Once read that in Canada you can get a gun almost as easy as in the US, yet gun related deaths are much less. Both countries have the same historic frontier spirit. But in Canada the frontier iconic is the Mountie, while in the US the heroes are outlaws.

There is more going on than just access to deadly weaponry. US culture has a latent violence and many of these crazies indicated that they were inspired by violent movies or TV series. Also the media plays a part in the recent rage. It's a known fact that paranoid people are inspired by the extensive coverage and think "that's a guy like me and that is his solution to his problems".

Ah, yes. Unreliable single-shot zip guns, which are just as likely to blow up in your hand as fire in the general direction of where you are pointing the thing. Would the gunman who killed 5 Amish girls have been able to do that with a single shot imprecise weapon?


I assume you are talking about gunsmiths who modify guns or make guns. Now you are relying on semantics and Bill Clinton style arguments that have to do with defining words. They are otherwise law abiding citizens who only become "criminals" when they make a gun with the wrong features. These guys aren't generally drug users looking to mug someone to get money for their next fix. Nice try.

You keep repeating that, but you ignore how easy it is to make alcohol and drugs. They are very easy to smuggle and also manufacture in our own border. I'm not going to, but I could make both myself. Making a real gun isn't nearly as easy, and smuggling them, while possible, isn't easy either.

You can do your own research. Do you deny that gun use in crimes is widespread? After all, you own guns to defend yourself against others, so clearly you must think some bad guys have them. Maybe "astronomical" was a bad choice of words. You probably had a mental image of Carl Sagan saying "billions and billions." :)

That's true. Drugs are worth a lot of money because they are illegal and because they can be sold for an affordable price once you cut them into smaller portions. You can't cut up a gun to spread the cost around. If the cost of a smuggled gun is $1000, who will buy it?

My point that I'm arguing is that gun regulation will, in fact, reduce the number of guns in criminals'* hands. A more expensive gun will mean fewer criminals will be able to afford them. Criminals are usually poor.

*criminal=someone who is a criminal because they commit a crime and the gun is just a tool to use in that crime.

Before firing a single shot, he had his victims isolated and bound, so yes.

Except the cops outside would have gotten him after the first one or two.

Once he's got them bound he doesn't have to use the zip gun at all.

So...we need to outlaw . . . rope? (Or duct tape?) oops I meant "regulate" not "outlaw" . . .

Would have been able to bind them if he hadn't been wielding a gun?

Would have been able to move the people he couldn't overpower physically out, using the threat of the zip gun;

Would have been able to bind the remaining weak young girls without even using the same threat;

Would have been able to kill them quickly using a knife, ballpeen hammer, plastic bag or many other means;

Use your imaginations folks, the bad guys do.

The conversation is about guns because guns are the best tool for the job. Just ask the gun enthusiasts on the board why they are enthusiastic about guns, and not ball peen hammers.

Everyone who wants to live in a country where only the cops and the military have guns, raise your hands...

BANG! ha ha ha

:)

Ok, everybody wants everybody else to obey the law. And if those others don't obey the law, they should be shot, right? You don't want the bad guys to have guns, you don't want only cops to have guns. What the fuck would make you happy? Back to the old west? Everybody has a piece in their holster, and let the law be with he who draws fastest?

You're missing the point again. It's over there, off to your right, about ten feet away.

Obeying the law isn't all that hard, Spex. Don't steal from others, don't do physical harm to others, don't damage property not belonging to you (if it's your own car you want to smash the window of and steal your own stereo just for kicks, go right ahead).

The movie gunslinger hairtrigger shoot a varmint fer lookin' atcha funny Old West is, as far as I know, the stuff of Hollywood fantasy, although, based on recent news reports, that's what owners of illegal firearms are doing in our urban settings.

Didn't you read the crime stats Maggie provided regarding folks registered to carry firearms legally?

An armed society is a polite society, so saith the sage, Robert A. Heinlein.