Guns are indeed designed to kill, and in being so, having a gun means having power, ultimate authority, over others. So a crazy person with a gun has the power to end your life, and you are scared because they may easily obtain one and exercise power over you. But keep in mind other things are designed to kill as well are knives and bombs, and what you would rather take your chances with is irrelevant, because in the absence of guns, that crazy person makes a bomb, or just as easily walks up behind others and shanks them, or fills a subway station with chlorine gas.

Basically I see what you want to do, but the only way to achieve it is more effective control. Control, control control. As long as you have individuals running around doing what they want, society just isn’t safe. Humanity loves nothing more than to kill others and make stuff to kill others. Guns should be hard to obtain unobtainable, but thats only part of the solution. Eventually we will live in a society where no one ever has to die, and sadness will be a thing of the past.

I can’t possibly worry about the occurrence of every event with probability greater than 0, since nearly every event has an occurrence probability greater than 0.

It shouldn’t be your job to worry, you should concentrate on having a happy safe life, and the government will take care of everything else.

I don’t know for sure why my flag is that of Hong Kong, despite posting right now from Seocho-gu (Seoul) with HCN as my ISP. However, I can make a decent guess that some ISP in Hong Kong let expire, gave up, or swapped some IP subnets that HCN subsequently picked up. Hence, whatever software this site uses to determine poster origin still believes my IP address is registered in Hong Kong rather than Korea.

As it is, I’m an American male (hence my name - Miguk Namja) who has a similar history of guns as you : I’ve taken gun safety courses, earned a “Rifle Shooting” merit badge in the Boy Scouts when I was a wee lad, and have gone deer hunting several times.

As for my post and position on gun control vs. gun rights, I wanted to simply clean up a flawed argument style to make room for sensible debate. I’m not sure how you assumed I support a U.K.-style of deadly weapons control other than my mistaken flag.

As for doing a comparative analysis of crime in the U.S. versus Britain and then trying to correlate backwards to whether gun (and generally deadly weapon) control is a good idea or not, that’s a very difficult argument to make, not least of which because cultural factors are perhaps a more important determinent of violent crime rather than the ready availability of deadly weapons to either conduct crimes with or deter crimes.

In other words, I believe the violence and anti-social streak that is more prevalent in U.K. culture than in other cultures is independent of weaponry. However, the effect that such violence has on the death rate is likely highly related to the availability (or not) of deadly weapons. Cause and effect. Violence in the U.K. isn’t caused by guns in the macro sense nor can it be controlled by guns in the macro sense. However, the effect it has on society can be amplified by guns. Hence, strong gun and deadly weapon control in the U.K..

With that said, it’s difficult to look at VT shooting and not at least question how easy it is to obtain handguns in the U.S.. Does it really make sense for a developed society to allow such easy access to tools of death and maiming, when a very large percentage of the population is incapable of exercising good judgement and restraint all the time ?

I’ll take my chances against a crazy guy with a knife or baseball bat any day over a crazy guy with a handgun.

As an American, I don’t even own a personal weapon, my parents never owned one but nevertheless as a young teenager I took the initiative to get elementary gun safety training and target shooting with a small city police department free program; I then handled individual weapons routinely (and safely) while serving long-term in the US military.

I am adamant in insisting on my right under the US Constitution to own a personal firearm, if I decide I need one for personal protection; as you may know, the procedures for implementing this can vary greatly by state and/or local political jurisdiction here in the US, but for much of the country it’s relatively unrestricted (too much so in the Cho case, admittedly).

The UK and other countries of the British commonwealth have decided to take the approach you advocate, which is the polar opposite of the US one; that’s their prerogative, but the “hidden” truth is that this approach also has its downside in that it contributes to an inability to counteract an ever-increasing individual crime rate. Here’s an example:

http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/739/26/

If you bother to read this linked column, and your response is to ask me if I would shoot somebody just for stealing the doorknob off my door — the answer is no. But if I lived in a location (and in an era) when this type of crime was becoming routine, I’d certainly insist on my right to be armed with a firearm when attempting to stop the thief — in case he didn’t just run away when confronted but instead decided to come at me with a club or a knife.

It’s a chicken and egg type of question; the inevitable downside of the US approach is that we in the US will have a comparatively high firearm murder, suicide, and accidental shooting death rate — as compared to other nations where personal firearm ownership is absolutely prohibited (PRC/HK?) or extremely (and increasingly) restricted (UK/Australia/Japan/ROK etc etc).

But I assume your real agenda here is to find fault with the US as a matter of personal and/or national pride, to counteract our tendency to find fault with the various more collectivist political systems of other nations as compared to our individualist one.

No matter how many rights and resources we cede to it, the state can’t be around 24/7 to “nanny” us; the ultimate guarantor of individual liberty (meaning the right to carry out life’s normal activities unmolested and in peace, not the right to do anything you feel like doing) is a self-reliant and vigilant citizenry able to protect itself.

So, I apologize if you’re feeling a bit flamed right now. It’s not just you I’m targeting.

I’m amazed you’re still alive, for you seem to have a complete lack of basic probability analysis, as in:

“When event X happens, Y is usually the conclusion”

and…

“I can’t possibly worry about the occurrence of every event with probability greater than 0, since nearly every event has an occurrence probability greater than 0.”

Specifically, how do you decide whether to step out in front of a bus or not to avoid the remote possibility that a car is silently about to run you over on the sidewalk ?

Enough cryptic talk : guns are designed to kill people. The probability they will be put to something useful other than killing or seriously injuring another human is very low.

On the other hand, all of the other things you mentioned as killing devices : cars, gasoline, paint thinner, fertilizer, etc.,. have a very high probability of being economically productive and NOT causing the death or injury of another human being.

Surely, you’re not insane. Rather, you are transparently selective in your enforcement of basic probability analysis as a cover for having an emotional attachment to guns rather than a logical one.

However, please be my guest and prove me wrong.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/a.....fe-amnesty

…and what a bastion of safeness it is!

25,

I’ll take my chances with the asshole with a bag of cow shit or a bottle of paint thinner over the guy with two glocks in his hands.

You shouldn’t have to take your chance with any!!!! Society should be safe, like a rubber room, or a straight jacket. Because ANYONE could be nutty. Don’t forget about the bomb in the market place… theres terorists too.

But the real and pretty fucking obvious point is that a gun is specifically made and designed to be supremely effecient at being dangerous, and that this conceptual and practical distinction ought to be enough to entail a difference in the way it is sold or made available to the public.

I like the way you think! Guns can be used to coerce others at the threat of death, this power should only be etrusted to the non-public, that is the government:
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i.....67&p=1

And you are right, certain things are just different. But don’t forget, bombs are specifically made and designed to be supremely effecient at being dangerous, and anyone and make one. We need to go further. What are your thoughts on making everyones private medical records public so that we can properly determine whether they are crazy or not before they buy a gun… or 1 ton of fertilizer… ?

It’s a no-brainer, really. What are your thoughts on the sale of assault rifles… missles and nukes?

This is a very valid concern. While nukes and missiles are safely illegal, simple cuirse missiles can be built for those crazy enough. You’ve heard of the guy who was building one in his garage in Autralia? There are remote cotrol model F-16s on the market these days that use small jet engines, and they are quite big. I would provide another link, but the antispam software woud block me. The only answer is tigher controls on society.

But this is all getting away form the point here, and that is, its too easy for crazy people to buy things that hurt people… and the only way to put a stop to it is tightly controlling people and keeping all their information in one giant database, so we can check if they are crazyor not. The real ID act goes a long way, but in conjuction with a database such as that it would be even better, becaue if every must show thier ID when they buy things red flags could be raised if they buy say 1 ton of fertilizer at on plan, and two hours later buy a ton of gasoline…. This same concept is used on commisaries in army bases to fight black marketing.

1) “captbbq, how many Americans are murdered with guns each year?…”

“In 2004, 29,569 people in the United States died from firearm-related deaths – 11,624 (39%) of those were murdered; 16,750 (57%) were suicides; 649 (2.2%) were accidents; and in 235 (.8%) the intent was unknown.”

http://www.bradycampaign.org/f....._facts.pdf

This jives with my general recollection of the approx order of magnitude for the annual figure of US murder rate by firearms, for the last couple of decades (10,000-15,000).

2) There are many possible frameworks to choose for comparison, depending upon where you stand in the geopolitical universe. I believe in objective accuracy, so here’s one:

“The total number of people killed in highway crashes in 2001 was 42,116, compared to 41,945 in 2000. An average of 114 people die each day in car crashes in the U.S…..

http://www.unitedjustice.com/death-statistics.html

Another would be to compare the US murder statistics to those of total annual deaths in the prison camps of the DPRK. But I doubt if there are any reliable figures for those, so I haven’t bothered to look.

Come to think of it, I doubt the forfathers ever envisioned how the corporate juggernaught would be able to control the media either. Just look at crap like faux news and its relatively aparent. Luckily we already have a responsible impartial news agency immune to this (PBS) and I think thats what they really meant when they say “press” in the first ammendment…