Yes you did:

The Second amendment:

Besides not knowing what the hell you are talking about, you apparently do not know what you are writing either.

Interesting article and interesting comments but I noticed very little has been said about one particular thing this article failed to comment on. How many of these deaths were done by people who legally purchased a gun? By the same notion how will more regulations bring down these numbers? It's not that I am against making laws stiffer to avoid idiots like the AZ killer getting their hands on guns legally but it should be obvious to anyone with any amount of sense that a criminal will get his/her hands on a weapon regardless of the laws because after all they don't exactly do it the legal way anyways.

I do agree that we need to improve and update our gun regulations, perhaps something more standard as oppose to having 50 plus different twist to the same concept based on individual states. But when you are gonna throw numbers like these around you need to be more specific about who's the one doing the shooting as it is unfair for people who legally purchase guns and only use them either for personal entertainment (such as sports and just because they like guns) or for defense to somehow be included as part of those responsible for the deaths of innocent people due to ignorance, stupidity or mistake of the shooters.

We had to leave you something.

Ditto DrGuys # 18. I'm glad we left you somethning CharlesCS  becasue you raise some very good points to the mix.

Just laws that regulate gun owernship are a good thing and not contrary to the Second Amendment. No problem there.

The second part of your statement goes directly to the crux  of the matter and any amount of common sense is what Liberals who would if they could take away private gun ownership severely lack.

IMO we need to enforce the hundreds of gun laws on currently on the books.The government is great at making new laws, but it sucks at enforcing them. The following data is a bit dated, but one gets the idea:

A 2002 U.S. Justice Department study of 272,111 felons released from state prisons in 1994 found that within three years of their release:

 • at least 67.5% had been arrested for committing a new offense

 • at least 21.6% had been arrested for committing a new violent offense

 • these former inmates had been charged with committing at least 2,871 new homicides, 2,444 new rapes, 3,151 other new sexual assaults, 2,362 new kidnappings, 21,245 new robberies, 54,604 new assaults, and 13,854 other new violent crimes.

 * Of 1,662 murders committed in New York City during 2003-2005, more than 90% were committed by people with criminal records.

Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.

A 1994 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans use guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year.

A 1982 survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. found:

• 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"

• 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"

• 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim.

I'd say those figures speak volumes for gun ownership. Here's the website (all citations are listed there) check it out it's an eye opener:

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

And if we banned guns more people would die of homicide by use of weapons other than a gun.

A figure acquired by adding up too many completely unrelated statistics. I will be addressing them individually.

By "child" do you mean "under 18"? because without a gun those 17 year olds would suicide in another method.

A select few of those are actual children who die in an accident due to parents leaving a gun unsupervised. This is as criminally negligent than parents leaving their child in the car alone (where s/he dies), leaving the child with unsupervised access to cleaning detergents or medicine (which s/he consumes and dies), and so on and so forth. Much more children are saved by their parents using a gun to defend them from an attack by a wild animal or worse, a human monster. 

And more would die without the self defense capability of guns. When armed men break into a house looking for victims, guns for all equalize the chances. Without it, the attackers have the advantage.

Also, note how it is "killed" and not "killed with a gun"... Did you make a typo or are you including all cases where a child or teen is killed regardless of the weapon or if one even existed? (unarmed slaying, car accidents, and animal attacks are all things that result in a child being killed without a weapon or a gun being involved.)

Knives are a weapon too. This is a falsely inflated statistic as it includes all weapon suicides, not just gun suicides. And banning guns will not in any way shape or form decrease suicide quantity, only change their method.

Saving countless others, the police is here to protect you. When an armed criminal is spraying bullets and is shot by the police, it saves lives.

Serious thought is always called for, too bad you haven't done it.

And if someone believes that I have a bridge to sell them.

Finally. You make a (well, more than one) critically wrong assumption. You assume that making guns illegal will prevent criminals from getting guns. They are criminals, they break the law, they will have guns regardless. In countries where guns have been illegal for a long time, only the mafia have guns. Law abiding citizens are left facing guns unarmed and unprotected.

You also seem to utterly fail to understand that guns do not in any way cause violence. Guns have no "mind control beams" or "mind alteration drugs" in them that cause you to become violent. Criminals use guns, and honest citizens use guns, the old use guns, and the young use guns, the healthy and the infirm. Guns act as a great equalizer... If a 20 year old man who is very healthy and athletic attacks a woman half his weight who lacks any form of martial arts training, a gun will let her defend herself. If said man would attack a 90 year old woman living alone with the intent to murder her and loot her home, a gun will let her defend herself.

Guns are actually the true source of all freedom and equality in our society. Modern weapons are absolutely necessary to overcome large numbers of soldiers and training since youth. Longbowmen were taken from their families at age 5 and trained their entire life to shoot an arrow. Knights were trained since they could walk in the art of the sword. Martial arts take a lifetime to master... And all of the above are hugely affected by your gender and athletic conditions... In a conflict with lower tech weapons, only those who have dedicated their entire lives to mastering the slaughter of other humans stood a (reasonable) chance of victory in an altercation. With a gun, minimal training is required and any person regardless of health, age, gender and build can use it for self defense. Both self defense against a criminal,  and self defense against totalitarian government.

This is a very good point. My answer to this is that the staistics that I gave were colected from Time and I think the Congressional office has some more details when the Brady Bill was discussed. I wish this particular aspect is taken up for further investigation.

I think, judging from the reactions I have received it is unlikely that popular pressure or political will will place restrictions on gun control. I feel that the judicial route will some day be taken by advocates of gun control.

Private ownership of weapons is a given. It cannot be really contested and US courts ususally admit the right of self defence, of course, with the caveat of appropriate force. My issue is trhe sale of automatic, weapons with extended clips that are being sold across the counter.

The right of self defence is not being questioned here. You will admit that less than 1% of those killed by guns are actually killed in self defence. And these are difficult questions as you recognise. Unlike someothers who believe they can duck the issue by being brazen about it.

Misunderstanding. I do not want to make guns illegal. Just contol access.

Those have been used to successfully defend against lynch mobs. Would you leave a defenseless minority, whether it is jewish, black, or gay to defend themselves against a mob out to lynch them?

And how many of the violent mass murders we see occur with a full auto assault rifle using an extended clip? Practically none.

And what of famous killers like jack the ripper? You don't need a gun to be a serial killer and rack up a large body count.

And what about when trying to act as a militia against an invading force or a despotic government?

Also, the right to own guns HAS been contested and suppressed numerous times and across wide areas of the united states.

In england, an 80 year old man defended himself from two 20 year old robbers by threatening them with a fake replica gun and calling the police. He was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 2 years in prison for "threatening a person with a gun-like object".

And what of dealing with an eventual attempted coup by a would be dictator?

I am not saying that those who advocate gun control do so because they wish to personally seize power. However, they would leave us defenseless for when someone does attempt to do so. Or an invasion from a foreign power.

You would think that someone of your political disposition will laud such armaments. Have you not heard of the lynchings of african americans by the KKK back in the day? the rounding up of japanese americans for the japanese internment camps? the trail of tears, where native americans were rounded up and forced to march for days into reservations, many of which died in the process? What of the "communist witch hunts" back in the day that democrats warn us against? You Freedom and America haters are always very quick to point out the spotty parts of the USA's past (and invent new ones or embellish older ones with false accounts)... yet suddenly all those things do not exist and could never happen again when the idea of defending yourself from the government comes up.

If one day the government decides I or others need a number tattooed on my arm and a trip to an internment camp because of my race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. I will have the legal right, neigh, an obligation set forth in the Constitution to protect myself and others.

Those things are unlikely today, but there HAVE been coup attempts in many democratic nations, even the united states had its shared of attempted coups. And the united states military might (relative to others) is dwindling. We had wars before, and eventually we might face combat on native soil.

Will the government have the foresight to rearm the populace when it sees that enemies are close to breaching our borders?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

Hitler never did invade switzerland, he invaded every other neutral country in his path but he knew better than to invade a nation where every male was required to own and main a government issued fully automatic handgun and ammunition.

The right to self defense is exactly what is at stake here.

Even if the citizen's has the right to bear arms, we still have the whole issue of defining the "well regulated militia" that the IInd Ammendment spoke of.

I am not sure if Switzerland's neutrality was not violated by Hitler due to the presence of an armed citizeny. He is not known to have been sensitive about human blood anyway.

England and Wales have less than 1/6 the population of the US, yet they had 130,000 Knife Attacks per year. Yea, guns are the only thing that kills.  Why not an article on the number of KNIFE ATTACKS (not accidental or suicidal shootings as you clumped all the numbers for the US as) in the "safest" nation on earth?

No, we don't.

If it's not guns, it would be something else...there's a great line from a crappy movie, "Star Trek V"; (paraphrased) "we disallowed them guns, they made their own weapons".

That's the problem with liberals and violence, or anything, really; you think that every time you ban or regulate something, that'll be the end to it. Well, it never is, is it? Yet you refuse to see it....there's no perspective, no common sense. You guys only ever seem to see what right in front of you....

They banned guns in England; not even the street cops carry over there, as I understand. Well, juat a few years ago, they also banned ownership of any knives over 6 inches in length. Now, they've dropped it to pocketknives. What if someone gets bludgeoned with a cricket bat, will they ban them, too?

Anything can be used as a weapon, Bahu. Anything. Someone gets killed with a brick? Let's ban bricks...someone gets hit and killed with a folding chair? Ban folding chairs (think about that; what would professional wrestling do?)...or metal pipes.....or splinters of wood....a heavy rock, taken from the ground....a log of firewood, cut from a tree? Where does it end? It doesn't, because you can't ban or regulate everything....even though you'll try.

As to guns in America:

"I would never advise invading America; there would be a gun behind every blade of grass."--Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Invasion is not what we are talking about. I know USA will defend itself and Americans will fight to preserve their freedom. What I am saying is simple; Does lax implementaion of rule allow men or women with diminished mental abilities acquire weapons which they use in inflict damage on society. Can that kind of gun culture be controlled. You will agree with me when I say that guns should not fall in the wrong hands and that the state should ensure that.

It became an issue the moment you said "ban all assault rifles"

This is why we defend the 2nd amendment

Since when did criminal = mentally retarded?

This term is offensive and derogatory. You are using the term "gun culture" as an insult for American culture (there is nothing wrong with guns, but you using at as insult has unfortunate implications... kinda like when someone uses the term "gay" as an insult). Furthermore, you claim that american culture is promoting the arming of the mentally retarded, which is patently false.

No we wont.

Who defines what the wrong hands are? Forget for a moment the holocausts that occur at least once a decade elsewhere in the world (were you really so ignorant as to think that the nazi holocaust is the only one?). In the USA itself, in the past, the government defined the "wrong hands" as "African-American" "Japanese-American", "Native-American", and "Socialist Americans". Furthermore, the left (falsely) claims that if control ever falls into the hands of the right in the country, those will be brought back... along with jews, women, and non hetrosexuals (LBGTetc).

The state cannot be trusted with such grave a task. Furthermore, you assume that a violently insane person need only have their gun taken away for them to be rendered safe for society. If someone is violently insane they need to be committed, not merely prevented from owning a gun. If someone is not violently insane then the government has no business taking away their gun. If a criminal has not been rehabilitated then s/he must remain in prison, not be set loose on an unsuspecting society but forbidden from owning a gun.

Once again I must point out that mass murderers, serial killers, robbers, rapists, etc all exist even in the absence of guns.