one good thing that could come out of banning cars would be the destruction of Walmart and a decrease in population

Guns are no more dangerous than cars. Cars *can* be made infintely safer with enough expensive equipment. Not to mention they could be banned in favor of public transportation.

OK....forget cars...let's look at death due to alcohol every year...or twinkies....and let's start banning.

I dare you to do a little reaearch...look up the number of LEGALLY OWNED guns versus the number of deaths caused by ILLEGALLY owned guns. Legal gun ownership is NOT the problem...a tricky little fact asnti-gun extremists fail to acknowledge.

Yes, I think alcohol is a much better example.

However, I don't think guns should be banned, either.

Krellin, do some research before you post. Better yet, find some common sense before you post.

I get the point. Don't scream, "ban guns" every time this sort of thing happens. What we new to do is figure out why so many other nations are able to keep their gun related homicides so low comparatively even without draconian gun laws.

Krellin, maybe (I say maybe) the question is whether something is DESIGNED to harm others or not.

Alcohol? You don't harm others if you drink, unless you drive while drunk or use something dangerous.
In fact, if you drive, you can't drink (at least I hope that there is such law in the US). It's not the alcohol you ban, but the situations in which alcohol is dangerous.

But gun? Since a gun is ALWAYS dangerous, can you say "Well, you can buy it but only to use without risk for others"?
Sure you can use guns to - erm.. - hammer a nail into the wall? Well, sure, but... there are hammers for it...

Legally owned? Oh, well, if that gun shooting me is legally owned, I suppose it's ok...
(but maybe, if you didn't have that gun, I'd feel safer!)

YOu don't harm someone by shooting at targets with a handgun either. It's harmfullness is a direct result of misuse, the same as alcohol and cars.

You know who loves gun control laws? Criminals, who obtain their guns illegally, and who then know that they are safe from being shot when invading your home, raping your wife, etc. - They LOVE gun control laws.

Florida went through a rash of car jackings a number of years ago - but ONLY on rental cars, because the car jackers knew people in rental cars woudl be from out of state, and not be armed...look it up...because the *real* facts about gun ownership demonstrate that increased legal gun ownership tends to drop the rate of gun crimes....again...a dirty little fact reactionary gun-control freaks tend to ignore.

Im pretty sure criminals love easy access to cheap guns.

which they would have reguardless of regulation.

Not really. Ban production and make ownership a felony. Shut down the murder merchants.

that works really well with drugs and the like doesn't it?

Yeah it does. See Cuba, Sweden for details.

This comparison isn't valid - for equal numbers of deaths, the number of person-use of a car vs person-use of a gun is dramatically different.

Some people use a gun every week, more people use a car every day. So tue number of uses of a gun to cause a death could be much lower (ie more deaths per person-gun) Note, i don't have this data, but there is a clear flaw in the statistics being used or logic of the poster (note: humans are notoriously bad at these kinds of cognition)

Thank you abgemacht.... ever the voice of reason.

Isn't it the same as like saying the difference between legal nuclear weapons and illegal nuclear weapons? Are the legal nuclear weapons more safe? Using your example of cars, more people have died from cars in the last decade than from nuclear weapons, so under your logic this also mean cars are more dangerous than nuclear weapons?

Cuba and Sweden don't have guns or drugs just like Iran doesn't have homosexuals.

I am eagerly awaiting fully automated cars for exactly the reason you point out - there are altogether too many traffic fatalities in the world.

"Not really. Ban production and make ownership a felony."

Yeah cuz that worked so well for alcohol and continues to work so well for narcotics. Prohibition is a proven FAILURE.

"Im pretty sure criminals love easy access to cheap guns."

Criminal don't walk into guns stores to buy guns, they buy them on the ALREADY ILLEGAL market, or steal them. Passing gun bans would only limit law abiding people from buying guns, not criminals. Your argument is completely spurious.

We've been over this many times.

Countries with stricter gun control have lower gun crime and gun homicide.

Lots at the data for yourself.

@seth24c 'which they would have reguardless of regulation.'

No, escalation forces some criminals to get guns (legal or not) when they wouldn't otherwise need them.

Police enforcement would have an easier time taking illegal guns off the streets if there were stricter laws in the first place. I literally don't remember the last time i saw a gun in public (excluding the security guards inside the US embassy in Dublin, and being on US soil they can do whatever they like...) virtually no-one else has access to firearms.

So what? That proves nothing.

The ONLY way that it would make your stat relevant would be to analyze the what those nation's gun crime/homicide rates were BEFORE they enacted their strict gun laws. If, which I'll bet you'd find, those nations had lower gun crime/homicide rates than you US prior to those laws being enacted, the state is irrelevant.

Further, there are many cultural and socioeconomic factors that play in the gun violence in the US that don't necessarily apply to other nations. A great deal of the gun violence in the US is associated with the illegal drug trade and the criminal gangs that control much of that trade.

You can go over it as many times as you like, but frequency doesn't equate to correctness.

Brilliant, people who don't support gun ownership are 'extremists'..
You guys are so far gone you can't see normality any more, we're not cavemen, you live in a civilized country with people who can read and write, most of them are capable of rational thought. How many of you if you owned a gun would want to kill someone and then just live your life as normal, some of you Yanks are screwed up puppies !!

A problem with owning guns is that even 'responsible' members of society have lapses in which they may accidentally leave it where it can be pinched, or get an urge to test the theory that you can cut down a tree with a shotgun (yes, you can :D ).

A point that may be of interest to US residents. I live in the UK. Most people I know have fired guns for sport or work. Not including the local gun shop there's around 50 privately owned guns that I know of within walking distance of my house. There has been no gun crime here in living memory. The point being that 'tough European gun control' isn't quite the gun desert you may imagine it to be.

Whare are you based Octavious?

@MichiganMan:

Well, I've asked all the pro-gun members...so I'll ask yu, answer me--

Why is it my suggestion--for even a little more regulation at federal, state, and county levels, as what guns are allowable in Wyoming will of course be different from what's appropriate for Los Angeles--taken as an all or nothing proposal?

You shriek and shriek against ANY regulation like an NRA madman, as if the Framers considered it your sacred right not to be able to defend yourself, but to own an assault rifle and cop killers and whatever else you wish, rather than (at most) a musket or rifle.

Why does "let's try a bit more regulation" sound to you and your fellow pro-gunners as "HIDE THE GUNS--THEY WISH TO TAKE THEM *ALL!*"



Why is it all or nothing--surely responsible gun owners would agree some regulation and rules are warranted?

If so, what's the harm in exploring options for even a little more against a select group of guns--NOT ALL, not even close--and doing so at a federal, state, and county levels?

By denying any talk of regulation or even exploring the matter, you all sound like extremists or, worse--

Children throwing a temper tantrum.

@MichiganMan
"Yeah cuz that worked so well for alcohol and continues to work so well for narcotics. Prohibition is a proven FAILURE."
You can't make guns in your bathtub. The infrastructure and tools required to mass produce guns is completely different than that of liquor. Also, despite guns being fairly common in the states its not nearly is ubiquitous as alcohol so I'd suggest that prohibition would be quite different.

Now, personally, I do see why some people need guns. Living on a farm and having bears encroach on your family is certainly a reason to own a firearm. I can even excuse hobbyist gun owners who use them at a firing range because who the hell am I to judge how they enjoy spending their free time.

However, there are some drastic and, imho, quite reasonable steps that could be taken.

1) In city limits it is illegal to have a firearm on your person or in your home. Guns can only be kept at a shooting range by a licensed and heavily monitored keeper.
2) Handguns are illegal. No fucking reason for them. You never hear of the murder weapon being a two shot hunting rifle.

Other than "you're ruing Amrca, you god damn socialist," I don't possibly see what argument can be had against those two regulations.

Cars and liquor are heavily regulated so that you are able to safely use them for their intended purpose. So, why not have the same policy with guns?

Krellin, a hypothetical: If a reliable study were done that showed that legalizing land mines would not dramatically increase the number of deaths due to land mines, each year, would you support their legalization?