Quote Originally Posted by Virulent View Post
The 2nd amendment is an amendment. I don't know how you can claim that the Constitution is treated as scripture; it has been amended dozens of times, as little as 16 years ago.
And yet there are several amendments which are considered to be immutable by the majority. The right to bear arms is one of them.

Are you making a joke, or do you actually believe that the implicit right to revolution in American law exclusively refers to revolution against the United Kingdom?
I am making a joke.

Wait; the problem with making gun ownership legal is people who don't care about legality?
No, the problem with making guns illegal is that criminals do not care about the law. The same goes for any registration system - there are always loopholes whereby someone who is determined enough can acquire a firearm, or drugs or anything they want. Though applied effectively any restriction should make things harder for the criminals to do this, just not impossible.

Guns don't work that way; small-caliber low-quality guns kill far more people than large-caliber high-quality ones. One of the most hilarious examples is the recent onerous restrictions against owning .50 caliber rifles; weapons that have never been used in civilian conflict.
Any gun will kill someone, no matter what the calibre. However, automatic weapons will kill more people far quicker. Sniper rifles will kill them at a greater range more accurately, targetting equipment improves (better scopes, more accurate rifling), stopping distances, rate of fire and risk of misfire improve and so on. The basic nature of a firearm has been unchanged for centuries (right back to matchlocks) but the basic model has been extensively refined over the years and is still being refined. Therefore there is always scope for improvements and this leads to an arms race between the police and the criminals.

In the United States, the average distance at which a firefight occurs is 7 feet, according to the FBI. Range and accuracy are functionally irrelevant in civilian situations. What is important is that your weapon have great stopping power, that you be comfortable enough with it that you don't panic, and most importantly, it must be comfortable to carry... if you don't have it with you at all times, it is proportionately less useful.
And as far as I am aware, most people keep their guns in their houses locked away (as regulations on gun use state) for safety and only carry them when they intend to use them.

I generally oppose government and law, period. I have no interest in supporting restrictions of any sort. War against the individual is inherent in all state power.
In a true democracy you should be able to affect government policy on a significant level. However, I do not beleive there is anything in existence in this world today that can be called a true democracy. They all have inherent bias in the system for one group or another. Political apathy is a sign of this - voting levels fall because the electorate do not beleive that they can have an influence, that one vote makes a difference.

My personal belief is that the role of defending the populace is the job of the police force and the army. I am all for guns being allowed for sporting and hunting activities (though not sure about the use of automatic weaponry for this, where is the sport?) and even as a hobby or for professional use (farmers, for example) but I do not see the benefit in an individual owning a gun purely for home defense. I just see a greater risk of accident. Yep, sure, many are disciplined and trained enough to handle one correctly but how many out there are not? All it takes is one person, who may be fully licensed and registered, to go out there and shoot up a shopping mall because they had a nervous breakdown and couldn't take the pressure of modern life or because the pixies told them to do it. Its happened numerous times and many innocent non-criminal people died as a result. With a knife if you go 'postal' you might get one or two people before everyone gets the hell out of your range and calls the police. With a rifle you can kill many people very quickly before anyone even knows you are doing it and the police have a hell of a time stopping you because you can hole up somewhere secure and shoot anyone who tries to get close - at least until you run out of ammo and by then hundreds could be dead.

However, I also know that Pandora's box is open. It would be better if guns never existed (then we may be having this conversation about trebuchets or crossbows ). It would be better if nuclear weapons never existed. Hell, it would be better if human beings had descended from the nice, quiet monkeys who didn't get their kicks out of clubbing other monkeys to death with rocks and eating their children. However, if we had chances are we wouldn't be sitting here now. We'd still be in the wild wondering why those other monkeys are so mean to us. Yes, evolution has a dark side... To win the evolution game you have to be a complete and utter vicious bastard. Hence guns exist because we are still those monkeys at heart.

I am not convinced that now guns have been made legal in the US that it would be easy or even necessarily a good idea to ban them again. Some of the posts here demonstrate the strength of public resistance, for example. However, what I do think is needed is more education. Crime rates need to be tackled at the root rather than the stem. Kill one criminal and there are hundreds to take their place, take away the reason for committing crime and there is no need for criminals. Ok, maybe a nice idea of utopia and probably not 100% possible but a worthy goal nontheless. Education is also need around the guns themselves - education on use, risks and so on to minimse accidental deaths (which I know are already done but maybe they need to be improved?)

No solution would be perfect but there must be a good compromise out there somewhere...