirement that the Senate approve nominees.

Like it or not, you have to admit there’s an issue here, and the issue is a lack of control. Contrary to what the NRA would have you believe, seizing all of the guns in America is not being proposed by anybody in Washington, nor is it realistic. While nobody knows the exact number of guns in the United States, we do know that civilian gun owners outnumber armed officials by a factor of nearly 80 to 1. Rather than banning guns altogether (which would be a gross violation of the Second Amendment), we could benefit from some limitations. This is evident by the fact that gun death rates are significantly lower in states with restrictions such as assault-weapons bans or safe-storage requirements in place. No, it doesn’t look like we will never truly stop gun violence, but there’s no excuse for not preventing the firearm deaths that we can. Unless we do something to change it, the NRA will keep pulling strings to prevent truly effective gun control laws from being put in place. Though change is sure to be slow due to the NRA’s vice on the Senate, we can start by educating ourselves and those around us on their antics, as well as the facts that dispute the false claims often spread by the NRA in an effort to maintain control. Rarely does the public hear the truth behind such popular phrases as “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”, or “the government’s coming for your guns”. This won’t change until we, the people, accept the facts and take action.