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So you reach some sort of point where the potential killer realizes that the odds are he will be cut down

Don't you think that the odds would be far more favourable of no-one getting shot in the first place if people like this kid weren't able to get their hands on a firearm?

To me, a lot of the arguments I hear from your side of the pond for having firearms simply don't stack up. Defending yourself against criminals is only necessary if your society makes it easy for criminals to be armed, so that problem could be solved by tighter gun control.

The U.S. has the higest instances if gun related deaths per capita of any country in the World by a considerable margin. That can't be a coincidence.

As for the right to bear arms argument I find that to be complete nonsense. ...You'd have to be barking mad to think an army of militia with assault rifles could take on a professional army equipped with smart bombs, satellite intelligence and a few hundred M1 Abrams tanks.

Your arguement here fails in that it assumed that we can wave our hands and magically remove all the guns and bad people from the country. There are close to (probably over by now since this number is old) over 300 million legally owned firearms in the US, in 80 million households. That's enough to arm every man, woman, and child with at least one. The vast majority of them are not registered (thank god) so just confiscating them isn't going to work. Not to mention the millions of illegally owned and sold guns, and the extensive black-market trade. Prohibition in general doesn't work in the US, as evidenced by liquor prohibition, the current failure of drug prohibition, and other examples. Not to mention there are millions of Americans, myself included, who would actively ignore and resist outright gun bans a-la the UK or Austrailia.

I'm not going to get into an in depth discussion of what would happen if US soldiers were ordered to attack thier own citizens. But I can bet that you'd have mass defections, of entire units. Especially the national guard. The well-oiled professional army you see today would be raked with desertions, defections, and partisan attacks all along it's supply lines and industrial base.
What really gets me here however is that your position implies that since it may be very difficult to resist an oppresive government, that we shouldn't try at all. We're not in a crisis now, but I'd hope your tune would change if and when our progressive western democracies fail for some reason or another. And they will, economic, ideological, or otherwise. When that time comes I say it's better to allow the people to have the basic tools nessecary to exert some sort of power for thier own interests

Not to mention there are millions of Americans, myself included, who would actively ignore and resist outright gun bans a-la the UK or Austrailia.

That's a fair point. The US is now in the position where it would be extremely difficult to control who could obtain firearms. You've made your bed so I suppose you have to lie in it. Which is unfortunate.

This is the kind of rationalisation that people outside the US struggle to come to terms with I suppose. People stockpiling weapons justified by some New World Order conspiracy theory. The word "if" tends to be used an awful lot in this kind of argument. And cliches such as "I'd rather have a gun and not need one than need a gun and not have one". However if you ask yourself is it likely that you'll ever need to defend yourself against an oppressive government the answer is most probaly not.

My real point was about this. I still maintain that the real reason that a lot of people like yourself and myself want to own guns is because they simply enjoy to do so. But, instead of admitting to this they try and justify it in other ways. No-one ever says in one of these debates "I want to keep my guns as I enjoy to shoot". Which I find strange.

It's more of a national tradition, which most people accept.

As long as there are guns, and crazed people, they will occur.

Point two is that everyone should be taught, mandatory in school, how to groom their own mental health and happiness just like we teach people to play sports and dance and how to protect yourself from STDs. Why is this so hard for most people to realize?

Oh, please! Get off your soapbox already. Crazy people don't need guns to kill other people. If it weren't guns people like you would be saying

"As long as there are knives, and crazed people, they will occur"

The worst part is is that little can be done to make areas "secure" against such attacks. Placing metal detectors and guards around a shopping mall only means other targets become more promising, and those security measures slow down the business process.

Unlike most other ways of killing people, guns are far more efficient at doing exactly that. That's essentially why they exist

I am Mark Allen Taylor and I am a victim of the SSRI antidepressant era. I took six to thirteen bullets in the heart area in the Columbine High School shooting when Eric Harris on Luvox opened fire that now infamous day.


They almost had to amputate my leg and my arm. My heart missed by only one millimeter. I had three surgeries. Five years later I am still recuperating.


I went through all this to realize that SSRI antidepressants are dangerous for those who take them and for all those who associate with those who take them.


I hope that my testimony today shows you that you need to take action immediately before more innocent people like me, and you, do not get hurt or die horrible deaths as a result.

Unlike most other ways of killing people, guns are far more efficient at doing exactly that. That's essentially why they exist and are so popular , because they are efficient at killing things quite easily.

Think about it for a second.

How come nobody ever says "Hey, I have a combat knife and baseball bat at home, I certainly don't NEED any gun to protect myself."

Stabbing of beating someone to death is far more difficult and messy than shooting someone is, plus (most times) it takes a while to do. There's a much greater survival rate for someone stabbed in the heart, than there is for someone shot in the heart. Rounds enter in rather small, and exit rather large.

Now, had that same man walked in with even a razor sharp combat knife, he would have had a much harder time reaching that number of people killed. It would have involved getting in close, and hitting the target perfectly to accomplish in one shot. People would be able to fight back. The same thing would occur had he used a baseball bat.

With a firearm, one can stand far away, and fire as fast as you can reload your weapon. If you put three rounds into someone, anyone, they are going down - and will probably die within minutes unless medical care arrives to help.

Because you are at that distance, it means anyone trying to stop you has to face those facts when they make their attempt. As long as you have ammo , and are firing, people will be dying , or be disabled from stopping you in any way.

The worst part is is that little can be done to make areas "secure" against such attacks. Placing metal detectors and guards around a shopping mall only means other targets become more promising, and those security measures slow down the business process.

You increase costs, and then the shooter simply opens up in the parking lot instead. Or on main street.

As I said, the solution comes from society changing it's course. When people are forgotten and unloved, they sometimes go crazy from the isolation. Once they reach for a firearm, the game's over until they either shoot themselves, get cut down by peace officers, or arrested. For most adult mass shooters , the last option is the least likely to occur.

It's essentially a suicide mission, from the first round fired.

Pfffft! Both can be accomplished. Visit our state fair, which has been known to have armed gangs go at it in the past. But you probably won't be able to google up an article on how they did it. But I discussed it with a security guard there. The black helicopters were part of it. All done very discreetly.

You can also make yourself secure by wearing a bulletproof vest everyday in public.

The specified maximum diameter of an unfired .50 BMG bullet is .510 inch; while this appears to be over the .50 inch (12.7 mm) maximum allowed for non-sporting Title I small arms under the U.S. National Firearms Act, the barrel of a .50 BMG rifle is only .50 inches across the rifling lands, and slightly larger in the grooves. The oversized bullet is formed to the bore size upon firing, forming a tight seal and engaging the rifling, a mechanism which in firearms terms is known as engraving. Subject to political controversy due to the great power of the cartridge (it is the most powerful commonly available cartridge not considered a destructive device under the National Firearms Act), it remains popular among long-range shooters for its accuracy and external ballistics. While the .50 BMG round is able to deliver accurate shot placement (if match grade ammunition is used) at ranges over 1,000 yards (900 m), smaller caliber rifles produce better scores and tighter groups in 1000 yard competitions.

The primary civilian users of .50 caliber rifles, which range in price from around USD$1,800 for single shot models to nearly USD$8,000 for the Barrett M82A1, are long-range target shooters; the Fifty Caliber Shooters Association, for instance, holds .50 BMG shooting matches nationwide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_BMG

Sorry Charlie, they were invented for survival and hunting. Guns were invented for killing people about as much as gunpowder was.

THAT's your solution

The worst part is is that little can be done to make areas "secure" against such attacks. Placing metal detectors and guards around a shopping mall only means other targets become more promising, and those security measures slow down the business process.

Anyway, all I'm really saying is that to me it's pretty obvious that places with tighter gun control laws are safer. I'm not against people owning guns per se, I just don't think that owning one for self-defense is a very good justification for relaxing gun control at all. Sure, it MIGHT help the individual at some specific time but the population as a whole is better off if most people can't own a gun. Eventually this makes the individual safer as well and negates his/her need to own a gun in the first place.