More shootings.

[Creed of Heresy]

Every time I hear an argument which is "BUT BOMBS" or "BUT SHARP OBJECTS", I want to ask "why don't people use those weapons, instead"? Two-thirds of homicides in America are committed with firearms.

Guns give a combination of lethality and ease that no other weapon provides.

Uh. Lots of people use knives in murders. In fact the El Salvadoran gang MS-13 prides itself on practically exclusive use of knives whenever they kill someone.

And why don't people use bombs? Because guns are easily within reach. Before you go "A-HA!" just think about that for a moment. They're using guns because bombs are harder to make...but, do you think, deprived of a gun, crazies like this guy are just going to, what, give up? Murdering firefighters and children; yeah I'm sure that having to go with a slightly more difficult route will really stop them. Really pumps the ol' brakes. Please. Necessity is the mother of innovation, after all.

I would also like to ask where crazy people will 'find' guns if they are banned and gradually eradicated, and ammunition sales also become illegal. You can't grow them in gardens or make them out of household items. When will you understand that the reason it's so easy to find illegal guns is because we keep making and distributing ostensibly 'legal' ones? Banning guns and ammo would not solve the problem tomorrow, and the italicized word seems to make gun advocates throw their hands up and say WASTE OF TIME THEN.

Pffffft! You know how many MEGATONS of drugs enter this country yearly? Oh yes, the banning of legally-sold firearms will REALLY halt the influx of ammunition and firearms! I'm fuckin' dying with laughter here, man, that's the most ridiculous suggestion I've ever heard. In fact, one of the firearms I, admittedly illegally, procured and still own? It was manufactured and sold in Canada and brought into Upper Michigan and from there, along with a bunch of others, into Lower Michigan and from there it found its way into Detroit, like many do, since background checks are necessary for any legal sale of firearms.

I think it's completely incorrect to present this as a "one or the other" choice. We should be doing both. I know, this does not mesh with A Theist's strawman gun control advocate. Sorry.

I do agree that sales need to be much more tightly monitored and controlled. There are certain states where it's as easy as walk-in-walk-out. Texas comes to mind, there.

But it's not going to do much of anything, I'm afraid. You wanna see the homicide rate go into freefall in the US? Put a looot more funding into policing the worst of the inner cities, put a lot more funding into educational programs and start getting economic incentives in place for businesses to start up in them. Community outreach programs go a long way towards that and such programs are largely why the homicide rate has been steadily dropping for the last couple decades.

I understand your position, Ryan, and I laud you for your conviction in it. I just also find it to be very naive. You'd essentially be willing to smack the vast sweeping majority of responsible gun owners in the face because of, to borrow a really old saying, "a few bad apples." I do understand WHY; a murder is a murder. But punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty is not the answer...especially when it will hurt the innocent FAR more than the guilty.

And also I'm tired of hearing about other nations with strict gun control laws being safer...especially when their murder rates have always been ridiculously low and the dropping of their homicide rates have never coincided with such gun laws, either. It's an invalid association.

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I am sorry that their murder rates went up, but why does it have to be a choice between more guns or less guns. How about LESS GUNS and also work on social ills, NO MATTER what crimes go up.

How about guns are not the problem and like anything else if someone wants them there will always be someone to provide them? You're basically saying "I don't care if millions of people who don't commit murder have to pay the price for a few thousand who do; if I THINK it is a good thing then it must be!" Meanwhile completely ignoring the fact that there is no correlation between gun ownership and violence AT ALL. It's like being diagnosed with cancer and the doctor gives you a smallpox vaccination. Completely unrelated to one another.