Gun control debate

Baldimo - the founders weren't as godlike as everyone likes to say. The system isn't a perfect counter, and the country isn't a perfect democracy. But the laws were meant to be used against the government, not guns, regardless of how effective they actually are. Frankly, if the US government decided to go to war with the people or a part of the people, there's probably not a lot we could do even if we ALL had guns. Hitler had a lot more weapons on his side than gun control, and in both of those cases, any laws that would have protected the people were already gone or had never existed. Would guns have been effective? Maybe in Rwanda. Probably not against Hitler, certainly not against the US military should it go that way.

Debra - the constitution is not irrelevant, but having militias as a last line of defence against our own government is pretty naive. If you want to try and argue that the second amendment gives you the right to a gun as opposed to private property laws, go ahead, but don't expect it to get very far.

If somebody locked themselves in a padded room, with plenty of food and water, before shooting up, they would be no risk to others. obviously this is a ridiculous idea, and nobody ever does this, but it is POSSIBLE - it is possible to take heroin once and be safe about it. But of course heroin is dangerously addictive, and is therefore illegal, even if one person in a million might use it very safely. The purpose of this analogy is to show that guns, though it is possible to use them for legitimate reasons such as shooting bits of paper for fun, should be illegal (though perhaps not to scientists studying ballistics) because they are dangerous killing machines, just as heroin is a dangerously addictive drug. If you agree that heroin should be illegal, despite it being possible to use it legitimately, then what is the problem with illegalising guns?

No, guns are not Swiss army knives. They only do one thing - shoot bullets. you can use them to scare away muggers, or hunt duck, or shoot pieces of paper, but these all involve either shooting to kill something, pretending to shoot to kill something, or threatening to shoot to kill something. They only have ONE function! It's like telling me a glass has a number of different uses - you can use it to drink water, or drink beer, or wine, or use it to carry water from one place to another, etc. But really all a glass does is carry liquid. Equally, all guns do is shoot bullets.

Sure, preventing guns (if done successfully) would prevent all gun homicides. But even if that could be done, how would you prevent all other homicides? You can't ban everything, and anything can be misused. Why do you think people don't get murdered with kitchen knives all the time? I know what you're going to say. Because we have guns, which are so much easier. But everyone owns a kitchen knife, they wouldn't even have to steal one. You can buy one for not terribly expensive, and a lot less effort.

On the one hand, I don't like the idea of everyone owning a gun one bit. I'm most definitely NOT for unrestricted access to guns.

New Mexico has always had an open carry law - you can wear a pistol just about anywhere other than into a courthouse or school building and a few other specifically restricted areas. Yet because of the social stigma attached, virtually nobody other than law enforcement officers actually wear a gun on their hips in public here. You could legally carry a handgun in your glove compartment or keep one in your desk drawer but, until last year, you could not carry a concealed weapon in your purse or on your person.