(October 3, 2015 at 12:27 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: The notion that anyone who wishes to do so can buy a firearm is baffling to me (I'm told that's basically how it is in the US. Apos in advance if I got it wrong).
Boru
It's not quite like that. There are a few restrictions. Some of it varies from state to state, but you can't own one if you've been convicted of a felony nor if you've been hospitalized for mental health problems recently. One big problem is that our background checks are horrible, and any attempt to fix them or expand them is met cries of constitutional rights infringements from the gun lobbyists. The other big problem is that are streets are saturated with both legal and illegal guns. So, any attempt to to regulate the legal guns will end up being ineffective on its own, because the criminals can just go get one illegally quite easily.
Our love of big business is biting us in the ass as much as our love of guns with this problem, because our gun manufacturers work in overdrive and are apathetic to the illegal gun markets.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
